Only the Valiant (1951)

Director:

Gordon Douglas

Writers:

Edmund H. North (screenplay) and
Harry Brown (screenplay) ...
(more)

Release Date:

13 April 1951 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Western

Tagline:

THEY WERE SIX AND THEY FOUGHT LIKE SIX HUNDRED! (original print ad - all caps)

Plot:

Capt. Richard Lance is unjustly held responsible, by his men and girlfriend, for an Indian massacre death of beloved Lt...

Plot Keywords:

Military | Massacre | Beautiful Woman | Based On Novel

Cast

Gregory Peck	...	Capt. Richard Lance
Barbara Payton	...	Cathy Eversham
Ward Bond	...	Cpl. Timothy Gilchrist
Gig Young	...	Lt. William Holloway
Lon Chaney Jr.	...	Trooper Kebussyan (as Lon Chaney)
Neville Brand	...	Sgt. Ben Murdock
Jeff Corey	...	Joe Harmony
Warner Anderson	...	Trooper Rutledge
Steve Brodie	...	Trooper Onstot
Dan Riss	...	Lt. Jerry Winters
Terry Kilburn	...	Trooper Saxton
Herbert Heyes	...	Col. Drumm
Art Baker	...	Capt. Jennings
Hugh Sanders	...	Capt. Eversham
Michael Ansara	...	Tucsos
Nana Bryant	...	Mrs. Drumm
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
David Clarke	...	Guardhouse Sentry (uncredited)
John Doucette	...	Sergeant (uncredited)
John Halloran	...	Wall Sentry (uncredited)
Clark Howat	...	Lt. Underwood (uncredited)
Harlan Howe	...	Junior Sergeant (uncredited)
Claire James	...	Jenny (uncredited)
William Newell	...	Corporal of the Guard (uncredited)
William 'Bill' Phillips	...	Sgt. Medical Assistant (uncredited)

Directed by
Gordon Douglas

Writing credits
Edmund H. North		(screenplay) and
Harry Brown		(screenplay)
Charles Marquis Warren		(novel)

Produced by
William Cagney	....	producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Franz Waxman

Cinematography by
Lionel Lindon		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Walter Hannemann
Robert Seiter		(as Robert S. Seiter)

Production Design by
Wiard Ihnen

Set Decoration by
Armor Marlowe		(as Armor E. Marlowe)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
William Kissell	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Leslie G. Hewitt	....	sound

Stunts
Tap Canutt	....	stunts (uncredited)
Yakima Canutt	....	stunt coordinator (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Leah Rhodes	....	wardrobe

Music Department
Leonid Raab	....	orchestrator

Production Companies

• William Cagney Productions
• Warner Bros. Pictures (presents)

Distributors

• Warner Bros. Pictures (1951) (USA) (theatrical)
• Republic Pictures Home Video (1997) (USA) (VHS)
• Republic Pictures (19??) (Brazil) (VHS)

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (certificate #14746) | UK:PG | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Gallup, New Mexico, USA

Company:

William Cagney Productions

Trivia:

Gregory Peck said this was his least favorite of all his movies.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Cpl. Gilchrist tells Trooper Saxton to go get him a new pick, Saxton places his shovel against the stone wall and leaves, you can plainly see the shovel start to fall. The next shot shows Saxton (below) and Gilchrist (above), but no shovel on the ground.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in L'important c'est d'aimer (1975)

Uneven film still entertains

Made a couple of years after Ford's 'Fort Apache' (1948), in some ways Douglas' violent film is reminiscent of that earlier work. Gregory Peck's straight-backed Captain Lance, the unpopular stickler for honour and adherent to all the fine print of duty, recalls Ford's military martinet Lieutenant Colonel Thursday (Fonda). There's a significant difference of course: Lance has a quiet competence throughout (and grudging respect of the ranks) conspicuously absent in Thursday's command. And whereas Thursday's actions lead to disaster, Lance pulls off a successful mission. Corporal Gilchrist (Ward Bond, also in 'Apache'), grudgingly admits as much as he declines to shoot the Captain, maddened at the height of his personal whisky drought: Lance is "the only man who can get them through", faults and all. Like the narrow pass through which the Apaches must move to attack the fort, Lance works within a narrow confine of responsibility and honour which can be dangerously constricting.

Interestingly, for a film ostensibly full of action, much significance attaches itself exactly to the opposite. For instance, it is Lance's unwillingness to draw upon others to clear his honour that estranges him from the post and his girlfriend Cathy after the death of Lieutenant Holloway. Most importantly, it is Lance's 'failure' to shoot the indian chief at the beginning, immediately after the fluke capture, which precipitates the death of so many others (a fault corrected at the end when Lance uses a knife in the last struggle). The film suggests that it necessary to bend the rules sometimes to achieve more effective results (whether or not this includes condoning murder in cold blood of a captive is another matter) - and positions various disrupting influences against the Captain as way of demonstration of the checks and balances this involves.

Chief of these is Corporal Gilchrist, who rather steals the film -particularly in the light of Peck's characteristic dullness as an actor. It is Gilchrist who is present at the start of events, he who rounds out the film. It is he too, who provokes a rare yielding, as far as military rules are concerned, by Lance: the Captain allows him a surreptitious swig of whisky just before the final attack. A boisterous, womanising drunkard, Bond plays a character to the hilt familiar from Ford's 'cavalry trilogy' and other films.

The forces contrasting Lance's discipline, control and code of honour rang neatly and conveniently against him at the fort. A deserter, a drunkard, a frustrated bully, an irrationally violent man - these and others, are the small command aptly chosen by Lance (being those the army can "spare mostly easily") to support his mission. In effect, such a select rabble represent the dregs of the army. But also, the weaknesses and darkness which all men contain, and naturally it is these which Lance has to face and master, as much as holding the pass against more physical incursion.

Reflecting this intrigue, the film is naturally rich in character acting. Besides Bond's loud bluffness, one also relishes Chaney's satanic Kebussyan (his character definitely *not* a Fordian derivative!), and the grouchy bitterness of Neville Brand's sergeant Murdock. Much of the film's pleasure lays in such incidentals, especially as the events at the pass, when examined logically, hardly make military sense (Why don't the indians just attack in one go? Why do they keep retreating back through the pass when they have broken out?)

Douglas, who went on to make the superb 'Rio Conchos' (1964) and the minor cult item 'Barquero'(1970) made too few Westerns, and does a good, tough job in direction. His pacing and grasp of tension helps to mask over the glaring differences in geology between the studio's 'pass' and the real thing shot on location. Co-scriptwriter Brown was to write Hawk's masterpiece El Dorado. In short: recommended, but for a more complex and convincing portrait of the cavalry under command see Ford.