User Reviews

Yea for Hollywood! I thought Raoul Walsh's Saskatchewan (1954) had the market cornered on placing mountain ranges in Saskatchewan. But no, Fort Vengeance beat Raoul to it by a year.

This film is about as silly a portrayal of the North West Mounted Police as you'll find, so perhaps it warrants more than the 1 star rating I have given it. But it's so awful I didn't get the "so bad it's good" buzz I was hoping for.

The movie set for Fort Vengeance is a sad affair, the producers went all out providing about 100 feet of ramshackle log fencing to give the movie some shots of the fort compound. Quite a let down for a fort with such an imposing name. I dug the fort's adobe guard house though, a nice bonus I suppose when your movie is set in Saskatchewan, but you film outdoors in California.

Mountains, forests, and adobe buildings, yes this is the southern Saskatchewan I know so well.

Sitting Bull sets his warriors loose on a Canadian wagon train which is fun, because 1) the Sioux didn't kill anyone while in Saskatchewan, and 2) the Canadian west didn't have wagon trains (um, Hollywood, that was YOUR country's history not ours). The Mountie's fur hats were neat-o, particularly when they wear them throughout the movie in mid summer. I'll have to remember that trick when I'm hiking among Saskatchewan's mountains (known here as hills) in the summer.

Some of this fine film's other attractions - a young Rita Moreno has a few lines and does a few turns on the dance floor, the Indians all conveniently speak English, and yes, in the end the Mounties do get their man.

FORT VENGEANCE – 1953

Allied Artists hits a real low with this stinker of a western production. Two brothers, James Craig and Keith Larsen, are on the run with the law in pursuit. They head up into Canada to escape. They have a minor dust up with some Sioux warriors who are likewise heading for Canada. The Sioux under Sitting Bull have hot footed it north after doing in Custer at Little Big Horn.

The brothers end up joining the North West Mounted Police (R.C.M.P.) It seems like a good place to hide out. The Sioux try to stir up the local native tribe to join them in a return invasion of the Dakotas. Craig takes to being a lawman and quickly becomes popular among the Police as well as the local natives. Larsen on the other hand cannot give up his outlaw ways and is soon involved in murder and robbery.

Stirring the pot is Sitting Bull, Michael Granger, who has his warrior's burn down several settler cabins as well as attack a wagon train. He hopes to force the local Indians to join in his cause. Chief Crowfoot, Morris Ankrum, does not buy it for an instant and tells Sitting Bull to behave or there will be war. War between the tribes is what he means.

Needless to say Craig has to confront his brother, Larsen, about his evil ways. Duty turns out to be stronger than blood with Larsen eating more lead than is healthy.

All the action takes place in the rocky hills and valleys of Saskatchewan. Of course the film producers overlook the fact there are no mountains etc in Saskatchewan. The place is so flat, that the standing joke is that one can watch ones dog run away for days.

The director, Lesley Selander, normally a steady hand with low budget films, is defeated by the extremely poor story. One of the few bright moments is seeing a young Rita Moreno in an early role.

In contrast to most of the few reviewers, I found this an interesting western frontier story, despite some geographical and historical inaccuracies(such as mountains in Saskatchewan, and wagon trains rolling across Canadian prairies). It does present an important chief of the Sioux: Sitting Bull, and chief of the Blackfoot: Crowfoot in reasonably accurate historical perspective, aside from the Sioux attack of a wagon train in Canada. Historically, Crowfoot lead his people from Saskatchewan into Sioux US territory , and Sitting Bull tried to get Crowfoot to join him on another attack on US soldiers. Crowfoot declined, as he felt such an attack would prove useless in dissuading Europeans from encroaching on the Plains. He had pursued friendly policy with the Canadian Mounties. Eventually Crowfoot returned to Canada, and Sitting Bull eventually followed, to avoid capture by the US army, and was welcomed by Crowfoot, as long as he didn't stir up trouble with the Europeans. However, in the film, Crowfoot eventually agrees to join Sitting Bull in fighting the whites, if Crowfoot's son Eagle Heart is falsely convicted of killing 2 Europeans. ... The plot can be considered as involving 2 reluctant buddy pairs, who occasionally interact. I just described the Sitting Bull-Crowfoot pair. The other pair consists of 2 American brothers: Dick(James Craig) and Carey(Keith Larson) Ross: the one(Carey) being a trigger-happy loose cannon at times, compared to cautious Dick. Near the beginning of the film, Carey shoots dead the inquisitive son of Sitting Bull, while Dick dissuaded him from shooting his brother: Blue Cloud. Later, he shoots dead the thieving trapper Francois Leboc, who was being harried by Crowfoot's son Eagle Heart, whose furs were stolen. Eagle Heart is blamed for the murder, as well as disappearance of Carey(who removed his Mountie uniform). Later, Blue Cloud trails Dick, who is looking for his missing brother. Dick finally finds Carey, and wants to apprehend him for the murder of Francois. Carey resists and is about to shoot his brother when Blue Cloud kills Carey with an arrow in the chest: vengeance for killing his brother. In saving Dick, as a witness, this act also saves Eagle Heart from execution, and thus prevents an Indian war.......In conclusion, I have described a tightly constructed interesting plot. Rita Moreno serves as the token woman, being the daughter of the fort trader. She pops up a few times, flirting or dancing with the men, but I prefer her acting as a Indian maiden in "The Yellow Tomahawk"