Seminole

The Seminole Wars, "about time you Army boys find out what it's all about." Newly arrived at the fort in Florida, the callow second lieutenant (Rock Hudson) rides through the woods and a high-angled view moves via tilt-pan to a profile closeup of a painted brave atop a tree. The indigenous chief (Anthony Quinn) was once a friend, "he could have been the first man of Indian descent to attend West Point," between them is a belle at the trading post (Barbara Hale). The government has agricultural plans for the tribe's territory, the Napoleonic major (Richard Carlson) openly stokes hostilities. "Seeking peace is not easy when hatred blinds the eyes." Something of a Poe poem and a miniature epic, or, simply put, Budd Boetticher out in the Everglades. The centerpiece is a campaign situated between Fort Apache and Aguirre, the Wrath of God (and concurrent with Tourneur's Appointment in Honduras), "a calculated risk" that has men burning with fever, distant drums mixed with animal sounds, and a cumbersome cannon swallowed by quicksand. "How do you fight a swamp?" The surprise raid on the native village backfires, the lieutenant is spared and thus considered a traitor by his own brass. "A jumpy business," soldiering, Lee Marvin as the cavalry sergeant is on the sensible side for a change. (By contrast, Hugh O'Brian luxuriates as the Seminole renegade with a great mohawk tinted crimson to match his seething gaze.) The whole thing unfolds as a court-martial testimony, the verdict is protested by a plumed lance piercing the screen. "Perhaps we see the beginning of a new way of life." "I hope so, sir." Mann's The Last of the Mohicans bespeaks a close study. With Russell Johnson, Ralph Moody, Fay Roope, James Best, and John Daheim.