Review: Pony Express

Fictionalised account of the creation of the title mail route, featuring ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody (Charlton Heston) and ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok (Forrest Tucker). They encounter a scheming brother and sister duo (Rhonda Fleming and Michael Moore), who team up with rival business owners Henry Brandon and Stuart Randall to get in the way of progress. Also conflicting with our heroes are a tribe of Native Americans, led by Pat Hogan. Meanwhile, tomboy Denny (Jan Sterling) has eyes for Cody, and isn’t too keen on flame-haired Evelyn (Fleming) seemingly expressing interest in him and vice versa.

 

Very minor 1953 western from director Jerry Hopper (A TV veteran of “Perry Mason”, “Gilligan’s Island”, and “Gunsmoke”) is hardly a stinker, but is certainly very lucky to have the very well-cast Rhonda Fleming and Jan Sterling. Both underrated actresses they’re terrific, as is the lovely colour cinematography by Ray Rennahan (“Whispering Smith”, “The Paleface”, and a lot of TV). Otherwise there’s not much of interest going on here, with particularly underwhelming villainy from Michael Moore (who only appeared in about a half dozen films) and TV veteran Stuart Randall.

 

Charlton Heston certainly has charisma and commanding presence, but isn’t a very good fit for ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody, and Forrest Tucker is all kinds of wrong as ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok. Heston eventually won me over on sheer force of charisma, but Tucker just won’t do and the character frankly fades into the background after a while. It’s a problem. Pat Hogan (who died in his 40s of undisclosed causes) was a legit Native American despite his rather Anglo name, which puts him ahead of the usual painted up white or Hispanic actor in these sorts of roles, but it’s not much of a part. The music score by Paul Sawtell (“The Fly”, “The Last Man on Earth”) is solid, but familiar and the action is fairly decent, but the plot is fairly dull and uninvolving. It’s hard to get into a film when the villains are stock and the plot doesn’t grab you.

 

The women are terrific, Heston is OK, but bland villains, a miscast Forrest Tucker and an uninteresting plot sink this one. It’s not awful, it’s just nondescript and nowhere near close to being historically accurate, either. Based on a Frank Gruber (“The Mask of Dimitrios”) story, the screenplay is by Charles Marquis Warren (a writer for three big western TV shows “Rawhide”, “Gunsmoke”, and “The Virginian”).

 

Rating: C

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more