Drum Beat (1954)

President Grant orders Indian fighter MacKay to negotiate with the Modocs of northern California and southern Oregon. On the way he must escort Nancy Meek to the home of her aunt and uncle.... See full summary »

Director:

Delmer Daves

Writers:

Delmer Daves (screenplay), Delmer Daves (story)

Stars:

Alan Ladd, Audrey Dalton, Marisa Pavan

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alan Ladd	...	Johnny MacKay
Audrey Dalton	...	Nancy Meek
Marisa Pavan	...	Toby
Robert Keith	...	Bill Satterwhite
Rodolfo Acosta	...	Scarface Charlie
Charles Bronson	...	Kintpuash, aka Captain Jack
Warner Anderson	...	Gen. Canby
Elisha Cook Jr.	...	Blaine Crackel
Anthony Caruso	...	Manok
Richard Gaines	...	Dr. Thomas
Hayden Rorke	...	President Ulysses S. Grant
Frank DeKova	...	Modoc Jim
Perry Lopez	...	Bogus Charlie
Isabel Jewell	...	Lily White
Peggy Converse	...	Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant

Storyline

President Grant orders Indian fighter MacKay to negotiate with the Modocs of northern California and southern Oregon. On the way he must escort Nancy Meek to the home of her aunt and uncle. After Modoc renegade Captain Jack engages in ambush and other atrocities, MacKay must fight him one-on-one with guns, knives and fists.

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Plot Keywords:

captain | oregon | ambush | horse | peace | 

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Genres:

Western | Adventure

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

8 April 1955 (West Germany)

Also Known As:

Delmer Daves' Drum Beat

Filming Locations:

Cathedral Rock, Sedona, Arizona, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Jaguar Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

111 min

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (RCA Sound Recording) (magnetic prints) Mono (optical prints)

Color:

Color (Warnercolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

General Edward Canby, whose death is depicted in this movie, was in reality the only U.S. army general killed during the American Indian Wars. "General" G. A. Custer, killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, was not in fact a general at the time of his death. After the Civil War, he held the permanent rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

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Goofs

When Captain Jack meets with the peace commission and asked by Johnny MacKay what it would take to make peace, he responds "all of the Lost River to the Klamath." He was in fact a Modoc.

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Quotes

[discussing Captain Jack]
President Ulysses S. Grant: What kind of man is he?
Johnny MacKay: Well, some people say he's got a little white blood in him because of his white eye... but I think it's mostly bad blood.

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Connections

Featured in The Good Life (2007)

User Reviews

A Little Known True Incident

One of Alan Ladd's better post Paramount films was Drum Beat, based on a little known incident from the Indian wars.

For the first time an American general was killed during the wars against the Indian tribes. The little known Modoc war was another of those lesser known conflicts as action against the Sioux on the Great Plains and the Apache in the Arizona desert got far more attention.

The Modocs were moved from a reservation in northern California to one in Oregon to share with the Klamath, a tribe that had a long feuding history with the Modoc. That was the immediate cause of the war. It was kept going by one of the Modoc's more charismatic leaders, a chief named Captain Jack.

On April 11, 1873, General E.R.S. Canby among other peace commissioners who were sitting in council with Captain Jack and the other chiefs were suddenly shot and killed, in fact Captain Jack personally did shoot General Canby. Charles Bronson in his very first film with that name having dropped his real birth last name of Buckinsky plays Captain Jack. Warner Anderson plays the feckless and luckless Canby.

The horror of that incident aroused some bad public opinion against the Modocs, not to dissimilar against to what was aroused against the Japanese after Pearl Harbor and Islamist extremists after the World Trade Center attack albeit on a much smaller scale. It certainly shifted priorities for a while in the War Department from the Sioux and the Apache.

Alan Ladd plays a real frontier figure named Johnny MacKay who as the film has him was a civilian scout employed by the army to find Captain Jack. His role in real life was not at the center stage of the film, but he did play a part in the Modoc Wars. And he was not among the surviving peace commissioners he wasn't at the meeting when the assassinations happened.

For all its inaccuracies Drum Beat is the only film I know to deal with this incident that shocked a nation during The Gilded Age.