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Cheyenne: Fury at Rio Hondo (1956)
Boredom In Rio Hondo
This has to be one of the worst Cheyenne episodes ever. I sat watching this poor excuse for a Western, waiting for something remotely exciting to happen, guess what.....it didn't! Clint Walker was his usual laid back self, but even he seemed to be wondering what the storyline was meant to convey.
Peggie Castle as the blonde sultry pickpocket Mississippi, tried to lift the proceedings, but with a screenplay as uninteresting as this i'm afraid she was wasting her time.
Nearly all the scenes were studio shot, which didn't help to try and inject some pace into the plot and I have to say that the French border patrol officers were about as French as Mexican jumping beans!
Cheyenne: Quicksand (1956)
Cheyenne nearly sinks without trace!
You sometimes wish that you could give Cheyenne a good shake to awaken him to the predicament that that he finds himself in, but once again Clint Walker is saved from a dull script by his fellow actors, in particular DENNIS HOPPER and JOHN ALDERSON.
Dennis, in one of his earliest roles plays the Utah Kid, who feels he has to force the issue with Cheyenne and comes off somewhat badly, but at least he livens up the proceedings! The rest of the cast do their utmost to try and get the interest going by trying to explore each other's characters and John Alderson, in a rather unusually sympathetic role, does rather well. John, who was born in the North of England, was quite accustomed to playing a Cockney character in many feature films and towards the end of "Quicksand" tended to lapse in to his 'English' accent.
To return to Clint, upon reflection he has to maintain the stance of the unshakable hero but I wished that a little more time could have been spent in getting underneath the surface of the 'Cheyenne' persona and to have given Clint better dialogue to work with. I feel that the other actors are given the better lines but poor Clint has to fend for himself, perhaps this is why his career as a major star was rather short lived.
I can certainly understand possible reasons why Clint fell out with Warner Brothers over the handling of his career as nearly every other western movie was an extension of his Cheyenne role. It must have been extremely difficult in trying to convince other film makers to offer Clint roles outside the western genre!
Cheyenne: West of the River (1956)
Below average Western suffers from slack direction & poor script
What could have been an exciting battle of wits between the Kiowas and a bunch of misfit soldiers led by army scout Cheyenne Bodie, really turned out to be something of a damp firecracker.
A less than inspiring screenplay and slack direction from Richard L. Bare certainly did no favours for Clint Walker's laid back style.
Mr. Bare's direction is normally much tighter than this and I also felt that too much of the action was played out on the sound stages instead of utilising Warner's back-lots for more authenticity.
I'm sorry to say that the acting was below par all round with the exception of LANE BRADFORD whose portrayal of Sgt. Baker just about kept the interest going.
Where does Cheyenne get his hats from? This was the first time he had sported this particular piece of headware and to be quite frank it looked rather silly! For the size and build of the big man, it was far too small in the crown and too narrow around the brim. I hope Clint didn't stick to wearing this one for too long because I find it hard to take him seriously with this perched on his head!!
Cheyenne: The Storm Riders (1956)
Lust And Greed In The West!
Cheyenne finds that he has to keep a steady nerve to fend off the amorous advances of a elderly rancher's younger wife.
Sheila Dembro played by Beverley Michaels throws herself at our hero after she tends his wounds following a beating by a crooked cattle baron's thugs. Sheila's sexual side is obviously not fulfilled and her desire to entrap Cheyenne pushes her to commit the ultimate sin...MURDER!!
If this is not enough for Bodie to contend with, her 17 year old stepdaughter also has designs on him, but not to the extent of her step-mom!
Yet,while all this is going on, Cheyenne still finds time to have a shoot-out with a hired gun and kick-start the local ranchers into forming an alliance to take on the dastardly cattle baron Martin Storm, played with aplomb by veteran actor Barton MacLane.
For me, Beverley Michaels steals the honours with her portrayal of the crazed wife with madness and lust in her eyes!! Beverley's movie career seemed to fold soon after and she disappeared into obscurity, I wonder whatever happened to her?
Cheyenne: Decision (1956)
Stars in the Making!
This exciting episode of 'Cheyenne' brought together two future stars in the making, namely James Garner and Michael Landon. Garner, in his second outing in 'Cheyenne' once again plays a cavalry lieutenant as he did in "Mountain Fortress" the first ever episode. Whilst on the subject of cavalry lieutenants, it seems that during this period Garner had a penchant for playing these officers in a number of movies around this time. Fortunately for James, eighteen months after "Decision" was aired he found himself embarking on the series that set him on the road to being a world ranking star..."MAVERICK"!
Michael Landon meanwhile, looking a very young 20 year old, has a small uncredited role as a soldier. There is a strong possibility that this could have been his first role on screen, as this was aired in January 1956 and it appears that this was the year that his movie/TV career started (Unless anyone knows differently)?
This episode itself, has Cheyenne, now a temporary government scout for the cavalry, leading them on an 8 day trek to Fort McKay with marauding Arapahos on the loose!
Veteren actor Richard Denning completes this star studded outing as Capt. Quinlan and really pulls the movie together.
An enjoyable cavalry vs Indians western.
By the way whatever happened to Smitty?
Cheyenne: The Travelers (1956)
Run Of The Mill Western, But Still Enjoyable
Cheyenne working as a deputy for U.S. Marshal Merrick, helps to prevent Pop Keith being lynched for a murder he says he did not commit.
The lawmen then take Pop on a long journey to stand trial, picking up his daughter Mary along the way. The murdered man's father, Ed Roden Snr, the instigator of the lynching, will not let things rest until his son's killing is avenged and tracks the small band looking for any opportune moment to get even.
When the Marshal is fatally wounded, Cheyenne promises him that he would make sure that the old man stands trial, although he believes that Pop is innocent.
Does Pop make it to trial? Well, Cheyenne certainly has some problems along the way, one of them being Mary played by attractive Warner Bros starlet Diane Brewster, who tries to wind her way into our hero's heart.
Clint Walker as always, has the charisma to make the most ordinary movie watchable with his laid back style and powerful on screen presence.
Cheyenne: The Outlander (1955)
Prairie Springs "The Town Of Friendly People"
Thats what the sign read as Cheyenne Bodie headed into town looking for work. Stopping off at the saloon to get a square meal after a hard day's ride, he was kinda surprised to be told to move on by a ranch foreman by the name of MacDonald backed up by his ranch hands.
MacDonald, played menacingly to good effect by screen heavy LEO GORDON, does not convince our hero to hit the trail and later corners Cheyenne in the Livery stable. Outnumbered, Bodie succumbs to the flying fists of his adversaries.
So I guess it seems that Prairie Springs is not so friendly after all, but you can't keep a good man down and this just strengthens Cheyenne's resolve to find out what gives and to pay Macdonald back in kind.
From this point on the story begins to unfold, and the reason for MacDonald wanting to keep Bodie away becomes only too clear!!! An enjoyable oater, but what has Cheyenne done with his sidekick Smitty, he does not appear in this episode?
Cheyenne: Border Showdown (1955)
Forerunner to "The Magnificent Seven" ?
Even though the classic western "The Magnificent Seven" is attributed to have been a copy of Japanese epic "The Seven Samurai", I am sure that Producer/Director John Sturges must have been a Cheyenne Bodie fan because everything about "Border Showdown" has elements that Sturges reproduced 5 years later in the Yul Brynner/Steve McQueen blockbuster.
Cheyenne and his sidekick Smitty are on the trail of bank robber Thompson, played by one of the great western bad-guys, Myron Healey.
Thompson has killed one of the townsfolk during the robbery and hightailed it with his gang to a remote Mexican border town where he soon has the inhabitants under his control.
Cheyenne becomes involved because the man that died was an old friend of his and decides to go after Thompson and to bring him back for trial.
When Cheyenne and Smitty arrive....the fun begins!!!
Gunfight at Black Horse Canyon (1961)
Two stories in one in this disjointed Western
This feature length offering from the TV series " Tales Of Wells Fargo", suffers from bad editing throughout the movie. It appears that the editors have put together two stories and then squeezed them into one with a rather disjointed result.
If the two tales had been shown as 2 separate 'oaters' in the "Wells Fargo" series, they would have been more acceptable.
Anyhow, having said that, Western fans will enjoy seeing their hero DALE ROBERTSON as Wells Fargo agent JIM HARDIE helping to expand the frontier and trying to make the old west a safer place for pioneers.
Great to see PHILIP CAREY in one of his nasty bad guy roles as Jake Squire, bent on getting' even with Jim for putting him away 10 years earlier.
Old cowboy star, ROD CAMERON is also a welcome addition to the movie as Nathan Chance, but this is probably not one of his better films.
Overall, I would say that R.G Springsteen's direction has suffered from the editing of this movie which could have been a good deal better, but I am sure that the film company themselves are to blame for the finished product.