Two Flags West

Plot synopsis:
In the autumn of 1864, remnants of the Confederate 5th Georgia Cavalry are prisoners of war in the Union prison camp at Rock Island, Illinois. Sick and dying in deplorable conditions, they find a chance for survival when Union Captain Mark Bradford (Cornel Wilde) offers them release from "this stinking pesthole" if they will join the Union Army to garrison a fort on the western frontier, undermanned because its able-bodied regulars have been sent east, leaving only "greenhorns or casualties" like Bradford to fight Indians. Although promised that they will not be compelled to fight against their own, many of the Georgians resist the offer. Putting the decision to a vote, the issue is deadlocked when the last soldier dies before he can choose. Compassion for his men, and Bradford's sincerity, compels their reluctant commander, Col. Clay Tucker (Joseph Cotten) to break the tie by agreeing to the conditions offered.
The troop arrives at Fort Thorn, New Mexico, a small outpost of the 3rd Cavalry. Their welcome from the post commander, Major Henry Kenniston (Jeff Chandler), is stern and provocative. The bitter Kenniston has a limp from a wound that relegated him to Fort Thorn early in the war. Tucker, now a lieutenant in the Union Army, dines with Kenniston, his widowed sister-in-law Elena (Linda Darnell) and civilian guests, and is put on edge by their patronizing comments. Tension becomes high when Tucker reveals that he led the cavalry charge that killed Elena's husband. Elena has been stranded for months at the fort on her way home, and is uneasy with her brother-in-law's protectiveness, suspecting that he believes himself to be his late brother's surrogate.
Friction quickly develops between the Northern and Southern soldiers. When Tucker's men try to pursue a band of Indians but are ordered to stop, they mock the order as Yankee irresoluteness. Kenniston rebukes them, warning them they had been riding into an ambush. He assigns the Georgians to execute two civilians convicted of gunrunning, but when informed that they were actually Confederate agents, Tucker objects as a violation of their enlistment agreement, to no avail. He begins plotting to desert the command, which Kenniston shrewdly deduces. On the rationalization that he does not want "enemies" in his ranks, he assigns Tucker's troop to escort a wagon train across hostile territory, knowing Tucker will deliver it safely before deserting. Elena escapes by concealing herself in a wagon, which Tucker discovers but allows to continue. Ephraim Strong (Harry Von Zell), a civilian in the train, reveals himself as a Confederate agent and enlists Tucker in a plan to link California with the South. He persuades Tucker to return to Fort Thorn and to take back Elena to gain Kenniston's confidence. While surprised by Tucker's actions, Kenniston continues to be wary of him.
The troop is away from the fort when Kenniston executes a Kiowa warrior, son of the chief Satank, as a "rebel and traitor". Tucker receives his orders to join the Confederates and makes Bradford a prisoner. He has him escorted back to the fort but Bradford's escort returns to report that the fort is under siege by hundreds of Kiowa warriors. Despite strong misgivings, Tucker decides to return. The troop fights its way into the fort, but can only delay the inevitable, saved from annihilation only by the setting of the sun. Bradford is killed. Kenniston decides to offer himself as a sacrifice and turns over command to Tucker. A few days later a dispatch rider arrives with news that Gen. Sherman has completed his march to the sea, spelling doom for the Confederacy. Elena tries to comfort a despairing Tucker with the hope that things will seem better tomorrow.

Tags: violence

Review:
Two Flags West is directed by Robert Wise and adapted to screenplay by Casey Robinson from a story by Frank S.
It stars Joseph Cotten, Linda Darnell, Jeff Chandler, Cornel Wilde, Dale Robertson, Jay C.
Music is by Hugo Friedhofer and cinematography by Leon Shamroy."On December 8th, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a Special Proclamation, whereby Confederate Prisoners of War might gain their freedom, provided they would join the Union Army to defend the frontier West against the Indians." A great premise drives this brooding yet action pumped Western forward, a production bolstered by crisp black and white location photography at San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, skilled direction by multi-genre director Wise and characterisations rich in thought and human interest value.Film essentially centres around the workings of Fort Thorn, a Union Army stronghold commanded by embittered Maj. Henry Kenniston (Chandler).
The presence of widow Elena Kenniston (Darnell) also is cause for simmering tensions, where although an underwritten potential love triangle sometimes feels like a token offering on the edges of the frame, her character is so well drawn into the moody atmosphere, her back story packing emotional sting, that the film benefits from this case of testosterone lowering.In amongst the Fort's uneasy alliance there are devious plans afoot on both sides of the coalition, that is to be expected, for it would be pretty standard stuff if these guys all agreed to shake hands and get on with it.
And this is not some Western where all the characters we have come to know are going to be singing come the end, some will die and it makes for dramatic and emotional impact.Great cast, great direction and a great screenplay, this definitely deserves to be better known and loved by those into Westerns/Civil War movies.
Two Flags West begins with Confederate colonel Joseph Cotten given an offer to have his men get paroled from prison if they'll serve in the union army out west where the troops are stretched pretty thin.
Over some objections he takes the offer from Captain Cornel Wilde.Wilde takes Cotten and his men to Fort Thorn in the Southwest which is commanded by rebel hating and Indian hating Jeff Chandler.
In addition there's Linda Darnell, wife of Chandler's late brother who was killed in the Civil War and who all three guys have their eyes on.
His Indian hating causes a lot of tragedy before the film is over.Two Flags West is a brooding kind of western that's not for the squeamish.
It's one of Jeff Chandler's best early roles, too bad Universal didn't cast him in more films like Two Flags West..
Throw in some angry Apaches and a lovely widow (Darnell) who'll do anything to get to California, and you've got some strong dramatic material.It's a well-mounted movie from big budget TCF, with a great battle sequence and a surprising outcome.
Jeff Chandler is cast against type (and does a terrific job) in this big-budget western as the commander of a cavalry fort in the West during the Civil War who hates both Indians and Southerners with equal passion.
With his command stripped to the minimum due to the Union's need for troops to fight the Civil War back east, Chandler is forced to accept a unit of Confederate prisoners who have volunteered to fight Indians under Union command as an alternative to rotting in POW camps.
The supporting performances by Joseph Cotten, Linda Darnell and especially the great--and always underrated--Arthur Hunnicutt are top-notch, but this really belongs to Chandler, and he does a tremendous job, as good as (and in some ways better than) what is usually considered to be his finest performance, that of Indian chief Cochise in "Broken Arrow" of a few years later.
This gritty western is a post-Civil War affair set in New Mexico where soldiers of the Blue and the Gray are obliged to let bygones be bygones and tame the wild frontier for westward expansion.
A top cast is headed by Joseph Cotten and Jeff Chandler, who constantly spar with each other about men, munitions and how to meet the Indian threat.
This is an action packed cavalry film set during the Civil War.It begins with our protagonist, Joseph Cotton's character, a Confederate officer rotting in a Union prison with 43 of his men.
The star studded cast includes some great character actors, and their talents aren't wasted.At the fort, Chandler quickly becomes the antagonist.
In ways, this is almost a remake as far as characters go, but with a different story line.A damsel in distress, the widow of Chandler's brother, killed in a battle in which Cotton took part, makes for high tension and high drama.Later on, Chandler captures the head honcho Apache's son, and when the Apache chief demands his son's release, Chandler kills the son.The other parts of the plot, I won't spoil.
Both are good, but this type is more uplifting, and gives you the energy to get more done, so I give these films an edge.Excellent acting, great scenery, directing, everything you could want, but my two chief criteria, writing and characters, are both of high quality here, too.
JEFF CHANDLER does a creditable job as tough Army Major Kenniston at Fort Thorn with a hatred of Confederate rebels.
His sister-in-law LINDA DARNELL wants to go back to California from the New Mexico fort, but Chandler is smitten with her and tries to prevent the strong-willed lady from having her own way.Meantime, two other men have their eyes on Linda--Confederate Col. Clay Tucker (JOSEPH COTTEN) and dashing Capt.
Mark Bradford (CORNEL WILDE), both of whom fall for Major Kenniston's sister-in-law.Seems the Yankees are willing to free Confederate prisoners if they're willing to help them fight off the Indians surrounding the fort.
While this is the major plot driven device, the romantic sub-plots involving Chandler, Darnell, Wilde and Cotten get a fair share of time too.It all comes together as an above average cavalry western under the crisp direction of Robert Wise, who makes the most of some excellent camera work in the rugged western settings.
It might be understandable for Confederate soldiers, realizing they might never come out alive, to change their uniforms for a common cause, the war against the Indians, specially as it might give them a chance to desert and go back home.
Also to defend a fort where Major Kenniston (Jeff Chandler) provoked the attack by cruelly killing the Chief's son, they don't know about this brutal murder.
His performance as an embittered commanding officer in this film is a powerful one.For me, Multi Award winning Director Robert Wise has always been a favorite, and this western is further proof of his skillful hand.
But it's original in the way it handles them.Jeff Chandler plays Maj. Henry Kenniston, a Union officer put in charge of a desert fort after being partially disabled by a war wound.
But in his heart, he lusts after her, and he hates himself for doing so.When reinforcements arrive at this troubled outpost, Kenniston is shocked to find that most are former Confederate POWs. They have pledged to serve the Union as Indian fighters as long as they don't have to make war on fellow Southerners.
And it doesn't help his state of mind when the Southerners' leader (played by Joseph Cotten) and an idealistic Union officer (played by Cornel Wilde) begin to show interest in the beautiful widow themselves.
Kenniston soon embarks on a course of action guaranteed to alienate both the Indians and the Southerners -- and endanger the peace."Two Flags West" is a well plotted western, with events that flow from the characters' motivations instead of from a predictable plot.
In this story a detachment of cavalry is called upon to defend the plains and west from the Indians who have taken advantage of the Civil War to wreak havoc among the settlers, trappers, and gold seekers.
This story centers around a fort commanded by Jeff Chandler character, who tricks an Indian chief, killing, I believe his son or brother.
As befits a reunion between two veterans of 'Citizen Kane' (Wise, who edited it, and star Joseph Cotton), 'Two Faces West' boasts pin-sharp black & white photography by Leon Shamroy and roofed sets, all well as impressive skyscapes shot in New Mexico.Backed by a vintage supporting cast, this is a relatively early example of the black & white postwar 'adult' western that occasionally brought gravitas to the genre during the fifties, with a plot that vaguely anticipates 'The Dirty Dozen', with a violent climax to match..
Not often do we get this kind of "all-star" cast and far too rarely do we get this much talent in one movie.There is no need to name the stars here -- but it is a pleasure just to look at the list here at IMDb -- however it is worth repeating they are huge talents.The premise, of Confederate soldiers, prisoners of war, enlisted to fight "Indians" on the Western frontier, has been used several times, and at least once ("The Last Outpost") Confederate regulars joined with Yankee troops to battle the tribes.Paraphrasing -- badly -- Franklin D.
The story of so called Galvanized Yankees (imprisones Confederates, opting to swear allegiance to the Union and joining the Ynion army to fight with Indians in the frontier) is not so well documented, thus fresh and can be quite good.
Here, a very strong cast (Joseph Cotten as Col. Clay Tucker Linda Darnell as Elena Kenniston Jeff Chandler as Maj. Henry Kenniston Cornel Wilde as Capt.
"Two Flags West" starts off feeling like it will be a rather clichéd affair: Cornel Wilde as an honor-bound good guy, the Confederate soldiers unreconstructed and unbowed, Jeff Chandler as an unmovable rebel-hater, and so on.
But stick with it: "Two Flags West" develops into an unusually smart movie in which the strands of plot do not end predictably (for example, the expected flourishing of love between Linda Darnell and somebody, anybody, never occurs), and the dialogue becomes increasingly nuanced and thoughtful.This is a movie whose intelligence does not insult your intelligence.Joseph Cotton has always fascinated me.
But he is a wonderful actor, and his Southern Colonel is more than just obviously conflicted about whether he should stay with, or abandon, the Union army with his men: his conflict is more subtle, as he ponders where his future ultimately lies in a post-Civil War country; his very interesting dialogues about this with Linda Darnell, especially toward the end of the film, are quite pleasing to this lover of Westerns (me), who otherwise cheerfully acknowledges the clichés that often dominate this genre.The battles with the Indians are violent and nasty: we really suffer with the lonely horse soldiers of the west who are slaughtered in the fort.
And the glorious black and white photography does a great job of bringing out the loneliness and understated beauty of the plains (though filmed in New Mexico) (contrast John Ford's celebratory treatment of Monument Valley).A great little Western with unexpected endings to the various strands of plot.
In the early 1950's Hollywood made a spate of Civil War based westerns where the main plot line concerned Union and Confederate forces joining together to fend off native Americans.eg Films such as "Rocky Mountain" "The Last Outpost" and "Escape from Fort Bravo".
Certainly Lincoln did issue a proclamation offering pardons to any Confederate prisoners who were prepared to go west and fight the Indians.They became known as Galvanized Yankees.
Here we have Colonel Clay Tucker (Joseph Cotton) excepting Captain Mark Bradford's (Cornel Wilde) offer of freedom from their prison camp if they will go and fight the Indians.The film here doesn't pull it's punches in depicting that conditions in Northern prisons were just as appalling as their Southern counterparts.
When they reach Fort Thorn in New Mexico they receive a less than enthusiastic welcome.Their new commanding officer Major Henry Kenniston (Jeff Chandler) is a bitter man who hates rebels and traitors as he puts it.He also has an interest, not returned, in his dead brothers widow (Linda Darnel) There are the usual North/South tensions within the fort but Tucker is an honourable man who tries to do his duty.Kenniston's behaviour is so outrageous that eventually Tucker and his men decide to desert to Texas.Meanwhile Kenniston who by now is almost completely deranged commits murder when he shoots an Indian chief's son.The consequence of this is that the Indians lay siege to the fort.
Captain Bradford escapes and rides after Tucker's men and explains the situation to them.Its no great surprise when Tucker and his Confederates decide to ride back to the fort to support the people there which includes women and children.
The cast is superb, here we have Cornel Wilde in his last film for 20th Century Fox playing almost a supporting role being expendable.He was at his best as a team player in films like "The Greatest Show on Earth" and "Womens World".Jeff Chandler is a revelation, normally a fairly monolithic presence here he is quite chilling as a completely troubled man who at the end atones for his actions giving his life so that others may live.As for Joseph Cotton though usually associated with lounge suit roles here he is excellent as the decent and honourable Confederate Colonel,and lucky chap ,at he end he gets the girl the lovely Linda Darnel.
As an added bonus the supporting cast contains such western icons as Dale Robertson,Jay C.Flippen,Noah Beery and best of all Arthur Hunnicutt.
Over 6,000 Confederate prisoners obtained their freedom by joining the Union army to fight the Indians in the west – it being tacitly agreed that they would never be asked to turn their arms against the South.
The first was a Robert Mitchum oater, and the second was the Civil War western Two Flags West.
Movies about the American Civil War out west usually dealt with the Confederates trying to commandeer gold for the Lost Cause.
The premise in Casey Robinson's screenplay based on a story by Curtis Kenyon and Frank Nugent concerns Southern prisoners-of-war who are released from prison camps on the condition that they don Union blue and fight hostile Native Americans.
Union officer Captain Mark Bradford (Cornel Wilde) puts the offer to Southern Colonel Clay Tucker (Joseph Cotton of "The Hellbenders") and he lets his imprisoned men made their decision.
Once they arrive at the fort, fort commandant Major Henry Kenniston (Jeff Chandler of "Broken Arrow") doesn't trust Tucker and his rebels.
At the same time, a Confederate spy masquerading as a Union agent confides in Tucker that he can serve the South best by refusing to desert and staying with Kenniston.
If you enjoy Civil War westerns, "Two Flags West" should be on your not-to-be-missed list..
Native Americans win against reluctant Yanks + Rebs cavalry combo, in well made "Fort Apache"-like Civil War western.
A generally excellent and very unusual blend of leading characters for a Civil War western is combined with an unusual and tension-filled script, released by Fox and directed by Robert Wise: neither much known for their westerns.
Here, he plays the fort commander(Major Kenniston), in a region of troublesome 'Indians', evidently in SE New Mexico, not far from the Texas border.
However, unlike in the film, they were assigned as infantry, not as cavalry, and most were sent to outposts far from unconquered Confederate territory, thus further reducing the incentive to desert.Getting back to this film, in addition to Chandler, as Major Kenniston, we have frequent leading men Cornel Wilde and Joseph Cotten, who hardly are thought of as western or soldier actors,but add their charisma as Union and ex-Confederate officers, respectively.
We are very lucky to have beautiful, forceful, Linda Darnell as the lead female(Elena), scripted as the widowed Latino wife of Chandler's brother , killed in battle in the East.
The chief supporting actors include the always charismatic Arthur Hunnicutt, who provides an element of gritty authenticity to the ex-Confederates that Cotten(as Lt. Tucker) cannot, and Jay Flippen, as his Yankee counterpart, as sergeant.In Major Kenniston, I see strong parallels with Colonel Thursday, in the prior "Fort Apache".
I hope he had some good fire-proof insulation under his shirt!We learn that Kenniston(Chandler) spent some time in the Richmond Libby POW facility, from which he escaped, probably as part of the historic mass escape somewhat dramatized in the 1940 Civil War western "Virginia City".
Kenniston holds a personal grudge against Tucker for this, as well as a general hatred of all rebels, be they Confederate or NA.During the course of the film, it becomes clear that all 3 of the main officers(including Wilde as Bradford) , have hopes of snaring Elena.
She's more accommodating with Tucker and Bradford(who is killed), but it's clear they are secondary to her ambition to return to her California homeland.(Reportedly, privately , Linda much preferred the company of Chandler)Near the film ending, after the attacking NAs have left and we learn that Sherman has completed his subjugation of Georgia, we have an informal friendly competition between the Yanks and former Confederates in singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" vs.
There was a similar scene in the subsequent Civil War western "Column South", which has several other commonalities with this film, including being scripted as taking place in New Mexico.
However, that story takes place just prior to the opening shots of the war, rather than near it's terminus.Linda Darnell reportedly hated being cast as a cowgirl, because she suffered from dust and horse allergies..
It has an excellent Director ( Robert Wise), cast ( Jeff Chandler ( Major Kessington), Joseph Cotton ( Col. Tucker), and especially Linda Darnell ( Elena), action and story.
It takes place during the Civil.War, and it is about Southern prisionera who in order to gain their freedom, agree to fight the Indians under the command of the North.