Only the Valiant

Plot synopsis:
Gregory Peck, in a role he considered a low-point of his career, plays Captain Richard Lance, a by-the-book West Point graduate who is not very popular with the men under his command.
Following the American Civil War, peace is maintained in the New Mexico Territory by Fort Invicible, a fortification set up outside a mountain pass that blocks marauding bands of Apache. The Apache are able to eventually take the fort by cutting off its water supply, then assaulting the fort when its garrison is at its weakest and killing all the defenders.
Captain Lance arrives with a patrol soon after the battle and captures Tucsos, the charismatic leader of the Apache. Lance's scout advises the captain to kill Tucsos, but Lance will not shoot a prisoner.
Back at the headquarters of the 5th Cavalry, the invalid commanding officer orders Lance to assign an officer to command an escort to take Tucsos to a larger post. Lance decides to lead the patrol, but at the last minute, the colonel says he needs Lance at his fort in case of Apache attack and to assign a popular officer, Lieutenant Holloway, to lead the small group of men escorting Tucsos. The Apache free Tucsos and Lieutenant Holloway ends up dead. The men at the fort blame Captain Lance, unaware of the colonel's order. They believe that his decision to assign Lieutenant Holloway to the dangerous mission was for a personal reason (both officers were vying for the affection of the same woman). The woman believes it too, and bitterly breaks up with him.
Lance's standing with the soldiers at the fort only gets worse when he assembles a group of misfit cavalrymen to hold off rampaging Indians at the ruins of Fort Invincible, which is considered a suicide mission.

Tags: romantic

Review:
This film, released in 1951, has the usual elements typical of the westerns released during the 50's; the cavalry needing to protect the territory from a murderous band of Indians, an officer determined to see that task through, and the men with him with various character flaws that he has to merge together into a cohesive unit.
One major difference for this film, "Only the Valiant", is that it attempts to play out the usual storyline, but at the same time, deliver the message that duty is a paramount concern to be shared by all, even if they don't accept that charge.Gregory Peck embodies the tight-lipped captain of the troop that has to prevent the Indians from breaking out into the territory.
The cast includes western stalwarts such as Ward Bond, Gig Young, Neville Brand, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Warner Anderson.
And an interesting script which contains elements of Beau Geste, The Lost Patrol, The Dirty Dozen and David and Bathsheba which Peck had starred in.Peck and Gig Young are rivals for Barbara Payton and Peck is ordered to send Young on a patrol to take hostile Apache chief Michael Ansara to a better staffed army fort.
Young gets killed and Ansara escapes and the old Uriah the Hittite story starts circulating at Peck's post.Later he gets an assignment to man an abandoned fort that sits across a narrow mountain pass that the Apaches can't even charge through on horseback.
He takes a select group of army misfits, some of whom would like to kill him worse than the Apaches.Even with Ward Bond as an alcoholic corporal, any resemblance between these soldiers and those John Ford cavalry pictures is coincidental.
A hard-nosed by-the- book, Cavalry officer, Captain Richard Lance, captures a leader of the Indian enemy after a massacre at a fort.
This means the leader has escaped, and Lance must now lead a second patrol--and he picks the men the fort can most spare, a company of problems-- to defend the advance fort that had been wiped out and save the command from another attack by stopping up the bottleneck pass in that sector.
Other in the large cast of this film which really shows life at a cavalry outpost looking like an army establishment of heterogeneous and quarreling types includes War Bond powerful as a hard-drinking sergeant, Neville Brand and Steve Brodie as troublemakers, Warner Anderson and Lon Chaney Jr. as psychological troublemakers and Gig Young, Art Baker, Herbert Heyes as fellow officers with Nana Bryant as the Colonel's wife.
Even Barbara Payton as the love interest gets by in a difficult role; Michael Ansara is the captured war chief, and Jeff Corey plays the Fort's scout.
The music by Franz Waxman is good, the production qualities admirable; the argument about what would happen if Lance takes the war chief in happens to be true; other than this unsolvable mistake by the central character, this is is great western.
...I saw this movie when it first came out in France, in my hometown, 54 years ago, I was nine, and today I still remember each black and white frame, especially the black ones, because it was so tense, scary, those sneaking attacks through that dark pass in the mountain, the two soldiers, prisoners forced to fight each other by their captors, the last battle with the uncovering of the wagon with the Gatling in it firing away, the last fight between Peck and the chief, and the Happy End which let me take back my breath.
Picking the men who despise him the most, and the ones he feels have major character flaws, Lance and the handful of soldiers must hold the fort from Apache attack until reinforcements arrive.
Gregory Peck, Ward Bond, Gig Young, Lon Chaney Jr, Neville Brand & Warner Anderson each contribute greatly to make this a dramatic and involving picture.
One special sequence sees Lance (Peck at his straight laced best) assassinate each soldier's character; one is a bully, another a deserter, a drunk, a black heart, a coward and on he goes, and it's here where the film really kicks on to be a crackerjack character driven piece.
The violence is pretty strong as well, director Gordon Douglas is not shy to put blood on the bones of the writing, and I dare you not to feel a rush of adrenaline as the Apache's start to screech prior to their wave of attacks.From watching these intriguing characters in a wonderfully tight situation, to the blood pumping Gatling Gun finale, this picture scores high on many entertaining levels.
Gregory Peck as captain Lance who gave Fort Invincible his name ¡ .
Richard Lance (Peck) is a honorable cavalry officer to roust renegade troopers and a tribe of Indians Apaches .
Lance is wrongfully framed by his girlfriend (Barbara Payton) and underlings of killing lieutenant Holloway (Gig Young) massacred along with a patrol by Indians .
The angry Apaches (led by Michael Ansara, usual in Indian roles) are out on a rampage of killing , seeking vengeance against the white intruders, and with the aim for eliminate them.This is an acceptable , conventional tale with action galore about a hard-bitten officer who goes to hell and back while assembling a detail of misfit cavalrymen to hold-off rampaging Indians and later on regaining the respect of his soldiers and his sweetheart .
Gregory Peck and a top-notch all-secondary-star-cast as Ward Bond, Steve Brodie , Warner Anderson , Neville Brand , Jeff Corey and Lon Chaney Jr as the Arab ; all of them shine in this gripping story about a surrounded garrison .
However the product is entertaining and has an interesting plot.In order to gain some time, Cpt. Lance (Gregory Peck) is sent to defend a small abandoned fort located right in the opening of a small passage between the mountains through which the Apaches will have to ride in their way to attack the army's main position.
He has been accused by his girl of sending his friend Lt. Holloway (Gig Young) in a sure-death mission just to get rid of romantic competition; Peck is innocent of course, but he doesn't feel he has to explain (sort of a character like the one he played some years later in "The Big Country").Lance chooses his men for the mission among the worst in the regiment and those he knows have personal feelings against him.
He occupies the fort and waits for the Apaches to come while watching his back at he same time.The picture, totally unpretentious, was shot in black and white by director Gordon Douglas and you could say this was a correct decision for it adds to the grey and dark atmosphere that reigns in the fort.
Michael Ansara is the Indian chief.But what really demerits the film are some indoor settings representing the rocky passage and the fort itself that look clearly fake and cheap.
The point is that producers didn't want to spend much money on this film and it shows.However it turns out to be a rather enjoyable army against Indians western and its worth one look at least..
Made a couple of years after Ford's 'Fort Apache' (1948), in some ways Douglas' violent film is reminiscent of that earlier work.
Gregory Peck's straight-backed Captain Lance, the unpopular stickler for honour and adherent to all the fine print of duty, recalls Ford's military martinet Lieutenant Colonel Thursday (Fonda).
Like the narrow pass through which the Apaches must move to attack the fort, Lance works within a narrow confine of responsibility and honour which can be dangerously constricting.Interestingly, for a film ostensibly full of action, much significance attaches itself exactly to the opposite.
Peck chooses for this mission soldiers which he considers to be the scum of the earth and the actors that play these soldiers, Ward Bond, Lon Chaney Jr., Neville Brand among others, are excellent.
The acting ranges from decent to very good; I am not a huge Gregory Peck fan(I sometimes find him dull) but he does a good job as the ruthless and tight-lipped martinet officer, and Barbara Payton is luminous and pretty as Cathy.
I think this is made worse by the fact that the film stars Gregory Peck and he went on to make MANY better westerns.
This one just seems pretty pedestrian.The movie is a combination of a B-style western about the cavalry and THE DIRTY DOZEN, as Peck is in charge of a small detail of misfit soldiers who are trying to stem off a major Indian attack.
The problem is that despite SOME similarities to THE DIRTY DOZEN, the writing just isn't that good at times and the reasoning why Peck took this group of degenerates on the mission seems really stupid--I mean putting the safety of everyone back home in the hands of people who only cared about saving their sorry butts.
After he'd starred in two excellent and mature Westerns like "Yellow Sky" and "The Gunfighter," 20th Century Fox put Gregory Peck into this cliche-ridden, badly mounted, and poorly directed cavalry picture.
Lifelessly acted, indifferently directed it begs audience disinterest.Despised by his fellow troopers who feel he indirectly caused the death of another popular officer Captain Lance (Peck) leads a rag tag platoon of soldiers into an outpost in order to blunt a warring tribe from spreading throughout the territory.
Director Gordon Douglas who would make better westerns (Rio Conchos, Yellowstone Kelly, Charge at Feather River) direction is detached as he does little to develop his band of malcontents (Neville Brand, Ward Bond, Lon Chaney Jr, Jeff Corey) who give a surly show and tell and wait for the arrows to fly.Peck looks dull and lost , lacking the frontier leadership Wayne or Cooper might present on the western plains.
A terrible movie, about as amateurish as they come, something you might have seen on TV in the late fifties early sixties, terrible script, some great/good actors Peck, Bond, Brand, Young and a few others with no decent lines nor character development and some lousy actors that should never have gotten lines.
If you find cowboys and Indians fights riveting, you might like the rest of the movie better than I did, but for a good Gregory Peck western, I'll watch The Big Country..
Now Tucsos is free it is only a matter of days before he attacks; in order to protect the fort Lance volunteers to take a small group of men back to Invincible to keep the Apaches pinned down as they try to come through a narrow pass that is the only way through the mountains.
The men he selects to go with him aren't the best in the fort; they are the worst; they weren't selected because he thought they had hidden courage but because they would be the least missed when the Apaches broke through and attacked the main fort!This western isn't a classic but it is entertaining.
Rather than the wide open expanses of the open plains the action mostly takes place within the confines of the wrecked fort and in the narrow pass the men seek to block; this gives the film a rather claustrophobic feel.
Gregory Peck puts in a solid performance as the by-the-book Captain Lance and the rest of the cast are entertaining; especially Ward Bond who played the drunken Cpl. Gilchrist.
I would suggest that Only the Valiant is one of the most original and intriguing and in some ways weird movies that Peck ever did; daring , surprising and one of his few best westerns (--no, no, of course, not a western really, but a military chronicle, which sometimes is better--).
You say'that sounds intriguing, or interesting'and it surpasses your expectations.All in all, the script shows a level of maturity unusual for the westernsand it somehow reminded me, obliquely, of ULZANA; it's also straight nononsense suspense.Peck looked dashing as a young and tough, somewhat gloomy and stoic officer; and there are many unexpected toucheslike the blonde babe kissing and flirting with the one she's decided not to marry, perhaps a feeling of hers for justice and retribution .Even genrewise, ONLY  is so much more than a military taleit is as well an action drama, a suspense movie, a commando/ action thrillerthe weirdest combo imaginable; a bunch of soldiers in a special mission to counteract and stop a possible Native's attack --the insane decision not to take all the available troops to the place where those Natives could be stoppedbut only a handful of people --and this plot never takes a crap routeas most would and did .
Given the mission the character has been assigned, and the "men" with which to do it, those characteristics are essential.Without being a spoiler, think of this film as an early, grittier example of The Dirty Dozen genre.
Contains spoilers'Only the Valiant' is an example of the 'cavalry film', that sub-genre of the Western that tells the story of the conflict between the US Army and the native Indians of the American West during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Lance is already unpopular with the men under his command, and becomes even more hated when a popular subordinate, Lieutenant Holloway, is killed while leading a dangerous mission to escort Tuscos, a captured Apache chief, to prison.
In fact, Lance wanted to undertake the mission himself and was prevented from doing so by a direct order from his commanding officer, but he never explains this to the men.
Lance volunteers to lead a small detachment of men to hold another fort, Fort Invincible, abandoned after being damaged in an earlier Apache raid.
Fort Invincible commands a strategic pass through the mountains; Lance believes that if he and his men can hold it for a few days, this will gain enough time to allow a relieving force to reach Fort Winston.
Even before the Holloway incident, Lance seems to have had the knack of making enemies and alienating people, and all of these men have good reason to hate both him and one another.The aim of the filmmakers was presumably to produce a 'character-driven' film in which a motley collection of men learn to work together, the idea being that the tale of how a bunch of misfits learn to work and fight together is more interesting than a similar story told about a well-disciplined and motivated crack unit.
It therefore follows that Lance would want the best possible men under his command in Fort Invincible, not the worst.
Gregory Peck plays hard line by the books Captain Richard Lance whom certain soldiers resent to the point of wanting to see him dead.A fort called "Invincible" placed at the entrance to an Apache encampment, has been wiped out by Tuscos (Michael Ansara) and his band.
Cathy thinks that Lance assigned Holloway to his fate out of spite as do the troopers.Lance offers to take a small group to the abandoned Fort Invincible to block the canyon opening through which the Apaches will mount their attack, until a relief column arrives.
He chooses Sgt. Murdock (Neville Brand), Cpl. Timothy Gilchrist (Ward Bond), Trooper Kebussyan (Lon Chaney), Trooper Ruteledge (Warner Anderson) a former officer, Trooper Onstat (Steve Brodie) a former rebel and deserter whom Murdock despises, Trooper Saxton (Terry Kilborn) a trumpeter, Joe Harmony (Jeff Corey) a scout and a sickly lieutenant who ultimately rides for help.As the group gets thinned out they recognize that Lance being a good soldier is their best chance for survival.
Then the Apaches attack the fort and...................................................................................Peck as always, is great as the duty first Captain keeping a painful secret within.
Barbara Payton seemed to be in every movie made by William Cagney productions, Gig Young's part was all too brief and Michael Ansara makes a fearsome enemy.I found that the premise of the Apache encampment being in a secluded valley with only a narrow passage from which to mount their attacks, a little hard to believe.
SYNOPSIS: Cavalry captain leads a small group of misfits to hold back an impending Indian attack through a narrow mountain pass.
Peck is always at his best in less sympathetic parts and here he has a field day as a martinet captain in conflict with the likes of Neville Brand's bitter, bullying sergeant, Ward Bond's guzzling corporal whose surface charm so quickly turns to murderous hate, Lon Chaney's vengeful strongman, Terry Kilburn's cowardly bugler and Steve Brodie's victimised Southerner.
Influenced by John Ford's "The Lost Patrol", and a precursor to Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen", Gordon Douglas' "Only The Valiant" sees a group of US soldiers attempting to defend Fort Invincible from Apache Indians.
"Valiant" was released in 1951, sandwiched between "Broken Arrow" and "Broken Lance", two of the first major westerns to portray Native American Indians sympathetically.3/10 – Worth one viewing..
Actor Michael Ansara, who later played the chief villain in "Guns of the Magnificent Seven," is extremely effective in a small role as the hated Indian leader Tucsos."Only the Valiant" opens with over-voice narration by Army Scout Joe Harmony.
Captain Richard Lance (Gregory Peck of "12 O'Clock High") and his men boil in on horseback and capture Tucsos (Michael Ansara), and Joe Harmony (Jeff Corey of "True Grit") wants to shoot him on the spot.
Lance requests to take 6 or 7 men of his choosing to man Fort Invincible and prevent Tucsos from assembling a war party.
As it is -- this being 1951 -- the plot resembles a movie left over from World War II, only using Indians as the fanatic villains, rather than the Japanese.Gregory Peck picks out six or seven of the least desirable troopers in the small fort to man a deserted outpost guarding a pass through which the Apache must move before they can attack.
Peck himself was railroaded into this but even so he was too good an actor and too much a pro to give anything less than his best and the support is at least interesting; Lon Chaney Jnr, Jeff Corey, Gig Young, Neville Brand, Ward Bond, Steve Brodie, all essentially wasted as was all-around director Gordon Douglas.