A lot of fun.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Not much going on here. Made on the cheap by John Wayne's Batjac Productions. Veteran director Francis D Lyon moves the story along without much in the way of character development or a great deal of real western action. Black and white cinematography gives it the look of a television western episode. To it's credit,the film boast a very capable cast led by Victor Mature.Mature seems a bit out of place as a widowed former Confederate soldier taking his young daughter to the Oregon Territory to begin a new life. Leo Gordon,who gets credit as one the screen writers, is his usual intimidating self as one of the cavalry troopers who is up to no good. Ken Curtis, Harry Carey Jr,, Slim Pickens, and Noah Berry Jr are in the cast but are kind of wasted in nothing roles. Faith Domergue and Elaine Stewart portray sisters who are also heading to Oregon to start new lives and you just know one of them will wind up in Vics arms. Domergue is over the top as she hates Mature because her fiancé was killed in the Civil War by the Confederates Rex Ingram turns in a nice performance as the black cavalry quartermaster who is critically wounded in an attack by renegade Modoc Indians.Most of the action is off screen, so we get a lot of Mature and his daughter bonding and Domergue whining and griping.The outcome is fairly predictable. This isn't the worst Western ever made but considering the talent that was available and wasted it's pretty disappointing.Mature once said of his career" I'm no actor and I got 52 movies to prove it!"

This is a UA release, one of two that Victor Mature co-produced with John Wayne's Batjac company. It has a modest budget and plays like a TV movie or extended episode of TV's Wagon Train. But the ideas presented are grand in scope, and it's a shame there wasn't a larger budget to take advantage of all its cinematic possibilities. The film offers Mature as a no-holds barred widowed father trying to take his young daughter west to start a new life in Oregon. Along the way, they meet two sisters doing the same after one lost her fiancé in the Civil War. The backgrounds of the main characters are very well explained. Soon there is an attack by Modoc natives. We never get to see the natives as individuals; instead, we see them intermittently as a hostile element our little traveling group must occasionally fight off. After the initial attack, we are introduced to a black Union soldier, played by Rex Ingram. He's in no shape to travel, but Mature's character insists on taking him along. Of course, there is the eventual realization the old soldier is dead weight. The scene where Ingram threatens suicide to force the others to go on without him is a highpoint of the film.I liked the way the plot smartly progressed, and there was one action sequence after another, with just enough resting time in between, for us to continue getting to know the characters better. Naturally, it all culminates in a standoff involving more Union soldiers versus the Modoc. The soldiers are not all incorruptible (in a short sequence two try to steal the payroll). Adding to the complications is the fact that Mature, to protect his daughter and the one surviving sister, must join forces with the Union, though he himself had been a rebel Confederate.So there is a lot being said in ESCORT WEST, and while it is somewhat formulaic and predictable, we care about the people in the story and their relationships. As I said, this could have been expanded more cinematically if the budget had been greater. We could have seen flashbacks of what the leads experienced during and immediately after the war. We also could have seen some more of the attack involving the natives, which mostly happens off-camera. Plus I think a better denouement where they finally arrive in Oregon could have been filmed. But it's still a very effective thought-provoking independent western picture.

"Escort West" is interesting little low budget Black and White western about the efforts of an ex-confederate soldier Ben Lassiter (Victor Mature) and his daughter Abbey (Reba Waters) to reach Oregon and a new life.Set in 1865 just after the Civil War, Lassiter finds that not all of the old wounds have healed. At a way station he meets two sisters Beth Drury (Elaine Stewart) and her sister Martha (Faith Domergue) who are in the company of a cavalry detachment. Martha bears a resentment of Lassiter because of the war.Later on the trail Lassiter finds the cavalry detachment massacred except for quartermaster Nelson Walker (Rex Ingram) and the two ladies whom he had hidden away. The unlikely party then proceeds toward another army group who unbeknownst to them is pinned down under fire from the Indian renegade Tago (X. Brands) who is also in pursuit of the Lassiter group.Director Francis D. Lyon had the luxury of a seasoned cast of veterans although in some cases he doesn't take advantage of them often under utilizing their talents. Also in the cast are Noah Beery Jr., Leo Gordon (who co-wrote the story), Ken Curtis, William Ching, John Hubbard, Harry Carey Jr., Slim Pickens and Roy Barcroft as various soldiers.Victor Mature was always an under rated actor. He was usually better than his material as is the case here. Acting kudos in this film go to the veteran actor Rex Ingram who gives a sympathetic performance as the doomed Walker. Faith Domergue is one who never quite made it but is probably best remembered for her dalliance with Howard Hughes. Ken Curtis went on to portray "Festus Hagen" in the long running TV series "Gunsmoke".

"Gunsight Ridge" director Francis D. Lyon's "Escort West" ranks as an average, occasionally tense, but thoroughly predictable black & white, 76-minute, B-movie cavalry versus the redskins western with few surprises. Victor Mature of John Ford's classic "My Darling Clementine" and a number of other seasoned western stalwarts, among them Noah Beery, Jr., Slim Pickens, Harry Carey, Jr., Ken Curtis, and Leo Gordon, flesh out a solid cast that includes Elaine Stewart of "Night Passage" and Faith Domergue of "This Island Earth." The Indians on the rampage in this oater are renegade Modocs that have been outlawed by their own tribe. This United Artists release benefits from the widescreen cinematography of William Clothier who lensed many John Wayne horse operas, among them "Big Jake," "The Horse Soldiers," "The Train Robbers," "Chism," "Rio Lobo," "The Undefeated," "McClintock!," "The Comancheros," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "Cheyenne Autumn," and "The Alamo." When Clothier wasn't photographing John Wayne in the saddle, he was shooting James Stewart in "Bandolero!," "Firecreek," "The Rare Breed," "The Cheyenne Social Club," and "Shenandoah." Why the "Escort West" producers—particularly an uncredited John Wayne--did not see fit to shoot this adventure yarn in color is a mystery because it would have enhanced the colorful scenery and made the gray uniform that Mature sports stand out against the blue uniforms that the cavalrymen wear.The action takes place in Nevada in 1865, not long after the American Civil War. A former Confederate officer, Captain Ben Lassiter (Victor Mature sans a southern accent), and his young daughter, Abbey (TV actress Reba Waters), are riding to Oregon to live with his late wife's sister when they encounter a U.S. Cavalry patrol at the way station. The cavalry are taking two sisters, Beth Drury (Elaine Stewart) and Martha Drury (Faith Domergue), to meet an army escort. Beth plans to marry U.S. Cavalry Captain Howard Poole (William Ching of "The Sea Hornet") while Martha plans to head to the more civilized environs of San Francisco. Martha is snobbish, selfish, and when he sees Lassiter's gray uniform, she drips with venom, because the man that she was supposed to wed died in the Civil War. One character expresses his amazement that Beth and Martha are sisters. The cavalry patrol pulls out while Ben and Abbey hang around to dine.Later, when Ben and Abbey catch up with the cavalry patrol at the next way station, they discover that the savage, bloodthirsty Modocs have massacred everybody. Two troopers, Vogel (Leo Gordon of "Tobruk") and Birch (Ken Curtis of "Gunsmoke"), were out scouting when the Indians struck the way station. Ben comes across a old African-American, Nelson (Rex Ingram of "Cabin in the Sky"), who has been shot in the lower leg and has been faking that he is dead. Nelson tells Ben about the two Drury sisters hidden in a cellar. The entire way station has been burnt to a crisp, but the Modocs haven't touched the Army Payroll. Ben fixes up a litter to carry Nelson on and they strike out. While all of this is happening, Captain Poole and his men are pinned down by several Modoc marksmen, led by Tago (X Brands of "Gunmen from Laredo"), and they are gradually whittling down the cavalrymen.Eventually, Ben and company come upon Vogel and Birch. Abbey lets slip that they saved the payroll and Vogel pulls a gun on an unsuspecting Ben, and then Birch and he seize the money. Vogel doesn't have a qualm about killing the two women, Abbey, and Ben, until Birch complains.Perennial villain Leo Gordon penned the screenplay with Fred Hartsook and Steve Hayes of "Time After Time," and most of the action is cat and mouse stuff with our white heroes trying to outwit the redskins. "Escort West" looks and sounds like your typical western. It isn't bad, but it isn't anything to remember beyond the presence of Mature who looks out of place as a southerner.