How sad is this?

Fantastic!

A lot of fun.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The west started to grow up in the Fifties and Fort Bowie was not the kind of film that would have been a Saturday matinée feature for the Gene and Roy crowd a decade earlier. It deals with sexual attention and suggested infidelity stuff that was not covered by those Republic cowboys in this United Artists release.A pair of biblical stories served as plot devices for Fort Bowie. Jan Harrison is the bored wife of commander Kent Taylor and one day in a fit of pique like Potiphar's wife after Ben Johnson rejects her advances says that she and Johnson got it on. Taylor reacts like King David and sends Johnson on a Uriah the Hittite like mission to try and talk to Larry Chance as Vittorio leader of the Apaches to surrender peacefully.Quite understandably Vittorio is in no mood to talk peace with any white men. An eager for promotion officer played by J. Ian Douglas massacred a bunch of Apaches who came in under a flag of truce. By sheer luck and rescue from an unexpected source Johnson escapes.The climax of the film is a slam bang see saw battle for Fort Bowie is the highlight of the film and western fans who crave action will have no cause for complaint.Color might have added something, but Fort Bowie is a western fans dream.

At a cavalry outpost, the colonel (Taylor) dispatches a captain (Johnson) on a suicide mission among the Apaches because of rivalry over his wife's (Harrison) affections.The colonel loves wife Allison, but she loves the captain, I think. And, the captain loves her, at least some of the time. However, the rest of the time, he loves Chanzana, but Chanzana is half Apache, and I think she loves Apache leader Victorio. Oh well, I may be wrong about all this, but then the script can't seem to make up its mind either. So maybe you can sort it out.Good thing there's lots of action to interrupt this frontier soap opera. In fact I don't know when I've heard more shooting. Seems like somebody's always wiping out somebody else. Boy, was I surprised when the major shoots all the Indians carrying that white flag of truce. Pretty rotten thing for our guys to do, which sets off all the shooting because now the Apaches want revenge.But then it seems like the Indians like roasting our guys over an upside-down spit. That's pretty rotten too and not in any multi-cultural handbook I know of. Then too, that part reminds me of another good Apache movie, Ulzana's Raid (1971), where the Apaches also practice some strange culinary arts. Even stranger, however, is when the Indians defend the fort against attacking cavalry (I love that wagon-ramp trick). Now where has any Western fan seen that upside-down world before.Anyway, it's an okay Western with some interesting sidelights and the great Ben Johnson. I'm just wondering why they went all the way to scenic Kanab, Utah to film, and then didn't didn't do it in Technicolor. Then again, maybe they spent their budget on all the big shoot- outs. But-- bottom line-- if you can untangle the big who-loves-whom puzzle in this movie, I'm sure there's a place for you at People magazine. Otherwise, you might want to catch up with this cowboys-and-Indians on an especially slow night.

It was just what I expected, basically a B Movie, and I enjoyed it on a B movie/western level. Ben Johnson is always watchable,was an expert horseman and great stunt rider. Does everyone else, like me, get mixed up when it comes to actor Kent Taylor and Kent Smith? Not only are their names alike, I think they look alike. It was Taylor that starred in this one. I thought the subplot involving Taylor's less than exciting wife dragged this movie down a little on excitement. I liked Johnson's nickname "Tomahawk", but then nothing was really done with his tomahawk to deserve the name, other than he used it occasionally as a side arm. And what about that ending! The only thing I didn't like (*SPOILER ALERT*) was the way the finished the fight with Johnson and the Apache, what a cowardly act by the commanding officer!

I just finished watching Fort Bowie, and was pleasantly surprised at what a good movie it was. I had never seen it before and the review I had read said it was a low budget film, but the cuts must have come from the actors salary. Ben Johnson was super as was most of the rest of the cast. I also was thrilled to see Johnny Western in a fairly noticeable role. The action scenes were certainly big budget caliber. I recently saw the last western that Ben Johnson made and there was little change in his appearance, except for a bit of weight gain. To me his acting is as natural as John Waynes. Kent Smith did a creditable job in his role. As far as the other actors I wasn't familiar with any of them except the "old sarge", but the movie was far better than I was expecting.