Just so...so bad

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

FORT DOBBS – 1958This Warner Brothers duster stars Clint Walker, Virginia Mayo and Brian Keith. Twenty minutes in and I thought I was watching a re-hash of the John Wayne classic, HONDO. Same idea, but it takes a different tact with Walker as a man running from the law for a killing. He flees out into the badlands to escape the posse in pursuit. He manages to throw off the posse but is soon mixed up with a group of upset Indians, and a woman, Virginia Mayo and her young son, Richard Eyer. The rampaging Comanche burn out Mayo's ranch and the three are soon heading for a nearby fort. On the trail they run into gunrunner, Brian Keith. Keith is hauling 100 of the latest repeating rifle to Santa Fe. Needless to say the man is a swine and makes moves on Mayo. Walker steps in and sends Keith on his way. Complicating matters is that Mayo thinks Walker might have killed her husband. They make it to the fort but find the garrison has been overran and wiped out by an earlier Comanche attack. Then a group of civilians on the run from the Comanche, show up at the fort looking for shelter. Among these folks is the Sheriff who had been chasing Walker. They manage to beat off several mass attacks but are running low on ammo. Walker sneaks out to try and go for help. He meets up with Keith and his cargo of rifles again. He suggests that Keith bring the rifles to the fort to help in defense of same. Keith is not happy with that idea and goes for his gun. Walker is quicker off the draw and Keith goes down. Walker manages to get the rifles back to Fort Dobbs just as the Indians are massing for a large attack. The extra firepower does the trick and the Comanche are driven off with heavy losses. The Sheriff looks the other way as Walker strikes out for Santa Fe with Mayo and Eyer. He figures everyone owes Walker their lives.

Clett(Brian Keith), a traveling firearms salesman and probable gunrunner for Native Americans, happens upon the little party of Gar Davis(Clint Walker), just widowed Celia Grey(Virginia Mayo) and her half grown son, Chad(Richard Eyer). Clett was very surprised to see Gar, an old acquaintance, alive, as he was reported by the Largo sheriff as dead from a Comanche arrow in the back. Seems Gar changed clothes with a dead man he found and rolled the body partly down a bank. The posse, who were after Gar for shooting a man in Largo, took the bait and failed to confirm that the body they saw from a distance was indeed that of Gar. They did, however, take his horse, which he left in view to add to the deception. Thus, Gar had to walk a long way in the desert, until he came upon a farm house at night. He tried to take a horse, but Chad grazed his head with a rifle shot, knocking him out for a spell. He told them to be weary of marauding Comanches nearby. Sure enough, they soon showed up and a battle ensued. Eventually, they made an escape by horse, but saw the smoke from the burning house and shed. Gar said they should head for Ft. Dobbs for safety. Celia wanted to go to Largo instead, where she thought her husband was, but Gar said he couldn't go there. Eventually, Celia finds something among Gar's clothing that she recognizes as her husband's, and accuses him of murdering her husband. He denies it, but she doesn't believe him. Still, she concludes she will have to continue traveling with him to Ft. Dobbs for safety.Clett shows up and starts to come on to Celia. Later, they travel on toward Dobbs, when Comanches attack again. Clett and Gar fight them off. Clett shows Gar the new Henry repeating rifles he hopes to sell in Dobbs and Santa Fe, beyond. That night, Clett comes onto Celia strong and tries to rape her. Gar comes to the rescue, they fight, and Clett leaves.I won't detail the rest of the story. Gar has saved the lives or honor of Celia and Chad several times and will again.. Yet, the two are not very impressed until they later change their mind about his killing of their husband/father. They finally are willing to accept his story that the dead body of their husband/father actually prevented his capture, and thus indirectly saved their lives!I will say that this story has a happy ending for 3 of the principals. This is one of those stories where the past transgressions of the leading man are largely forgiven as a result of his subsequent repeated heroics. Other examples include "Bend in the River" and "3 Godfathers". Unfortunately, European-derived justice systems seldom apply this principle of balancing the good and bad in a person's deeds in deciding how they should be punished for their bad deeds. In contrast, the enemy Comanches typically didn't prescribe a punishment for misdeeds or conflicts. Rather, kin or friends of the wronged were allowed to extract revenge on the wrongdoer. So why such Comanches often fled to another village. Justice among Europeans on the frontier often more resembled that of the Comanches than settled European communities.Clearly, this story takes place in the rugged northeastern portion of the present state of New Mexico, although I could find no indication of a historical Ft. Dobbs nor town of Largo in this area.(There was a Ft. Dobbs in NC). However, there is a Largo Canyon, said to be 20 miles from the well known historic Ft. Union, to the NE of Santa Fe. Thus, I propose that Ft. Union was renamed Ft. Dobbs in the screenplay(a common Hollywood device! See my review of "Column South"). Clett's mentioning of the newly released Henry repeating rifles dates this story to around 1862, when Comanche raids on settlers increased, due to the evacuation of many soldiers, to fight in the East.In contrast to various reviewers, i didn't find Brian Keith's Clett terribly interesting nor likable. He just seemed like a talkative sleazebag, who probably peddled firearms to the 'Indians', as well as Europeans. However, Gar's last encounter with him, which proved fatal, was legally a questionable act on Gar's part.Clint Walker's character comes across as another puritanical hero, played by the likes of Fess Parker and Gregory Peck, whom he much reminds me of.Virginia Mayo's character comes across as much more passive than in her previous westerns: "Colorado Territory" and "Along the Great Divide", where she is much more of a tomboy. Of course, she eventually falls for the leading man in all 3 films. But, in "Colorado Territory", this happens almost immediately. In the other 2 films, this doesn't happen until near the ending, because of a factual or mistaken antagonistic association of the leading man with someone dear to her heart, until near the end. In this film, there is also the assumption that Gar will have to answer for his murder.Filming mostly was done in canyon country near Moab and Kanab, Utah, which rather resembles (from photos) the canyon country of NE NM. The treacherous river crossing scene presumably involved the Colorado River near Moab, as was the case for Ford's "Wagon Master", also mostly shot in this area.The plot offers quite a bit of complexity and action, the principals were well cast, and I enjoyed the film. Yes, should have been shot in color!!

"Fort Dobbs" is a leisurely paced movie - perhaps too leisurely. Long periods of time pass without a lot of dialogue. Instead the film seems to depend on atmosphere and gorgeous black-and-white desert camera-work to keep us entertained. Clint Walker made a few noteworthy and very interesting Westerns, but he seems to be underutilized in this one. His character is very one-dimensional, and very terse, even though he dominates the screen throughout the film. Both Walker's character and "Fort Dobbs" in general feel like a lot of unrealized potential.Even the Indians are monolithic. This was 1958, but it still feels like Stagecoach and 1941 - the Indians are good for nothing more than rifle fodder. The potential relationship between Virginia Mayo, who plays the strong-willed widow very well, and Walker, also remains just that - potential. Speaking of Virginia Mayo, she has one particular moment that allows her to go outside the box: after being rescued from drowning by Walker, she wakens to find herself naked under a blanket. The camera allows her a good portion of a minute to register the fact of her nakedness, to see Clint Walker with his bare chest cleaning his rifle near by, to see her clothes on a clothesline not of her own making, and finally, putting 2 and 2 and 2 together, recognizing that Walker, after rescuing her, must have stripped her, and - well, the horror and embarrassment are clearly distressing, and quite funny. A nice moment for Ms. Mayo.Perhaps the most interesting character is "Clett", played by Brian Keith. Clett is a drifter, like Walker's character, and they have clearly crossed paths a number of times in the past. Keith's character is curiously not completely unsympathetic. He wants to put the past disagreements between him and Walker behind them, and work together, but Walker will have none of it. He even appears at the last moment at one point to save Walker from a Comanche attack. You know right from the beginning, however, that Walker will prevail if the seams between them come apart. There is enough ambiguity in Keith's genial character, though, to make him worth thinking about.Russ Conway has a larger role than you would expect, playing the very grim sheriff of the town of Largo. He is an appealing character. The same cannot be said of the child actor, Richard Eyer, playing Mayo's young son. Not the worst child actor ever, but I could have done without him. Interestingly, the child is the only character to bring out the taciturn Clint Walker's gentle side. The film would have been better if Clint had been allowed to show more emotion.In sum, then, not a bad Western, though not Walker's best. And a curious thought - did the name of the town, "Largo", inspire the other Clint (Eastwood, of course) to name his town "Lago", in High Plains Drifter?

In the late 1950's, Warner Brothers was the studio responsible for more westerns on television than any other production company in town (the town being Hollywood, of course!) They made stars out Clint Walker, Ty Hardin, James Garner, Jack Kelly and a host of others who appeared in their half hour and then one hour western dramas, which later became parodies of themselves, as the long running Maverick will prove.Here, they rework the "Hondo" plot (lone gunman rescues a woman and her son after finding her husband dead) and spend two thirds of the movie getting themselves to Fort Dobbs. I'll stop there, because actually, under the considered hand of director Gordon Douglas, this is actually an okay film. Walker gives a very quiet performance but it's his character, so you buy it. Virginia Mayo and Richard Eyer give better performances, one scene with the kid especially cool-- and the standard cowboys vs. Indians plot is made a bit more edgy by the presence of Brian Keith as the bad guy. He doesn't show up until the 30 minute mark, but he steals the show and has a great time playing the bad guy.The final scene is laughable ( not in a good way, sorry to say) but prior to that, the action is okay, inter cut with some out takes from "The Searchers", which don't match the Fort Dobbs footage at all.Contains all the usual Warner Brothers sound effects, gun shots and bodies hitting the ground you've heard hundreds of times. Also, the music was by Max Steiner, which notched it up to a 7 for me.If you get a chance, give it a look. VERY LITTLE studio work, a whole lot out OUT DOOR SHOOTING, another high point.