Highly Overrated But Still Good

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

I really hate to see Van Johnson's talents wasted in a film like this. I never thought westerns were his bag anyway. He was with the "Georgia Volunteers" a vague designation that wouldn't satisfy any Union officer. And where was his accent? Now Richard Boone has played this kind of evil role before and again, and does it very well. I had to laugh at the Indians firing the Gatling gun( could they ever? would they ever?) at the fort while droves of other indians are closely surrounding it. Nary a horse hit during any of the battles. Monumental cavalry and Indian charges appear with the usual results. One has to swallow a lot to enjoy this western.

This is pretty much your typical early 1950s western. It really would have benefited with someone like Randolph Scott or Joel McRea in the leading role. Van Johnson was known for musical comedies, not Westerns. He was not rugged or convincing enough in the role of the Confederate spy from Georgia. Co-star Richard Boone would have been better, but this movie preceded the anti-hero era, and Boone was still playing bad guys at this point of his career. He would not begin 'Have Gun Will Travel' until 1957.I agree that Milburn Stone stole every scene he was in and provided some nice comedic relief. As a matter of fact, I have no problem with any of the cast except for Johnson, who looked more comfortable banging on the piano and singing Tapioca then he did riding, shooting, or fighting.Hollywood Westerns were famous for their historic inaccuracy, especially when it comes to the Civil War and weapons. From the comments about the South in retreat, and Grant pushing Lee back, I take the film was supposed to have been around 1865. During the Civil War, both sides were using single-shot black powder rifles and cap and ball pistols, but Hollywood always had them shooting Colt 45s and Winchester repeater rifles. That made me wonder if the Gatlin Gun was even invented during the Civil War. This led me to the internet, where I confirmed "...Invented by Richard Gatling, it is known for its use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat." So, it looks like they finally got something right, but the movie indicated it hadn't been used in combat yet, and the war was already ending.All in all, this is a nice diversion for 50s western fans (like myself) if you can get past Van Johnson's miscast role.

I was not really concentrating on this film (on Film4), as I was reading the Sunday newspaper. However, I found my attention being more and more drawn to a plot that seemed to get more believable as it progressed. Characters were developed to the point where strangeness of behaviour became them. The lack of outright violence was a huge plus in such a story, that might easily have descended into a straight-forward gunfight. Period settings overcame obvious rigours of budget to a degree of acceptability. Though all aspects - dialogue, scenery, plot etc. - all fell short at some point, the overall effect was of a well-constructed and written movie into which a great deal of thoughtful direction had been lavished.

In 1954, a Western about the Civil War is not just about the Civil War. 'Siege at Red River' opens with the robbery of a Union train by a bunch of outlaws. The Union soldiers, including a detective, combine the Military and the Law - they are protecting a secret new super-weapon - the Gatling Gun, the first example of mechanised warfare which means surefire victory for which ever side possesses it. If we substitute the Gatling with a nuclear warhead, the Civil War with the Cold War; and if we note that the bandits make off in a red mail van, and that their leader wears a red cravat, and we assume them as commies, than the Western becomes an Allegory. This is not surprising - from its inception the genre has celebrated the UNITED States and played out and resolved its crises, while the likes of President Reagan have used it to signify a sense of genuine Americanness, so it is natural the genre should be marshalled in such a time of perceived crisis.As the film is directed by the great Rudolph Mate, former cinematographer for, among others, Carl Dreyer, one of the genuine maestros of the cinema, we might assume that if his film is a Cold War Allegory, it will be far from simplistic. The linking of Communism with disruption, criminality, secrecy and murder is not a surprise; if we do make the link, when our first shock is that the bandit leader is played by the film's star. The benefits of the star persona - wit, charm, a (relatively) rounded personality (he is a grim avenger and gun smuggler, but also a musician, orator and gentleman; he is connected with role-play and the theatre) are in contrast with the monolithic forces of law and order; while he has multiple interests besides the war, they have only that defining interest. Further, while his motives are essentially decent and right-minded, the 'good' guys are not only street-bawling thugs, but perpetrators of vile, near-genocidal acts. The film doesn't go so far as to salvage Farraday's oppositional position - the conflict between North and South is on one level displaced on gender, where it can be resolved in romance; and on another, generic level, displaced on a third enemy - the murderous amoral smuggler and the Indians - so the opposing American forces can finally reconcile. But it's not a happy reconciliation - the massacre of the Indians is only cathartic if we ignore that they too, like the Americans in the Fort, have women and children; and the finale is only happy if we accept the couple's words, and not the narrative reality, that he is an outlaw evading justice and leaving the woman he has learned to love. This fact of separation from the site of reconciliation implicitly questions that reconciliation. There are other features - the anti-realistic use of colour; the drunk scene, where the dominant male point of view suddenly switches to the drunken, gun-shooting female, linked to her frank, disruptive, transformative sexuality and contrasted with the ship-lashing, neurotic villain; the use of song, espeically 'Tapioca', and its movement from rebel code to music hall; the argument that nation is an arbitrary series of signs - the Indians shoot first at the US flag, not the army; the image of the Niagara Falls on the music hall curtains - where national identity is constructed and negotiated, not 'natural'; a sophisticated attitude to patriotism, war and friendship - that all add up to a more thoughtful Western than its routine reputation might suggest.