Walk the Proud Land

Buy This Item Walk the Proud Land by Universal Studios  Available from Amazon  $9.98  on 10-31-2008     The narrative of John P. Clum's broadly varied activities is one of the most dramatic in U.S. history, his tenure as Indian Agent at Arizona's San Carlos Reservation, 1874/77, being particularly noteworthy and forming the subject of this film starring war hero Audie Murphy as Clum. During his assignment to San Carlos, Clum established the first Indian tribal police and court system, using the former to capture the wily Geronimo, convincing the renegade that he was surrounded by a large group of warriors, far from the case. By accomplishing all of this and more, Clum eliminated any possible requirement for continued deployment of a United States Army cavalry regiment at San Carlos, which erased profits from provisioning for the Army and made Clum's presence less than heaven-sent for the mounted troopers. WALK THE PROUD LAND is based upon incidents to be found within Woodworth Clum's 1936 biography of his father, which is the principal source for the screenplay written by the capable pair of Gil Doud and Jack Sher. Unfortunately, Doud ("To Hell and Back") and Sher ("Shane") fail to utilize the most dramatic elements of Clum's story, replacing them with a collection of banal contrivances which serve only to dissipate the feature's impact. Filmed with the wide-screen Cinemascope process, and with sublime Technicolor, the work is delightful to the eye, and benefits as well from the stylish efforts of costumer Bill Thomas. A top-notch performance is given by Anne Bancroft as an Apache warrior's widow who is "given" by the tribe's chief to Clum and who becomes his strongest ally against the Agent's enemies from within both the cavalry and the tribe. Audie Murphy's native earnestness is very effective in his portrayal of Clum, with his palpable lack of emotive flexibility being of no consideration here, and he is well supported by Bancroft, sturdy Charles Drake as his closest comrade, winsome Pat Crowley as his wife, Tommy Rall as his Indian blood brother, and character actors Addison Richards and Morris Ankrum. Many good hands were not utilized properly during the creation of this film, and since Clum's travails were largely for nought, Geronimo being released by his successor, leading to nearly 15 years of unabated Indian wars, a bittersweet and indeed revelatory quality would have been more effective in lieu of numerous scenes depicting lamely comedic children and romantic frippery that have no basis in fact. <br /> <br /> Reader Reviews This was Audie Murphy's first movie after the very successful biopic of his own life "To Hell and Back" and he is once again playing a true life character ,the first agent to the Apache Indians ,John Philip Clum .The movie has two strands .The least interesting -and indeed it drags the movie down to a soggy soap opera at times -is his domestic situation and the discord between Clum and his wife .These scenes are neither well written nor well played and take up time that would more interestingly have been spent in examining the second strand of the picture ,Clum's relationship with the Apaches in general and Geronimo in particular .These scenes are altogether better written and acted and a deal more interesting . The performances are variable ;neither Murphy not the usually sparky Pat Crowley (as his wife)are at their best and the casting of Anne Bancroft of all people as an Apache widow is bizarre to say the least .However ,Jay Silverheels -who had played the role twice before in movies-is excellent as Geronimo and their are good contributions from Charles Drake as a warm ,sympathetic cavalry sergeant and Robert Warwick as a resigned and dignified elder chieftain .The colour is that beautiful ,burnished technicolor ,once commmon but now only too rare in a cinematic age of less subtle colour tones This is a good and worthwhile picture but more focus on Clum's work and less on his domestic problems would have made it a minor classic perhaps

Walk the Proud Land Available from Amazon Price: $9.98 Updated on 10-31-2008.

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