Freaktana A Major Disappointment

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

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

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

zardoz-13 Gordon Douglas' "Fort Dobbs" is a sturdy, black & white, Warner Brothers' western that provided Clint Walker with his first starring role. Previously, Walker had appeared in several movies in supporting roles and starred in the television series "Cheyenne." Walker plays a rugged westerner who killed another man for beating up his girlfriend. Gar Davis doesn't know his way around women and he pays the price when he latches onto a no-good dame who plays him for a fool. When our hero is out of town, his darling is loving it up with any man she can attract with her wiles. She is badly beaten up by one man, and Gar goes after him to give him similar treatment. Things get a little out of hand for Gar and he has to kill his adversary after the ruffian tries to kill him with a shotgun. At this point, our hero lights out with a posse pursuing him straight into the desert where the Comanches have decided to hit the war path. The pugnacious Native Americans have killed one man with an arrow in the back. Gar swaps coats and dumps the corpse over a cliff with his coat on so that Largo Sheriff (Russ Conway) and his men initially believe that they have found Gar's corpse. To throw the posse off her trial, Gar lets them take his horse after they find his body. Later that evening, Gar tries to steal a horse from a nearby ranch, but Chad Gray (Richard Eyer of "The Desperate Hours") wounds him with his breechloader. When he recovers, Gar admits to Celia Gray (Virginia Mayo of "Colorado Territory") that he was indeed trying to steal a horse. He has seen the Comanches on the war path and persuades Celia and her son Chad to accompany him to the nearest cavalry fort: Fort Dobbs.Douglas doesn't waste time in this lean 90-minute sagebrusher, and he has a good script by future director Burt Kennedy of "Return of the Seven" and "Red Mountain" scribe George W. George. This represented Kennedy's fifth oater. He penned it between writing assignments for Budd Boetticher. Kennedy wrote "The Tall T" before he inked this screenplay and followed it up with an uncredited rewrite on "Buchanan Rides Alone." The screenplay is as lean and mean as this 90 western. Ace lenser William Clothier captures the west in all of its savage beauty and often relies on perspective shots. Brian Keith plays a sleazy cowboy named Clett who is heading to Santa Fe to sell a bunch of Henry repeating rifles. When he intervenes on Gar's behalf, Clett (Keith) demonstrates the ferocity of the 15 shot repeating rifle. Later, when the townspeople flee Largo, they head to Fort Dobbs, and they are in for a surprise. The last man that Gar expected to see at the outpost was none other than the sheriff of Largo. The ending is interesting. Composer Max Steiner of "King Kong" fame furnishes a robust orchestral score that highlight the dramatic revelations. "Fort Dobbs" is a good western, and Douglas borrows from an earlier western "Only the Valiant."

weezeralfalfa 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!!

bear022013-588-696101 I do not enjoy rating anything with a number.It somehow,cheapens what one has to say about something so close to the heart as a film that moves a grown man to actually stop and write about his feelings.Fort Dobbs is "an experience."The film must be seen in quiet surroundings,meaning no distractions.You can read a summation anywhere,but like anything of quality, this movie,owned by TBS,is impossible to find.Clint Walker Is the story and Brian Keith/Virginia Mayo are along for the ride.Moab,Utah provides the backdrop and only THE TALL T comes close.I do not know why Clint Walker was not a megastar,but perhaps politics was the reason.Ken Curtis,a fine Western Actor married John Ford's daughter,I believe?

dougdoepke Fugitive Gar Davis (Walker) flees from posse across hostile Comanche territory with woman and small boy (Mayo & Eyer), and encounters old foe, the gun-running Clett (Keith).Fine eyeful of parched southwestern scenery—I counted only one interior (the "hospital" scene) for the entire movie. Sure, Big Clint (not Eastwood) has only one "Yes, ma'm, No, ma'm" demeanor for every scene, but that's okay, even if he didn't get to be the next Gary Cooper. Putting old-pro Gordon Douglas in charge was a shrewd move. Note the stages the awakening Mayo goes through in discovering that, yes, Walker has stripped off her wet clothes. Note too how Douglas gets that infernal glint in Mayo's eyes when she first suspects Clint of murdering her husband—it's almost scary. I also like the way the Indians are credited with some military sense when overturning the wagons to make shooters' barricades. Most important, Douglas knows how to integrate the picturesque terrain into the storyline—catch that great framing of the Walker-Keith shoot-out.Fortunately, Warners got Burt Kennedy to do the script— and on the eve of his outstanding work with the Boetticher-Scott ,(Ranown), cycle of Westerns. I suspect Bryan Keith's charming villain was Kennedy's inspiration since likable baddies was a standard Ranown feature. Yes indeed, Keith steals the show with his easy-going charm—a real contrast to the uptight Walker. At this early stage, Keith was an interesting actor, best at squinty-eyed cowpokes as Sam Peckinpah knew when casting him as lead in Peckinpah's brilliant but short-lived TV series The Westerner (1960).The movie itself may have been a hurry-up job—probably that's why there's no Technicolor despite the great scenery, and probably why we get a recycled plot line from Hondo (1953). I guess the hurry-up was to take advantage of Walker's TV popularity. Still, the movie's a very watchable action-filled adventure. What's more, I don't care if the luscious Mayo was pushing 40, she could put her saddle on my horse any day.