Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Spikeopath The Charge at Feather River is directed by Gordon Douglas and written by James R. Webb. It stars Guy Madison, Frank Lovejoy, Helen Westcott, Vera Miles, Dick Wesson, Onslow Stevens, Steve Brodie, Neville Brand and James Brown. Filmed in Natural Vision-3-Dimension and WarnerColor, music is by Max Steiner and cinematography by J. Peverell Marley. The Guardhouse Brigade. Wonderful. It's the sort of Western you watched as a kid and it made you fall in love with the genre. It has it all, the standard Cowboys versus Indians action to keep the youngsters amused, and quality characterisations for the knowing adults to acknowledge. Plot would become very familiar over the years, where a bunch of reprobates, here they are the bad boys of the army guardhouse, are trained up and sent on a suicide mission. The mission here is to rescue two white sisters who were captured by the Cheyenne years ago. The group dynamic positively bubbles with tension as men who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War are tasked with performing as one force. There's also a heated rivalry between two men because of a woman, and naturally there's some loose cannons in the group. Things further pick up when the two ladies are rescued and the group has to try and make it back to the fort with the whole Cheyenne tribe on their tail. The elder sister is grateful to be rescued, the younger one not so much since she has converted to the Cheyenne way and is set to marry Chief Thunder Hawk. Thus the group dynamic goes up a couple of more notches on the stove as the younger sister does all she can to sabotage the mission, while the elder frets about how society will treat her once her past comes to light, and of course there's an attraction between her and the alpha male. Yet the romantic thread is superbly written, really mature and never cloying. There's some requisite humour that works very well, the action is very well staged by the wily Douglas and Madison makes for a good leader of men. While having Brand and Brodie in support playing ornery dudes is perfect casting. It's a very satisfying Oater, it's not hard to see why it was a big hit at the box office. Oh for sure the 3-D gimmick would have been a big draw, especially since there's plenty of scenes made for 3-D nirvana in the picture. However, this is strong enough to stand on its own 2-D feet, a throwback to a great decade of Westerns. It also has a Steiner musical score and Marley's super photography around the California locations. Think what would happen if you mixed The Searchers and Major Dundee together, added in some Dirty Dozen like conflicts, and then sprinkled on some seasoning of Audie Murphy like Westerns, and you then get an idea of the type of film on offer here. Recommended to Western buffs. 8/10

cfisler-2 This movie needs to be put into the DVD format. It is a story about the American wild west. It stars Guy Madison and it was made it 1953. It also has the Wilhelm Scream. You can hear it when Private Wilhelm is struck in the leg by an arrow. Private Wilhelm dies. The Wilhem scream was originally made by Sheb Wooley in 1951 and heard in Distant Drums. The scream has also been used by George Lucas in his Star Wars series and Steven Spielberg used it in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Indianan Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Other film makers use the Wilhem Scream all the time. The Charge at feather river comes out on DVD at July 4th 2010.

maddutchy I can remember seeing this movie when I was very young and several times on TV since then. I have always liked it. I have noticed on the print shown on local TV that one scene has reversed film. It is the one where they are hiding behind the rock outcrop(it looks like Vasquez Rocks near Los Angeles) watching the Indians ride by. If you look carefully, you will notice that suddenly all the soldiers are left-handed! It is only a short segment and I have to admit that it took me years to notice it.As far as history goes, there were often expeditions to rescue white captives from the Indians. The direct connection for the final battle scene is the Battle of Beecher's Island. In that action, a group of volunteer scouts equipped with repeating carbines (Spencer carbines not Winchesters) were surprised by the Indians and retreated to an island and held off several charges. In the last charge, they killed Roman Nose, one of the more famous Indian Chiefs. I have no idea if the writer of the script had this in mind but it does fit fairly well.There are several Guy Madison movies that I hope come out on DVD someday and this is one of them.

bux Slightly above average western drama with the emphasis on action. A cavalry commander (Madison) is forced to recruit from the guard house and set out on a mission to bring back white hostages the Indians have captured. All the expected sterotypes are present, and of course one of the hostages is a beautiful female. Since this one was originaly shot in 3D, be prepared to 'suffer those slings and arrows!'