Review of Fort Courageous (1965) by Van R — 22 Jun 2010

Veteran B-movie helmer Lesley Selander knew a thing or two about.

Directing low-budget westerns, but it looks like Twentieth Century Fox.

Must have tampered with this 72-minute opus. This predictable but.

Old-fashioned cavalry versus the Indians epic concerns an army patrol.

Ordered to take a prisoner, Sergeant Anthony Lucas (Fred Beir of.

"Convict Stage"), to Fort Courageous where he will then be escorted to.

Fort Alcatraz to serve a ten-year stretch for raping a woman who was.

Secretly a tramp. No, "Voodoo Island" scenarist Richard Landau doesn't.

Resolve the issue of our hero's moral dilemma. Indeed, the woman who.

Cried rape did because the sergeant refused her offer of sex. Another.

Officer assures the sergeant that whatever charms the woman had to.

Offer were not worth a decade behind bars. Anyway, a wrongly-accused.

Cavalryman is clapped in chains and has to cross a hostile desert.

Essentially, the filmmakers provide no closure about Lucas' rape.

Sentence. The film doesn't clear him at the end. Consequently, our.

Tarnished hero never gets his due despite the acts of heroism that he.

Performs in transit to Fort Courageous.

Inevitably, our heroes enouncter a mother and daughter along the way,.

And the daughter appears to have been raped by the Indians. No,.

Selander doesn't depict the act of rape. The Indians throw her to the.

Ground, surround her, and she screams in horror. It might have added a.

Dimension of complication if we knew that the daughter had not been.

Raped,except in her mind. She could have been a counterpart to the.

Tramp that the sergeant encountered. Nevertheless, whatever the.

Redskins did to the girl is the equivalent of rape in the mother's eyes.

As well as the daughter's eyes. The Indians attack the cavalry patrol.

And mortally wound the captain in charge. Sergeant Lucas takes over.

Command. Our heroes plod through the desert with the son of an Indian.

Chieftain as their hostage and drink themselves dry before they reach.

The eponymous fort.

Little do they know that virtually everybody in "Fort Courageous" died.

In the first scene. More than half-way through the Indian attack on the.

Fort, Selander and Landau cut to the main credits and put it up with.

The patrol scheduled to deliver Lucas. Lucas' old pal, Indian scout Joe.

(Harry Lauter of "The Satan Bug"), tries to give him a chance to escape.

To Mexico, but Lucas amounts to the epitome of virtue. He refuses to.

Run away. Mind you, we never see the woman that destroyed his life.

Captain Howard (Don 'Red' Barry of "Shalako") is the sole survivor of.

The massacre. Left for dead, he manages to open the forts and then.

Behaves like a martinet. He wants Lucas put back in chains and hangs.

Out the Indian chieftain's son (Michael Carr of "War Party") to bake in.

The sun. Of course, Sergeant Lucas refuses to tolerate this brutal,.

Inhuman behavior, and cuts down the poor Native American, only to face.

Howard's wrath. When Howard tries to cut a deal with the Indians under.

A flag of truce with the son as his hostage, things backfire. The.

Chief's son escapes and Howard barely eludes death, largely as a result.

Of Lucas' intervention.

Unfortunately, "Fort Courageous" leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

At the last minute, the mother of the daughter who was raped by the.

Indians decides to commit herself to Lucas and they share a screen.

Kiss. Selander and Landau put our heroes and heroines between a rock.

And a hard place and then out of the blue, the movie concludes with a.

Surprise ending that says something about the admiration that the.

Native Americans had for their opponents. Real Indians would have wipedthem out. Harry Lauter has an unsavory death scene. He is run through with a wooden stake and the stake is set afire. The Indians leave him out in the open in front of the fort hoping that somebody will try to save the scout. Unless you enjoy old westerns, with a mite more violence than usual and some mature themes, "Fort Courageous" with its "Sergeant Rutledge" subplot isn't for you.