Customer Reviews

Walk the Proud Land [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Have you seen this video? If not, you really need to see it! It's great!! Honorable Audie Murphy is going to help govern the Apaches on a reservation. He gets to the reservation, and finds the chiefs chained up. He sets them free, sends the Army away, and gains the Indians' respect. And one Indian's love. The love of Teona, an Indian woman, is his for the taking. But he already has a fiance, back home in the east. Who will he choose? And when Geronimo comes to recruit Indians for his raids, will it destroy the whole village? This is a really good movie, with a perfect ending.

Universal International Pictures presents "WALK THE PROUD LAND" (1956) (89 min/Color) -- Starring Audie Murphy, Ann Bancroft, Pat Crowley, Charles Drake, Tommy Rall, Robert Warwick & Jay Silverheels

Directed by Jesse Hibbs

In 1874 John Philip Clum (Audie Murphy), an Eastern government representative, arrives in San Carlos, Arizona with the intention to uphold the peace between the settlers and the Apaches, and to encourage a form of self-government among the Indians. Realizing that he can never hope for cooperation from the Apaches so long as renegade warrior Geronimo (Jay Silverheels) is at large, Clum determines to negotiate the surrender of Geronimo - and he intends to do it alone.

Two leading ladies give outstanding performances Pat Crowley who plays Audie's eastern fiancé and Anne Bancroft who is the spectacularly beautiful Indian widow who has eyes for Murphy.

Walk the Proud Land, which is the true story of Indian agent John Philip Clum, as set down on paper by Clum's son,

Scores with strong characterizations and well-crafted script work from Gil Doud who also wrote Murphy's To Hell and Back (1955) and Alan Ladd's Saskatchewan (1954).

A nice tribute to a real western figure, Walk the Proud Land is definitely one of Audie Murphy's better westerns from his home studio Universal.

BIOS:
1. Jesse Hibbs (Director)
Date of Birth: 11 January 1906 - Normal, Illinois
Date of Death: 4 February 1985 - Ojai, California

2. Audie Murphy [aka: Audie Leon Murphy]
Date of Birth: 20 June 1924 - Kingston, Texas
Date of Death: 28 May 1971 - near Roanoke, Virginia

3. Anne Bancroft [aka: Anna Maria Louise Italiano]
Date of Birth: 17 September 1931 - The Bronx, New York
Date of Death: 6 June 2005 - New York City, New York

4. Pat Crowley
Date of Birth: 17 September 1933 - Olyphant, Pennsylvania, USA
Date of Death: Still Living

5. Charles Drake [aka: Charles Rupert]
Date of Birth: 2 October 1917 - New York City, New York
Date of Death: 10 September 1994 - East Lyme, Connecticut

6. Jay Silverheels [aka: Harold J. Smith]
Date of Birth: 26 May 1912 - Six Nations Reservation, Brantford, Ontario, Canada
Date of Death: 5 March 1980 - Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 5 Stars
Performance: 5 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 5 Stars
Overall: 5 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 89 min on DVD/VHS ~ Universal International Pictures (UI) ~ (June 10, 1997)

This is an excellent movie about John Clem who was an Indian Agent who actually made Geronimo surrender. It is an excellent companion to Broken Arrow about Agent Tom Jeffords who convinced Cochise to cooperate with Wachito (non-Indian).

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.

Let me start by saying that I am a true fan of western history. I am also a fan of Audie Murphy. This work satisfies both avocations extremely well. Formerly I knew only of John Clum's involvement in the Tombstone Epitaph and the Wyatt Earp era. While this film no doubt contains some Hollywook embellishment, it nonetheless protrays Clum's character very well, as I have gathered from other written work. Murphy, cast as Clum is very credible, and the story is entertaining as well. Definitey worth the purchase price and a keeper for the library. Perhaps one day it will become available on DVD.

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

I am a fan of Brother Audie Murphy as he belonged to The Masonic Fraternity. Many of his films have references to this Fraternity. I can hardly wait until this particular movie becomes available in dvd format. As an aside in Dark Passage when James Stewart says " He is my Brother and I'll bury him. " This is an emotional scene as James Stewart DID bury his brother as James Stewart was also a Masonic Brother.