The Nebraskan ** (1953, Philip Carey, Roberta Haynes, Wallace Ford, Richard Webb, Lee Van Cleef, Maurice Jara, Regis Toomey, Jay Silverheels) – Classic Movie Review 8340

Director Fred F Sears’s 1953 Columbia Western movie The Nebraskan stars Philip Carey [Phil Carey] as US Army frontier scout Wade Harper, who makes friends with an Indian comrade Wingfoot (Maurice Jara) while on a peace mission that is cut short when the Nebraska Sioux warrior chief Thundercloud is murdered.

Wingfoot is suspected but escaping murderer Private Reno Benton (Lee Van Cleef) sabotages Harper’s bid to get justice for Wingfoot. Finally, Harper heads off an uprising led by the warlike Chief Spotted Bear (Jay Silverheels) at the pass when Harper and five others, including his ex-girlfriend Mrs Paris Elliott (Roberta Haynes), are besieged in a remote trading post.

Roberta Haynes plays Mrs Paris Elliott in The Nebraskan (1953).

The Nebraskan is just another routine Western, and it is all a bit ordinary, though it is well plotted, short (68 minutes) and brisk, and at least a bit more ambitious and interesting than most Fifties B-movies, since it is surprisingly made in Technicolor and 3D.

Carey makes an adequate if uninspiring hero, Roberta Haynes gets a nice starring role as the heroine Mrs Paris Elliott, typecast TV favourites Jay Silverheels and Dennis Weaver prop up the support cast as Spotted Bear and Captain De Witt, and Lee Van Cleef helps to bring a whiff of the real Western thing as Private Reno Benton.

Also in the cast are Wallace Ford, Richard Webb, Maurice Jara, Regis Toomey, Pat Hogan, Boyd ‘Red’ Morgan and Robert Williams.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8340

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RIP Roberta Haynes (1929–2019).