Tomahawk ** (1951, Van Heflin, Yvonne De Carlo, Alex Nicol) – Classic Movie Review 7579

Director George Sherman’s 1951 Universal International Pictures movie Tomahawk (aka The Battle of Powder River) is a fairly lively Western, set in Wyoming in the 1860s, and based on (or suggested by) a story by Daniel Jarrett. It is nicely shot in Technicolor by Charles P Boyle.

It shows the US cavalry clashing with Sioux Indians, who have an axe to grind over disputed land rights, after the army decides to build a garrison-protected road through Indian territory to protect some new gold find.

On either side of the white man’s fence, Van Heflin plays the disapproving frontier scout Jim Bridger and Alex Nicol the prejudiced Lieutenant Rob Dancy.

Satisfying performances from a solid cast help to translate Silvia Richards and Maurice Geraghty’s predictable screenplay into a more than palatable action Western. Heflin, Yvonne De Carlo and a young Rock Hudson (as Corporal Burt Hanna) are all terribly clean-cut but quite glamorous in a dusty kind of way, and Nicol makes a good villain.

Also in the cast are Preston Foster, Jack Oakie, Tom Tully, John War Eagle, Susan Cabot, Arthur Space, Russ Conway, Ann Doran, Stuart Randall, David Miller, Ray Montgomery, John Peters, David Sharpe and Regis Toomey.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7579

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