Yellowstone Kelly *** (1959, Clint Walker, Edd Byrnes, John Russell, Ray Danton, Claude Akins, Rhodes Reason, Warren Oates, Andra Martin) – Classic Movie Review 8,326

A slew of popular Warner Bros TV stars enlivens Gordon Douglas’s competent, highly professional 1959 Western film Yellowstone Kelly, starring Clint Walker from Cheyenne, Edd Byrnes from 77 Sunset Strip and John Russell from Lawman. 

A slew of popular Warner Bros late-Fifties television stars enlivens Gordon Douglas’s competent, highly professional, if familiar 1959 Western movie Yellowstone Kelly, about the rugged fur trapper and Indian scout Luther Yellowstone Kelly, who tries to stop his friends the Sioux from fighting the US Cavalry after he is hired the help the US Army at Fort Buford in the Sioux territory south of the Missouri in the 1870s.

Clint Walker’s dignified performance as Yellowstone Kelly, the trapper whose loyalties are divided, Douglas’s sturdy direction and Burt Kennedy’s competent writing turn it into a fairly exciting action movie.

Westerns expert Kennedy carves out a decent screenplay from the book by Heck Allen (writing as Clay Fisher). Warner Bros splashes out on Technicolor filming and Carl E Guthrie’s excellent location photography is a real plus. Edd Byrnes gets a good role as Kelly’s tenderfoot assistant Anse Harper. Andra Martin plays Wahleeah, the runaway Arapaho woman they shelter.

Yellowstone Kelly is appealing and quite well done of its kind.

It also stars John Russell, Ray Danton, Claude Akins, Rhodes Reason, Warren Oates, Gary Vinson, Nesdon Booth and Harry Shannon.

It is good that it features the stars of the popular Warner Bros TV shows Cheyenne (Clint Walker), 77 Sunset Strip (Edd Byrnes), Lawman (John Russell), and The Alaskans (Ray Danton), along with other notable Warner contract players Andra Martin, Claude Akins, Rhodes Reason and Gary Vinson.

Burt Kennedy’s screenplay is based on a novel by Heck Allen, using his pen name Clay Fisher as in the film credits, which in turn was based on the real-life character Luther Sage ‘Yellowstone’ Kelly (July 27, 1849 – December 17, 1928), the American soldier, hunter, scout, adventurer and administrator.

Filming took place from April to June 1959, in part on location in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Edd Byrnes, a sudden teen sensation TV star as Kookie on 77 Sunset Strip, complained: ‘I felt miserable and lost ten pounds in one month.’

Byrnes and Martin also star in Gordon Douglas’s Up Periscope (1959).

The film was to have been directed by John Ford with star John Wayne, but they decided to make The Horse Soldiers instead.

Edward Byrne Breitenberger (July 30, 1932 – January 8, 2020) was known professionally as Edd Byrnes. In 1958 he was cast as contract killer Kenneth (Kookie) Smiley who continually combed his hair in Girl on the Run, a pilot for a detective show starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. It was so popular Warner Bros turned it into the TV series 77 Sunset Strip and transformed Kookie from a hitman into a Dino’s Lodge parking valet who helped as a private investigator. Zimbalist Jr explained: ‘We’ll just forget that in the pilot he went off to prison to be executed.’

The cast are Clint Walker as Luther Yellowstone Kelly, Edd Byrnes as Anse Harper, John Russell as Sioux Chief Gall, Ray Danton as Gall’s nephew Sayapi,  Claude Akins as Sergeant, Rhodes Reason as Major Towns, Andra Martin as Sayapi’s Arapaho captive Wahleeah, Gary Vinson as Lieutenant, Warren Oates as Corporal, Nesdon Booth and Harry Shannon.

Yellowstone Kelly runs 92 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, and is shot in Technicolor by Howard Jackson.

Release date November 11, 1959 (New York City).

 © Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8,326

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