Only the Valiant

1951 "GREGORY PECK, AS CAPTAIN LANCE, WHO GAVE FORT INVINCIBLE ITS NAME!"
6.5| 1h45m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 13 April 1951 Released
Producted By: William Cagney Productions
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Only the Valiant, a classic western adventure, based on a novel by Charles Marquis Warren, the film tells the story of a Cavalry officer who volunteers for a suicidal mission to fight the hostile Apaches in an effort to prove his loyalty to his men and the woman he loves.

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William Cagney Productions

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Reviews

Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever
Cortechba Overrated
Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review
Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
HotToastyRag Only the Valiant falls into the category of "typical western". I don't have anything against westerns, but the ones I like have more substance than just "Cowboys versus Indians". Unfortunately, even with an interesting premise, the movie doesn't really explore much more than the game played by millions of little boys.Gregory Peck is involved in a love triangle. He loves Barbara Peyton, but so does Gig Young, and while both men are in the army, Gig Young is much better liked by the other troops and officers. Greg is signed up for a dangerous assignment, but at the last minute, his superior officer orders him to tell Gig Young to take his place. Gig is killed, and everyone holds Greg responsible, thinking he made the switch on purpose. He's sent to another dangerous battle with Indians, a battle he has to win to prove himself to the town, and to Barbara Peyton.Sounds interesting, right? I thought so, but once Greg gets sent to battle, I got pretty bored pretty fast. If you find cowboys and Indians fights riveting, you might like the rest of the movie better than I did, but for a good Gregory Peck western, I'll watch The Big Country.
alsumrall2001 This film was one of the worst waste of good actors that I have ever seen. A terrible movie, about as amateurish as they come, something you might have seen on TV in the late fifties early sixties, terrible script, some great/good actors Peck, Bond, Brand, Young and a few others with no decent lines nor character development and some lousy actors that should never have gotten lines. The directing was slovenly at best, the set was just awful, looked like something out of star trek....oh heck, it had no redeeming features. For anyone to say this film is even mediocre they much have been as drunk as Ward Bond pretended to be. I have seen worse movies but not with so many good actors time totally wasted. This film must have been done as a favor to someone who thought they could write/make a movie...a case of the actors being forced by contract into something hideous. Put it in the trash. I was relieved to read that Peck said it was his least favorite film.
Tweekums When Captain Richard Lance arrives are Fort Invincible he discovers the site of a massacre; every man stationed there is dead. There are still some of the Apaches who attacked present ransacking the site; one of them is Chief Tucsos. He captures the chief but his man want him killed believing that if he is dead his men will move on but if he is alive they will do whatever they can to rescue him. Lance accepts that this might be so but his orders are clear; he won't kill a man once he has been taken prisoner. The return to their own fort and Lance is ordered to arrange for the prisoner to be sent to another fort further away; he takes the mission himself but is ordered to stand down as the colonel thinks he is needed there. The man sent instead is his friend and rival for the affections of a woman at the fort; it is assumed he organised the replacement himself to get rid of a rival and when the detail is ambushed everybody blames him for the death of his friend. Now Tucsos is free it is only a matter of days before he attacks; in order to protect the fort Lance volunteers to take a small group of men back to Invincible to keep the Apaches pinned down as they try to come through a narrow pass that is the only way through the mountains. The men he selects to go with him aren't the best in the fort; they are the worst; they weren't selected because he thought they had hidden courage but because they would be the least missed when the Apaches broke through and attacked the main fort!This western isn't a classic but it is entertaining. Rather than the wide open expanses of the open plains the action mostly takes place within the confines of the wrecked fort and in the narrow pass the men seek to block; this gives the film a rather claustrophobic feel. This is increased by the fact that the band of malcontents Lance selected are potentially as dangerous to him as the Apaches they are meant to be fighting. The group includes a drunken corporal, a bullying sergeant bitter that he never received a commission, a coward, a deserter and an Arab trooper who has already attacked Lance once before! I rather liked the fact that these men didn't all turn out to be heroes after all; some of them did but others remained true to their base character throughout. Gregory Peck puts in a solid performance as the by-the-book Captain Lance and the rest of the cast are entertaining; especially Ward Bond who played the drunken Cpl. Gilchrist. The only character I was unsure about was Trooper Kebussyan; this portrayal as a somewhat crazed Arab, always referred to as Ay-rab, would be considered racist in a more modern film. The conclusion features one of the oldest clichés in the genre but it can be forgiven as it was fairly exciting. Overall this was a decent western and while it is not a must see it is worth watching if you get the chance.
alexandre michel liberman (tmwest) Gregory Peck and Gig Young are competing for the same girl and after Peck sends Young on a very dangerous mission, they blame him for his reasons. Feeling guilty, Peck goes on an almost impossible task of defending a fort, where they are outnumbered by the Indians. Peck chooses for this mission soldiers which he considers to be the scum of the earth and the actors that play these soldiers, Ward Bond, Lon Chaney Jr., Neville Brand among others, are excellent. The script is derived from a novel by Charles Marquis Warren who was a specialist in westerns, as a writer, director and producer. The idea of using this type of men as heroes inspired many films that came out later including "The Dirty Dozen" made in 1967.