Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 1956 by Universal. New York opening at the Palace: 7 September 1956. U.S. release: 1 September 1956. U.K. release: 3 September 1956. Australian release: 1 November 1956. Sydney opening on a double bill at the Capitol (ran one week). 7,925 feet. 88 minutes.SYNOPSIS: John Philip Clum is appointed Indian Agent at the San Carlos Apache Reservation, where he finds the Army using violent means to suppress the Indians. Clum asserts his authority to help the Apaches, thus earning the displeasure of the people of Tucson. In gratitude, the Indians send Tianay to keep house for him. This arouses the jealousy of Clum's fiancée, Mary Dennison. COMMENT: In the present=day climate of racial tolerance, integration and understanding, it's a big surprise that this screen biography of a true-life Indian agent who blazed this particular trail, is not constantly revived. Admittedly, next to its patent earnestness, the picture's main virtue is its expansive CinemaScope location cinematography. However, regard for a movie's artistic scope has never stopped TV managers dead in their tracks before. So why now? Maybe the film lacks excitement. That it does, though those who decry Hollywood for distorting reality will certainly have cause to rejoice in this exception. No doubt the nagging wife is pretty close to the essence of what really happened too.It's a pity that the direction of this worthy script should be so flatly pedestrian. Less than talented directors like Jesse Hibbs (former football star) welcomed CinemaScope because it relieved them of the burden of having to think in terms of visual excitement. Now simply the scope itself is the thing. No dramatic compositions, no effective cutting, no pointed camera movement necessary. No need to draw fine performances either, because for most of the time the actors are lost in the landscape. When studio scenes take over, why that's a good time for patrons to duck out to the candy bar. Unless of course you're such a rabid fan of Audie Murphy, you don't care a fig what long speeches he gets off his chest, or how stiffly he stands, just so long as his magnified pudgy face is right up there in front of you!

NewEnglandPat This is a western that should have been better than it was, considering the fine cast and production values that went into the making of the film. Picture is about an Indian agent John Clum's efforts to have reservation Apaches police themselves and the surrender of Geronimo are the picture's highlights. There are the usual animosities between soldiers and Indians, and the agent's clashes with the military's preference to disarm the Apache police creates further tensions. An unnecessary sub-plot has an Apache widow smitten with Clum, who is already married. Audie Murphy was perfect for this kind of role and is good, as is the supporting cast. The movie was filmed in colorful wide screen CinemaScope which captures the beauty of western vistas.

bkoganbing In the various tellings of the tale of the OK Corral, the name John Clum comes up as a peripheral character. At that point in his life he was Mayor of Tombstone, Arizona and founder and editor of the Tombstone Epitaph which was in editorial support of the Earp brothers. But before that John Clum was an Indian agent, sent to the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona to reform the corrupt practices regarding same. Audie Murphy plays an eager and honest Clum in this film.The poor Indians were caught between a rock and a hard place. Either it was the army who was going to govern them or as was argued the civilian Interior Department. Clum has some interesting and novel ideas about giving the Apaches a large measure of self government. But the real story of Clum is hardly touched on. He stands out simply because he was honest. Sad to say Indian agents for the most part were hack politicians from the political machines back east. Whether they were hired by the War Department or the Interior Department, a lot of them robbed the poor Indians blind. Right at this time, one of the most notorious scandals of the Grant Administration was the Whiskey Ring which involved various trading posts and reached right up to the Secretary of War, a gentleman named William Belknap who resigned before he was impeached.Murphy gets able support from two leading ladies, pretty and perky Pat Crowley who plays his eastern fiancé and Anne Bancroft who is the spectacularly beautiful Indian widow who's crushing out on him. Jay Silverheels who played Geronimo in Broken Arrow, plays him again in Walk the Proud Land. Charles Drake plays the former army sergeant who hires on as a blacksmith at the San Carlos Reservation and becomes Murphy's best pal and confidante.Walk the Proud Land is one of the few western films to have a choreographer in the person of Tommy Rall. Rall, a well known Broadway dancer, plays a young Indian warrior who becomes Murphy's friend. There is a lengthy sequence involving the Apaches entertaining some white VIPs at Murphy's wedding to Crowley with some tribal dances. A nice mix between the real deal and what you might see in Rose Marie's Totem Tom Tom number.Walk the Proud Land is definitely one of Audie Murphy's better westerns for Universal and a nice tribute to a real western figure.

Milbourne Whitt Saw this movie years ago and recently taped it for my collection as a worthwhile Western movie. It took me a long time to catch on that this was the same John P. Clum that you hear mentioned in the many, many TV shows and movies in all western movies relating to Wyatt Earp, as Editor of the Tombstone Epitaph. I think I can name about 10, starting with Richard Dix "The Town Too Tough to Die" about 1939. John Clum must have been a very intelligent man to be chosen as an Indian agent, and then later have the ability to run a newspaper in Tombstone. The end of the movie gave the impression, after the old Indian Chief had a talk with him, that he might stay but he did not. We were not told the year this Agent was active at San Carlos, but we know Clum was established in Tombstone by 1880, so there is nothing on his life in between. Clum made history when he wrote of the Gunfight at the OK Corral on October 27, 1881. Copies of the original newspaper can still be purchased in Tombstone. I got mine Oct 2001 on a trip, and some extras for my old fogy buddies who still play "cowboys".