A Thunder of Drums (1961)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

best movie i've ever seen.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

About the same time a cavalry lieutenant by the name of "Curtis McQuade" (George Hamilton) arrives at his new post in the desert a band of renegade Indians begin terrorizing the inhabitants of the area. But nobody knows for sure if these Indians are Comanche or Apache and until that question is answered any solution to the problem cannot be undertaken. But that isn't the only problem at this fort as Lt. McQuade also runs into his former girlfriend, "Tracey Hamilton" (Luana Patten) who just happens to be engaged to a fellow officer named "Lt. Thomas Gresham" (James Douglas). To further complicate matters, the commanding officer "Captain Stephen Maddocks" (Richard Boone) doesn't particularly care for Lt. McQuade and lets him know it right away. Anyway, rather than disclose the story and risk spoiling the film for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a pretty good western movie which tended to depict life at a frontier post in a less than favorable light. Although a couple of the actors could have used more screen time I liked the addition of Charles Bronson (as "Trooper Hanna"), Richard Chamberlain ("Lt. Porter"), and Arthur O'Connell ("1Sgt Karl Rodermill") along with the aforementioned George Hamilton and Richard Boone. In any case, I enjoyed this movie and rate it as slightly above average.

..Bachelors make the best soldiers, all they have to lose is their loneliness.A Thunder of Drums is directed by Joseph Newman and written by James Warner Bellah. It stars Richard Boone, George Hamilton, Luana Pattern, Arthur O'Connell, Charles Bronson, Richard Chamberlain, Duane Eddy and Slim Pickens. Out of MGM it's filmed on location at Old Tuscon & Sabino Canyon in Arizona, and also at Vasquez Rocks, California. It's filmed in CinemaScope and Metrocolor, with cinematography by William W. Spencer and music scored by Harry Sukman."There are three things a man can do to relieve the boredom of these lonely one troop posts: He can drink himself into a straight-jacket: He can get his throat cut chasing squaws: Or he can dedicate himself to the bleak monastic life of a soldier and become a great officer."It's proved to be a divisive film amongst Western aficionados, and it's not hard to understand why. The film begins with a pre credit sequence of suggested savagery, a real attention grabber, then the credits role and the colour and vistas open up the story. From here we are placed into the lonely and fretful life at a cavalry fort in the Southwest. The company consists of tough grizzled Captain Maddocks (Boone) who carries around a burden from his past, his ire further inflamed by the arrival of greenhorn Lt. Curtis McQuade (Hamilton). He needs experienced men, not fresh faced kids, and McQuade isn't helping himself by being involved in a love triangle with Lt. Thomas Gresham's (James Douglas) lady, Tracey Hamilton (Patten). This coupled with the threat imposed by the Indians puts strain on all involved at Fort Canby. And there's the crux of the matter, the film is more interested with character dynamics than breaking out into an action packed B ranked Western.Newcomers to the film should prepare for a talky picture, but it is a very good talky picture. Sure there's action, including a well staged battle in the final quarter (check out those Apache suddenly appearing from the rocks like ghosts!), but this is a film that is being propelled by dialogue, well written dialogue. There is no point in saying that it's well cast because it isn't, Boone is immense and intense and gets the best dialogue of all, but Hamilton is miscast and Patten totally unconvincing. Pickens is hardly in it and Bronson has a character that could be any number of things; someone who it's hard to know if we should dislike or cheer on. While Chamberlain and Eddy are in it to look nice and play the banjo respectively. Yet with the photography suitably keeping the landscape arid and harsh, and the mood around the base one of impending death or boredom (even the levity of a drunken sequence only enforces what little joy is around), the film has much going for it by way of psychology.It's no "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" of course, and its problems are evident, but it does have merits, and if for nothing else it deserves a look for Boone's excellent performance. 7/10

Very fine western from the days when MGM ruled Hollywood. It was the premier studio in Hollywood with a great staff of technical professionals and a group of young contract players all of whom would reach stardom, some super stardom: George Peppard, Paula Prentiss, Richard Chamberlain, Yvette Mimieux, George Hamilton, Linda Evans. Jim Hutton, Dolores Hart ( who would become a cloistered nun!) and Luana Patten. et al MGM also had the best and biggest back lot in the Industry and instead of making it a money making venture as Universal did with its back lot, MGM sold the back lot to real estate developers!George Hamilton and Luana Patten of the MGM stock company join Richard Boone in this great tough western. Richard Chamberlain has a small pivotal role but soon would become very famous as Dr. Kildare and reap in more fan mail per week -15,000 letters-than Clark Gable did at his peak at MGM! Richard Chamberlain for a few years was MGM's biggest star.See this movie and enjoy a scenic western with a fine cast.

George Hamilton is an inexperienced lieutenant in the cavalry (!) newly assigned to a post under the command of the somewhat unkempt, but very savvy Captain Richard Boone. Hamilton was born in Comanche territory but is the son of a general and has spent some years in a comfortable post back East. He thinks he knows everything and is anxious to fight.He discovers that his former love, Luana Patton, is about to marry another officer. There are intrigues, involving Hamilton's making out with Patton behind her fiancé's back, and an attempt at blackmail by the uncouth Private Charles Bronson. Others in this pretty good cast include Arthur O'Connell, Slim Pickens, a young Richard Chamberlain, and Casey Tibbs, who may need Googling by those who have never heard of rodeos.There's a good deal of talk, interrupted by action episodes of some interest, and the dialog has the ring of authenticity. A cavalry patrol discovers two women raped and butchered by Indians, and an officer gives the order for "three married men" to dress the women for burial. When the three dismount they are ordered to hand the reins of their horses to the man to the right of them. That's a nicely observed detail. So is the fact that an unpleasant odor accompanies the transport of four dead bodies.Richard Boone, as the commanding officer, knows his business but he's stern and distant too. Nobody really gets close to him without being addressed as "Mister" and formally reprimanded for some minor infraction. Is this beginning to sound a little familiar? One of the sayings attributed to Boone is "never apologize, it's a sign of weakness." Honest.The similarities stem from the fact that the story was written by James Warner Bellah, a pulp writer who also produced the stories for John Ford's "Fort Apache," "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon," and "Rio Grande." James Warner Bellah was a neat writer, with a good deal of military experience behind him. His weakness as a writer was Manicheanism. The white cavalry, whatever its internal conflicts, is superior in every respect to the treacherous and faceless American Indians. It's really a retrograde assumption and has nothing to do with political correctness. The guy was a talented racist. On top of that, the officer corps is superior to the enlisted soldiers who live only to collect their pay and immediately get drunk and pass out.It wouldn't have taken much skill to turn this story into an involving saga of life in a cavalry outpost, with all its tribulations and its little rewards, to show some affection for the community. John Ford was able to do it -- three times. But director Joseph M. Newman opts to forget about a balanced, adult approach and hew to Bellah's dry and severe outline. It's all rather carelessly executed. All the officers except Boone have carefully styled and gelled hair. George Hamilton removes his cavalry hat and his hair is STILL flawlessly laid out across his scalp! The performances are all professional and the basic plot is interesting. It's too bad that so little imagination was invested in its execution. The absence of poetry is pretty nearly startling. What we wind up with is a talky picture about people we don't really care much about.