Bugles in the Afternoon (1952)

Guns, Arrows, Bugles and Revenge.

Bugles in the Afternoon is directed by Roy Rowland and adapted to screenplay by Daniel Mainaring and Harry Brown from the Ernest Haycox novel. It stars Ray Milland, Helena Carter, Hugh Marlowe, Forrest Tucker, Barton Maclane and George Reeves. A Technicolor production with music by Dimitri Tiomkin and cinematography by Wilfred M. Cline.

Solid enjoyable fare that doesn’t push any boundaries. Story finds Milland as Kern Shafter, a cavalryman cashiered out the service for running through Edward Garnett (Marlowe). After drifting for a while, Shafter ends up at Bismarck and joins the Seventh Cavalry at Fort Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately, his new superior is none other than Captain Edward Garnett! As the two men vie for the same woman, Josephine Russell (Carter), Garnett continually puts Shafter into perilous situations as the Indian War rages. With the arrival of Custer (Sheb Wooley) to lead the men for an attack on the Sioux at Little Big Horn, Garnett and Shafter will each find their day of destiny.

It’s all very colourful and muscular, with well staged fights and nifty stunt work. The love triangle core of the story doesn’t grate or swamp the film in pointless mush, however, it seems strange to have the massacre at Little Big Horn in your story, yet only have it as a minor side issue to a couple of guys feuding with each other. Milland and Tucker, the latter as an Irish Private who befriends Shafter and welcomes pain as a test of manhood, both score well with engaging turns, while Carter also does good work with what could easily have been a token girl in the middle role. Location photography in Kanab is delightful (Cline would prove to be a dab hand in Westerns for the rest of the decade), and Tiomkin scores the music with verve and vigour.

There’s some stereotyping of the Indians, and this even though there are some real Native Americans in the cast, while Marlowe is done no favours as his villainy is poorly written, but a better than average time waster this proves to be on a wintry afternoon by the fire. 6.5/10

Ray Milland ("Shafter") is cashiered out of the military after an altercation with "Garnett" (Hugh Marlowe) but struggles with civilian life, so re-enlists with a frontier regiment. At his new posting, he discovers that it is not just the marauding Sioux he has to worry about; his nemesis is also at the same fort, and outranks him. It doesn't help their openly displayed animosity, that both fancy the same - from what I could see, only - gal "Josephine" (Helena Carter). It seems that "Shafter" has a shred of decency to him, but the same cannot be said for "Garnett" and with Indian attacks looming, and the Battle of the Little Big Horn only round the corner, the story is riddled with peril both in front and behind his back. This is a competently produced western adventure with loads of action, a minimum of romance and plenty of duplicity from the really rather unlikeable Marlowe. The ending feels a bit hurried, but Milland is on decent form and director Roy Rowland focuses on keeping the story on track well enough. Not great, no - but I did quite enjoy it.