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This reminds me of the Apache attack in Taza, Son of Cochise (1954) near the beginning of the movie that sets of the chain of events. I think that Taza, Son of Cochise (1954) was made in 3D so many scenes had vivid motions to take full advantage of the 3D.
Kebussyan sounds exactly Armenian to me. I assume it means "son of Kebuss".
I read the original novel Only the Valiant by Charles Marquis Warren long ago, and as I remember Kebussyan was Armenian. The soldiers couldn't find a country named Armenia in the atlas and so decided that Kebussyan was a "mad A-rab" instead. I remember a scene where Kebussyan remembered surviving some sort of massacre in the old country, though the fictiional date was probably before the first Armenian Genocide. I forget the fictional date, if any, of the novel.
The fictional date of the movie is also uncertain. I have read mentions of a rebel character meaning the date would have to be in or after 1861, and the Gatling gun means it should be in or after 1864 when the Gatling gun was invented. So if Kebussyan was an adult Janissary in 1823 he should be ready for the Old Soldiers Home even if the movie happens at the earliest possible date.
But if you want to write your own stories about a fictional character who becomes a Janissary, a French Foreign legionary, a US camel corps driver, and then a US cavalryman involved in a suicide mission, go ahead. Maybe he will turn out to be as famous as Flashman.
Kebussian was too young in the Indian Wars era to be a former Janissary. In the original novel by Charles Marquis Warren he was an Armenian but the soldiers all called him an "A-rab" because they couldn't find a country named Armenia in the atlas. And he did have memories of some sort of massacre in the old country, even though I think the Armenian Genocide started after the fictional date of the novel.
Do you think that Pierce stole Jackson's ranch and then left it to Jackson in his will?
When Jackson wen to prison, he couldn't pay taxes on his ranch and the sherriff seized it and sold it in a sherriff's sale. Pierce made the highest bid since he knew that there was gold. Thus Pierce was the legal owner of the ranch. The ranch/mine passed to his legal heir(s), mentioned in his will or else to his natural heirs if he died intestate. Jackson's small amount of stolen gold was not enough to buy back his ranch with a gold mine on it.
Anyway, Jackson was suspected of robbery and murder and he and Lomax were killed in a gunfight with the posse chasing Jackson.
The kid got drunk and was swindled out of most of his money. He sobered up and killed the swindler, and was hung for murder. His girlfriend hadn't married him in time and didn't get his money, but was able to get by with her share.
The Kiowa band was suspected of involvement in the robbery and tracked by the army who attacked them several times. The Kiowas raided lonely ranches and travelers. Before the war ended many people were killed, including women and children.
I see Daw Jackson as the bad guy.
As far as we know Pierce is only guilty of one attempted murder, one murder (whoever Jackson was framed for killing), obstructing justice, etc. at the beginning of the movie before Daw Jackson comes into town. Some of Pierce's gunmen discuss murdering Daw Jackson, but he has many more who are not in those scenes. It is quite possible that many of Pierce's guards are honest men who think that they are working for an honest man guarding gold shipments.
For greed and revenge Daw Jackson started a gun battle in which he could expect that a number of persons would be killed. A person who commits a crime like robbery is guilty of murdering all the people who die during that crime.
What is the vilest of crimes that the most evil villains in many old westerns do? Starting an Indian war for the purpose of financial gain. Daw Jackson, for reasons of financial gain, got a Kiowa band involved in a robbery and shootout, thus risking starting a war with the Kiowas, in which tens or hundreds of people, including women and children, could be killed.
Apache Rifles (1964) is considered to be a remake of Indian Uprising (1952). The characters are renamed but very little of the the plot is changed.
If you watched the movies in order of their fictional dates you would watch Apache Rifles (1964) with a fictional date of 1879, before Indian Uprising (1952) with a fictional date of 1885, and think that Indian Uprising was the copycat.
Note: Victorio, Chief of the Mescalero Apaches, is killed in Arizona in 1879 in Apache Rifles (1964) and succeeded by his son Red Hawk, and Victorio, Chief of the Mescalero Apaches, is killed in New Mexico in 1880 in Apache Drums (1951).
The Command (1954) had a military unit and civilian wagon train menaced by a vast horde of hostile Indians including Arapaho and Cheyenne (quite reasonable as hostiles), Fox, Sac, and Omaha or Otoe, not so reasonable as hostiles unless news of Custer's recent defeat has convinced them that The Sioux will drive all Americans out of the Plains, and Pawnees.
Other movies that depict or mention hostile Pawnees include Pawnee (1957), the Raiders (1963), Little Big Man (1970), and Dances with Wolves (1990).
I just saw The Command (1954) about 10-13-2017. Company D of the Seventh Cavalry is returning to fictional Fort Stark somewhere on the plains, and at the fictional town of Cashman's encounters infantry under Colonel Janeway, who orders them to accompany his soldiers and the civilian wagon train he is escorting through dangerous Indian lands to the fictional Paradise River, where the troops will join General Cook's command and the civilians will on to their destination I guess.
Eventually a vast horde of hostiles follows The Command, launching attacks at will. The hostiles are greatly encouraged by news of the recent Battle of little Bighorn, putting The Command in July or August 1876, I guess, and it looks like the protagonists will reach Paradise instead of Paradise River.
The hostiles include Arapaho and Cheyenne, long time allies by 1876 and also allied to such often hostile tribes as the Sioux, the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache. All these tribes were often hostile to the US. The hostiles also included Fox and Sac, two tribes that merged to form the Sac and Fox Nation long before 1876, and either the Omaha or the Otoe, I couldn't hear exactly. It doesn't make much sense for Fox, Sac, and Omaha or Otoe to go on the warpath in 1876, unless the Little Bighorn has convinced them the Sioux will win and drive Americans off the Plains.
And the 6th hostile group mentioned is the Pawnee. When Janeway hears that he says that Pawnees can't be that far west, not that Pawnees are valuable allies of the USA.
So The Command is another movie Pawnees would Sioux if they could.
I watched it again 10-13-2017 and Colonel Janeway said they were marching to the Paradise River to join the command of a General named - it sounded more like Cook than Crook or Hook.
It was mentioned that the Indians - Arapaho, Cheyenne, Fox, Sac, Otoe, and Pawnees, I think, were emboldened by news of Custer's Last Stand. So the Command is yet another movie that slanders the Pawnees by depicting them as ferocious warriors fighting against the US instead of ferocious warriors fighting for the US.
Reasons of plot.
The Tall Men is based on a novel by Heck Allen/Clay Fisher. Presumably the novel set the date in 1866, and made the Allison brothers veterans of the Civil War, and had them foolishly decide to drive the cattle along the Bozeman Trail during Red Cloud's War instead of taking the safer Bridger Trail. "Real men don't use the Bridger Trail" I guess.
I think that it is more historically accurate to give the date of 1866 to a movie set during Red Cloud's War and use anachronistic guns than to give the date of say, 1874 to that movie and use correct 1874 guns and anachronistically have Red Cloud's War happen during a time of peace.
In The Savage (1952) Corporal Martin says he joined the army more than 20 years earlier during the Civil War, thus putting the date in or after the period 1881 to 1885. James Aherne was 11 when he was adopted by Miniconjou Sioux chief Yellow Eagle in 1868, and thus would have been about 18 to 20 and old enough to fight as a warrior during the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. But everyone asks him if he will fight against the white men in the coming war. So either the Great Sioux War happened in The Savage but James Aherne was too sick or injured to fight and so nobody knows how he would choose, or else the Great Sioux War never happened, which would explain why the Sioux seem undefeated in The Savage (1952).
Thus I think that The Tall Men was more historically accurate than The Savage which puts peace when there was war and war when there was peace.
Supply and demand. Texas had a surplus of cattle for sale, the new mining towns in Montana needed beef and didn't have any nearby ranches yet.
Their plan wasn't to take Texas cattle to sell in the Chicago market, it was to take Texas cattle to sell in the Montana market, possibly because the plan was the idea of a Montana businessman and not a Texan or a Chicagoan.
In 1866 the Union Pacific was still building in Nebraska. Of course that was straight north of Texas. Another way to get cattle to railroads would be to herd them east to a station in Louisiana and take various railroads to reach the station closest to Montana, and then herd them the rest of the way to Montana. That would save a lot of time but would cost a lot of money in railroad fees.
I think that dalehoustman has the dates for Miles City, Montana, incorrect. Miles City, Montana was in the unceded Sioux hunting territory according to the Treaty of Laramie of 1868 - white men who entered without Sioux permission ran the risk of being hunted by the Sioux. The unceded hunting grounds were ceded to the US at the end of the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877.
Anyone who knows the dates of the major Indian Wars knows that nobody would build a town where Miles City is until 1877.
After Custer's Last Stand on 25 June 1876, The Fifth Infantry under Nelson A. Miles was sent to eastern Montana and stationed where the Tongue River flows into the Yellowstone River on August 27. The new post was named Fort Keogh 8 November 1878. Note - as early as 1879 Miles demonstrated the Fort Keogh telephone system to visiting Sioux.
Miles City was established near Fort Keogh to supply the soldiers in the spring of 1877. After the railroad came to Miles City in the 1880s it became a destination for cattle drives. Wikipedia says:
"Livestock speculation brought thousands of cattle to the open ranges in the late 1880s, the railroad was extended through the area, and Texas drove numerous cattle to Miles City to fatten them on free grass and move them to where they could be loaded on trains bound for the slaughterhouses in Chicago."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_City,_Montana
I don't know how sensible it was to drive Texas cattle past stations on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad and on the Union Pacific railroad to reach Miles City on the Northern Pacific Railroad, but maybe lower Northern Pacific prices and free grass around Miles City made it worthwhile.
In short, cattle drives to Miles City Montana had to start after 1877 instead of ending in 1871.
When he reached the region he helped the women defend (tough luck other Texan regions) Hewitt said the Sand Creek Massacre was 2 weeks ago, implying the date was about December 13, 1864, give or take a few days.
So he rode a long time, though possibly not long enough to travel the distance from Sand Creek in Colorado. If Hewitt rode in a straight line 20 to 40 miles a day for 11 to 17 days he would ride 220 to 680 miles.
The men in the general store were in Jonesboro, I think, on the border of Texas according to the onscreen title, and Hewitt rode on from there to his home region.
By the way, in real life there were no old missions in north Texas, they were all in south or middle Texas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_missions_in_Texas#/media/File:Spanish_Missions_in_Texas.JPG
So obviously in real life Hewitt could not possibly have stopped and stayed to fight in a town like Jonesboro on the border of Texas if he was travelling to a region with an old abandoned Spanish mission.
"The scene in which him is shot in his hand (Cowardly), is the cruelest thing
I ever saw in a Western of this kind.
And I've seen many....."
"t wasn't very nice. I hate to say it but I'm surprised they let a white guy do it. I'm surprised someone this bad wasn't made into someone south of the border or native?"
So I guess you wouldn't approve of scenes in historical epic films like The Vikings (1958) and Taras Bulba (1962) or a children's book like Otto of the Silver Hand.
Laramie, Wyoming was founded in the mid 1860s. Fort Laramie, Wyoming was a US army post from 1849 to 1890. Thus the confusion over which Laramie Lockhart comes from would have been plausible for about 25 years.
Will Lockhart wishes his teamsters good luck returning to Laramie when he pays them off, and when he corners the villain at the end Lockhart says he came a thousand miles to kill him.
But it would not have been logical to transport goods from either Laramie to a town in New Mexico. Before, during, and after the Civil War, goods from Independence, Missouri were transported to Santa Fe, New Mexico along the Santa Fe Trail. In the 1860s and 1870s the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad moved west in Kansas and Colorado, shortening the Santa Fe Trail. The AT&SF reached Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1880, and from then on a town in New Mexico would have been only one or two hundred miles from the nearest railroad station.
So this seems to put The Man From Laramie in or before 1880, or maybe in an alternate universe where the Santa Fe Trail started from Laramie, Wyoming instead of from Independence, Missouri, and there was a Union Pacific railroad but not an Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad, and it was thus normal for freighters to haul cargo from Laramie to villages in New Mexico.
I believe that Charley O'Leary, the half Irish half Apache friend of Will Lockhart, says he will go north to Apache country to find out what is up with the local Apaches who have been on the warpath lately.
Since Coronado is supposed to be in New Mexico, the Apaches to the north should be the Jicarilla Apaches who lived in northern New Mexico. But the Jicarilla War was in 1849-1855. I don't know about later Jicarilla hostilities. Thus it seems hard to fit the look and apparent era of The Man From Laramie with the era when hostile Apaches could be found to the north in New Mexico.
The opening titles say The Man From Laramie was shot in New Mexico. They don't say that the story happens there. If the movie does not says that Coronado is in New Mexico, then it could be in southern Arizona with several Apache tribes living north of Coronado. In real history there were Apache wars, uprisings, and outbreaks on and off from about 1860 to 1886. Thus if The Man From Laramie does not say that Coronado is in New Mexico then it could happen more or less in the 1860s to 1880s - in real life more or less.
But of course a movie set more or less in the wild west instead of real history could have Apache wars and uprisings at times that were peaceful in real history.
Those who complain should remember that when people started using middle names, some were personal names and some were family names, usually those of related families. Thus middle names are a mix of personal and family names.
And family names used as middle names began to be used as personal names, perhaps by people who assumed that all middle names must be personal names. And any particular family name used as a middle name and then a first name could be used by either males and females and sometimes by both. Thus there are a lot of names used equally often by both males and females.
Michael is not one of those names, but the balance between male use and female use can shift in about three hundred years.
Some future parents naming a baby daughter Michael doesn't seem any odder than Clyde and Mary Morrison naming their baby son Marion Robert (1907-1979) or James and Sarah Hogg naming Their baby daughter Ima (1882-1975).
So you think that an early scene in this movie, Buffalo Bill (1944) Twentieth Century Fox, with Indians burning a cabin, is actually taken from Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) Twentieth Century Fox?
That wouldn't surprise me, considering that the big battle scene in this movie, Buffalo Bill (1944) Twentieth Century Fox, was reused in Pony Soldier (1952) Twentieth Century Fox, The Siege at Red River (1954) Panoramic Productions, The Gun That Won the West (1955) Columbia, Pawnee (1957) Republic Pictures, and the "Massacre" episode of The Time Tunnel (1966-67) 20th Century Fox Television, if I remember correctly.
As I remember the "Massacre" episode of The Time Tunnel reused several scenes of Indians from earlier movies - some possibly from this movie - as well as a scene of cavalry marching from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) Argosy Pictures, and the big battle scene from this movie, Buffalo Bill (1944) Twentieth Century Fox, as well as a scene of cavalry marching from a movie I didn't recognized and a scene of cavalry charging among saguaro cacti from a movie I didn't recognize.
I believe that it was quite common for movies and TV shows to use scenes from earlier movies and TV shows and there were companies that were more or less brokers for the reuse of movie scenes in new movies.
I just saw The Time Tunnel episode "Massacre" again 10-08-17 and at the end when they showed Reno's valley charge they used a clip of cavalry lined up among saguaro cacti from The Guns of Fort Petticoat, then a close shot of John Pickard, the actor who played Reno, drawing his saber, then another shot of the cavalry starting to charge from the Guns of Fort Petticoat, and then part of the big battle scene from Buffalo Bill (1944).
September 4 2018. When the Cheyenne go on the warpath in the first Cheyenne war in Buffalo Bill (1944) they attack camps of Western Union telegraph employees - one of the wagons is marked Western Union - and that scene should be from Western Union (1941) 20th century Fox.
Being a scientific type of person, I find it amusing that some people write as though James Arness the person was as indestructible in real life as Matt Dillon, or that every character played by James Arness should be similar to Matt Dillon.
Acting is acting, pretending to be someone you're not, someone whose personality may be anywhere between zero percent and one hundred percent similar to your real personality.
Michael Pate was not a fierce but honorable Apache chief. He often portrayed Indians, including Sioux leaders Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, but in The Seventh Cavalry he was Captain Benteen. He was on different sides at the Little Big Horn in different movies and tv shows.
Did Lee Aaker know how to swim? It probably didn't matter. The casting person probably considered that it would be easy for the director to shoot the swimming scene without any danger of the kid drowning. The scene has a shot where Lee or his double is picked up and thrown in the water, a shot where he or his double is thrashing around, and a shot where he or his double is paddling toward the other shore, and we never see how deep the water is.
As a fan of science fiction movies, I tend to think of James Arness as the guy in Them! or as The Thing from Another World, and consider Matt Dillon an unusual role for him!
After the Fetterman massacre on 21 December 1866 the garrison at Fort Phil Kearney prepared for a possible Sioux attack on the fort. The wagons were arranged in a circle on the parade ground as a second line of defense if the Sioux got over or through the palisade. The powder magazine was inside the circle and it was arranged that the women and children would enter the powder magazine during an attack and a fuse was prepared so General Carrington could explode it at the last if the fort was overrun.
I believe this was mentioned in the books written by Carrington's wives who were both in the fort at the time.