Fort Dobbs (1958)

recommended

Better Late Then Never

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

I do not enjoy rating anything with a number.It somehow,cheapens what one has to say about something so close to the heart as a film that moves a grown man to actually stop and write about his feelings.Fort Dobbs is "an experience."The film must be seen in quiet surroundings,meaning no distractions.You can read a summation anywhere,but like anything of quality, this movie,owned by TBS,is impossible to find.Clint Walker Is the story and Brian Keith/Virginia Mayo are along for the ride.Moab,Utah provides the backdrop and only THE TALL T comes close.I do not know why Clint Walker was not a megastar,but perhaps politics was the reason.Ken Curtis,a fine Western Actor married John Ford's daughter,I believe?

I think Clint Walker (or his agent) had thoughts of being the next John Wayne. This movie is very similar to "Hondo" 1953 which starred John Wayne. Stranger with a past shows up at a farmhouse occupied by a woman and her son, but the husband is missing. Stranger is attracted to woman and becomes a surrogate dad for the son.The writing in this movie is not as good as in "Hondo", which had moments of pure poetry.There's no romance between Walker and Mayo; Walker doesn't even try. Why, I don't know. Virginia Mayo is a beautiful woman though older than Walker. Walker does take his shirt off, which was probably required in his contract for every movie he ever made. Maybe she should have made a play for him. Other reviewers have said that it might have been unseemly for Walker & Mayo to have a romance, but Wayne got right down to business in "Hondo". He told that woman how she smelled and how he could find her in the dark. And that was before her husband died. Wayne didn't even have to take his shirt off.Ironically, the charismatic bad guy played by Brian Keith, makes a very frank play for Mayo.Finally, the Indians here are not given the depth of characterization they had in "Hondo". They're more like very bad weather.The boy, is well played by Richard Eyer. Unlike most child actors, he's not annoying.This could have been a much better movie. I've seen all the actors do better in other movies, and the director Gordon Douglas, though not a great director, has done better movies. Perhaps if Walker's part had been written with less politeness and more menace, it would have been a more interesting movie.

In the late 1950's, Warner Brothers was the studio responsible for more westerns on television than any other production company in town (the town being Hollywood, of course!) They made stars out Clint Walker, Ty Hardin, James Garner, Jack Kelly and a host of others who appeared in their half hour and then one hour western dramas, which later became parodies of themselves, as the long running Maverick will prove.Here, they rework the "Hondo" plot (lone gunman rescues a woman and her son after finding her husband dead) and spend two thirds of the movie getting themselves to Fort Dobbs. I'll stop there, because actually, under the considered hand of director Gordon Douglas, this is actually an okay film. Walker gives a very quiet performance but it's his character, so you buy it. Virginia Mayo and Richard Eyer give better performances, one scene with the kid especially cool-- and the standard cowboys vs. Indians plot is made a bit more edgy by the presence of Brian Keith as the bad guy. He doesn't show up until the 30 minute mark, but he steals the show and has a great time playing the bad guy.The final scene is laughable ( not in a good way, sorry to say) but prior to that, the action is okay, inter cut with some out takes from "The Searchers", which don't match the Fort Dobbs footage at all.Contains all the usual Warner Brothers sound effects, gun shots and bodies hitting the ground you've heard hundreds of times. Also, the music was by Max Steiner, which notched it up to a 7 for me.If you get a chance, give it a look. VERY LITTLE studio work, a whole lot out OUT DOOR SHOOTING, another high point.

This, the first of three westerns which Clint Walker made with director Gordon Douglas, tried to expand Clint's career beyond his "Cheyenne" TV series. However, box office results indicated no great urge, on the part of audiences, to see in theaters what they could watch for free in their living rooms.In its own modest way, "Fort Dobbs" is a worthy "B" western which tells its story in a competent fashion. The problem lies in the casting of Virginia Mayo as the "damsel in distress." She looks noticeably older than Clint, there's a lack of chemistry between them, and the fact that her husband has just been killed makes any new romance appear "unseemly." Since the relationship between these two leads is the key relationship in the movie, its failure to "work" makes "Fort Dobbs" depend too much on peripheral assets.Although Clint only removes his shirt once in the movie, most of the ads and posters for "Fort Dobbs" spotlighted this prime bit of beefcake, as if the movie had been filmed in "Torso-Scope" or "Pecs-a-rama" or "Chest-o-vision."