Missing Stars and Other Things

[mrsl]

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The title of this thread will be explained shortly.

Battle of Rogue River:

Chief Mike (how's that for an Indian chief's name?), has a small band of Indians who are causing all sorts of trouble in the territory while some people are trying to vote Oregon in as a state, and others are fighting that little thing. Major George Montgomery comes along as the new officer in charge of the military settlement, and he plans to whip these 'savages' into place without delay, until he gets a telegram telling him to work with the 'savages' with peaceful means to bring about a working peace. However, we have a snake in the yard who is playing traitor to both the Indians, and the military. Martha Hyer gives her all with heaving bosom, and clenched fists because she and George hit it off wrong, but she has Richard Denning in the background to kiss away her hurts. Well, naturally all gets straightened out by the end of the hour and 18 minutes, but in the meantime, we are treated to a film that posed some questions for me.

This is 1954 and most of these little quickies are in B&W so I was surprised to see the beautiful color that was used. I wonder, also what kind of film they used because this thing is as clear as the crows Windex'd window. (you know the commercial, don't you?) They didn't film a lot of the scenery, which is weird for a Western, and I'm pretty sure it was filmed on location. Most of all, I wonder with the superior film, location shooting, camera work, etc. why they didn't have an 'A' list cast? A lot of money was put into this film, so why cut in the most important element? The only actor with any kind of oomph was Richard Denning, and his part was very small. Montgomery is nice to look at but as usual he sent his dialog in by phone, and as I said, Martha tried hard, but a little too hard. I make fun of the story, but with some good acting, it could have been a good western mystery.

So, the reason for this thread is for movies that are missing something which stops them from being more than average. Is it the acting, directing, camera work, lighting, etc.? Give us your ideas, and we can add our if we've seen the movie.
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