Pony Soldier (1952)

By CinemaSerf

Tyrone Power is the new RCMP officer with good Scots antecedence "Duncan MacDonald" who is charged with rescuing two hostages who have been taken prisoner by the raiding Cree from Montana. With only his untrustworthy scout "Natayo" (Thomas Gomez) to help, he has deal with Cameron Mitchell's warmongering ("Konah") and his proud tribesmen and try to come to peaceable terms before an all out war begins. Now the obvious criticism has to be the location photography - Arizona is certainly not northern Montana nor Saskatchewan, and that rather sums up the fairly hung-go historical aspects of the story. That said, though, once the adventure hots up then Power imposes himself on the screen and it livens up a bit. Of course one of the hostages "Emerald" (Penny Edwards) has to provide an element of love interest, which rather drags the thing down, but it's still quite a colourful and entertaining enough vehicle for the star to be just that, for the writing and story to be largely ignored and for it all to end entirely predictably. Not great, not even good - but it has enough bow and arrow action to keep it interesting.