The Oregon Trail

"54/40 OR DIE" - You What?
This has been on my "wanted" list for some time and now Fox have released a Scope "On Demand" DVD. Sadly, I was disa[pointed for a variety of reasons. The obvious low budget means the film cannot live up to it's grand ideas. There are far too many studio sets and footage from other westerns (which isn't that badly matched, just, to me, very obvious). The budget has been spent almost entirely on the final big battle scene which is ell done and finishes off....(watch the film). There is an unforgiveable 12-15' scene towards the end in almost total darkness and the print is so dark I couldn't see what was happening. That's bad for a print, not cheap, made to order. The good bits...Fred is always good and does a lot of his own fights (2 with veteran Tex Terry), but his romance with that lovely "Indian Maid" Gloria Talbot, while sweet, is plain daft. She is the other good thing! James Bell, Henry Hull, William Bishop, John Dierkes all play as expected (well). It's just that overall I felt...

Lackluster trail
Firstly, excellent widescreen picture, and sound, some wonderful old character actors and individual performances, but a largely lackluster script! Lots of stock footage and studio shots! Having said that, it's always great to see Fred MacMurray in almost anything, he was one of the most versatile of movie stars, although his stock in trade was comedy, he could just as effortlessly turn his talents to drama, or, rugged outdoor roles, like this! In this film, I enjoyed seeing one of the final roles of Elizabeth Patterson, who over 20 years earlier had played the Mother of Fred MacMurray, Bing Crosby, and Donald O'Connor in 'Sing You Sinners'. As a bit of trivia, at the start of that film, they all sang 'We Shall Gather at the River', and in this film, it was sung by her graveside, after she died during the treck to Oregon! Not a great film, but worth a look and interesting because of the players!



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