Now out on Blu-ray from Twilight Time, the Twentieth Century Fox western Pony Soldier (1952) shapes up as an intriguing Tyrone Power picture that has not been seen much in recent years. Limited to 3000 pressings, as is the norm with Twilight's releases, it is especially worth a look for fans of Power, an extremely popular star in his day who is now, strangely enough, somewhat unappreciated.

He plays a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, sent in 1876 with a half-breed scout (the unlikely Thomas Gomez, in a hoot of a performance) to find a small band of Cree Indians who have taken two white settlers hostage. Power is also charged with bringing the larger, 1000-member tribe back to their reservation. He and Gomez are eventually captured, and Power must attempt various powers of persuasion to achieve his goals. Along the way, in an unconvincing subplot, he quite casually adopts a young orphaned Cree boy.

That subplot is one way in which Pony Soldier tries to one-up Broken Arrow (1950), a recent Fox western in which James Stewart had made piece with sympathetically-depicted Apaches. Pony Soldier, in fact, is but one of several 1950s westerns that attempted to capitalize on Broken Arrow's success. It even quite shamelessly steals from Broken Arrow's opening voiceover narration, in which James Stewart explains that the tale will be related just as he experienced it, except that the Indians will speak in English. Power says the exact same thing here in his own narration.

But Pony Soldier comes across like a much "smaller" movie than Broken Arrow, despite some occasionally epic set pieces that seem to indicate the movie had greater ambitions that were stifled. The first half of the picture is full of forward movement and momentum, of trekking through the wilderness, of action scenes; the second half settles down in a Cree Indian camp and relies more heavily on dialogue, resulting in a feeling that the film has missed an opportunity for greatness. It's not bad -- it's just not what the earlier parts of the story built us up to anticipate.

For instance, an opening battle between Indians and the U.S. cavalry, included to create some context, is massive and impressively staged. Later, Power and Gomez come across the Indian camp from atop a ridge, and we see it sprawl endlessly below. When they enter the camp, exciting tracking shots give the impression of many hundreds of Indians surrounding them. The film certainly seems to be heading toward an epic climax, one that never quite comes.

Director Joseph Newman, a workhorse whose best films were probably the film noir 711 Ocean Drive (1950) and the western Red Skies of Montana (1952), later explained in an oral history that he was a victim of bad timing. Pony Soldier was made just before Fox chief Darryl Zanuck ordered the studio's 'A' pictures to be shot in the new CinemaScope process. As a result, Fox had little concentration and money to spare for a routine, Academy-ratio western like Pony Soldier. In fact, the opening battle scene ended up being lifted from Fox's earlier Buffalo Bill (1944), and those impressive wide shots of the Indian camp were actually created by clever use of matte shots, making it appear as if there were many more tipis and Indians than there really were. The studio was clearly trying to make this film as cheaply as possible, but ironically, the epic elements were so skillfully integrated that the overall film feels flawed for not having truly been given a bigger production. "Red Skies of Montana and Pony Soldier would have been terrific CinemaScope subjects," Newman said. "I hit Twentieth Century-Fox at a strange period."

Cast and crew spent nine weeks in northern Arizona, and the shoot was a grueling one. Richard Boone, originally cast as the Cree chief Standing Bear, developed pneumonia after exposure to near-zero weather and was hospitalized. He was replaced in the cast by Stuart Randall. Another actor, Frank DeKova, developed a leg infection after being bruised by a rock and had to be hospitalized for ten days. Penny Edwards, as one of the settlers taken hostage, broke her hand when tossed from a wagon, and Power fell into a cactus plant at one point and hurt his knee. Furthermore, on seven occasions the film unit was completely snowbound from the nearest town, forty miles away, and had to shut down production. As remote as the locations were, the unit still had to contend with airplanes ruining the soundtrack, and even an atom blast from a testing ground 130 miles away that showed up in the background and ruined some takes.

Pony Soldier is based on a Saturday Evening Post story of a Mountie who really did convince an Indian tribe to move with him across the prairie. The screenplay is by John Higgens, who had just written a string of excellent films noirs for director Anthony Mann, including T-Men (1947), Raw Deal (1948) and Border Incident (1949). Newman and Higgens had previously worked together on the Crime Does Not Pay shorts series MGM, but this was the only feature they collaborated on.

This was also the last film Tyrone Power made at Fox under his contract there. (He did return to the studio as a freelancer.) He'd been growing increasingly disillusioned with the types of films in which Fox placed him, wanting badly to act rather than just be seen as a beautiful male star in frivolous entertainments. Pony Soldier is not exactly frivolous, and it actually does demand a little more "acting" from Power than some of his other recent efforts, but it is still a minor film in Power's career. While it is a decent western, one can sense not only that Fox's interest in Power was waning, but also why Power was so fed up with Fox for not giving him meatier roles and films.

Besides Power, the stars of this picture are Harry Jackson's gorgeous Technicolor photography and Alex North's enjoyable score. Both shine on Twilight Time's Blu-ray, with the Sedona, Ariz., locations beautifully rendered, and North's score available on an isolated track for further appreciation. Well-written liner notes by Julie Kirgo place the film in the proper context of Power's career.

For more information about Pony Soldier, visit Twilight Time at Screen Archives Entertainment.

By Jeremy Arnold