Let Sitting Bull Lie

SITTING BULL-1954- In the Black Hills of Dakota “once again the white man comes”. The great Indian chief Sitting Bull (J. Carroll Nash) leads his Sioux Nation against the invading, gold seeking white men. His second in command is Crazy Horse (Iron Eyes Cody). They attack some grubby prospectors who'd been on their land. Major Parrish (Dale Robertson) is concerned about the Indians' fate but locks horns with General Custer (Douglas Kennedy) and gets transferred to an Indian agency and is dumped by his fiancee Kathy (Mary Howell from THW WILD ONES; she was in THE MAD MAGICIAN the same year as this) for a reporter Wentworth (William Hopper). The minute he gets to the new post he locks horns with Webster (Thomas B.Henry), the head agent who calls the captive Indians “renegade dogs”. After Parrish sticks Webster's head in a pot of gruel, the Indians revolt. Parrish lets them go but Webster kills Sitting Bull's son. President Grant (John Hamilton, acting very “Perry White-ish” in a highlight role) wants to meet with Sitting Bull so with the help of an ex-slave Parrish tries to set it up. To gain the chief's trust Parrish has to fight Crazy Horse in a knife fight. They have a pow-wow but it doesn't go as planned and Gen Custer leads his men to slaughter at The Little Big Horn (conviently Wentworth goes with them). Parrish is almost shot by a firing squad but Kathy brings Sitting Bull to Grant and convinces him to spare Parrish's life. It all ends happily but as we know in real life that was not to be. 

I guess this low budget technicolor western was trying to be sympathetic to the Native American tribes but the stiff acting and cliched script undermine the whole thing though I don't think it's as bad as I've been led to believe. Director Sidney Salkow was working on TV's LASSIE at the time he made this.

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Man In a Dino-Suit

THE LAND UNKNOWN-1957-A Naval science team goes to the South Pole. The group consists of Commander Hal Roberts (Jock Mahoney; TV's Yancey Derringer), Lt. Jack Carmen (William Reynolds), Capt. Burham (Douglas Kennedy) and Maggie Patterson (Shawn Smith aka Shirley Patterson), a woman reporter. The group has helicopter trouble when a pterodactyl hits them. They are forced to land in a hidden sub-tropical area dating to the Mesozoic era. They meet stock footage of two giant lizards fighting. Then they are chased by a T. Rex (guy in a costume) but a strange noise calls off it's attack. When giant plants menace the group Maggie is kidnapped by Hunter (Henry Brandon) who's been living there for years and thinks he owns the place (he's a survivor from a previous expedition). He blows a giant sea shell that scares off the dynos. Hunter wants the men to leave but let him keep Maggie who briefly escapes but runs into a giant sea reptile and faints. Later Hunter gives them a map to find his old helicopter. The guys rescue Maggie and even take Hunter back to civilization.

It seems at one time Universal was planning on THE LAND UNKNOWN to be a big budgeted film to be shot in color with an all star cast and Jack Arnold directing. For some reason the studio cut the budget, the color and the cast turning it into a B movie. Arnold left the project and contract director Virgil Vogel was his replacement. He'd made the equally cheap looking THE MOLE PEOPLE the year before. Screenwriter Lazlo Gorog penned Bert I. Gordon's EARTH VS. THE SPIDER a year later.

LAND really suffers from terrible SFX, too much stock footage and phony scenery but still manages to be more entertaining than boring. In movies since the early '40's actress Shawn Smith also acted under the name of Shirley Patterson. One of her last film roles would be in IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE.

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