It’s been almost two months since I’ve updated. I’m so sorry, guys. This second semester of grad school is out for my blood. But we managed a little movie watching time, so let’s get to it! … what do you mean it’s another Western? I don’t wanna watch another Western! You can’t make me! I won’t do it! No! No! Nooooooo!!!!
Disclaimer: This blog is purely recreational and not for profit. Any material, including images and/or video footage, are property of their respective companies, unless stated otherwise. The authors’ claim no ownership of this material. The opinions expressed therein reflect those of the authors and are not to be viewed as factual documentation. All photos are capped from my copy of the movie with InstantShot! unless otherwise specified.
I can’t believe we’re back here in the Wild Wild West. This is some nonsense. Even worse, this thing has a lot in common with Westward Ho! The Wagons. Remember how great that was? Bad acting, bad visuals, bad script, and that creepy creepy thing with people trying to buy a little girl. And yet, Walt brought William Beaudine back from that wagon-wreck to direct this. Because he’s not done obsessing over Manifest Destiny and stuff.
It’s not all bad news, though. We’ve got some more familiar faces here to bring out the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon for our heroes to discover. James Algar did such a good job with his nature photography in the True Life Adventures that he was a shoein to help with the visuals. Lawrence Edward Watkin is back to write, too, and he’s done some good stuff like Treasure Island and Darby O’Gill. Then again, he’s also done some bad stuff like The Light in the Forest and The Sword and the Rose. You win some, you lose some.
And then we’re back to the bad news. You know how the Westerns started getting worse and worse reviews the longer they dragged on? Well, they weren’t much happier than I am to have to watch another one. In fact, they largely agree even now that this is the single worst movie Walt worked on during his lifetime! Nothing like a review like that to get you excited to watch a movie, huh? Well, might as well get this over with. The Dalmatians are coming. The Dalmatians are coming. Gotta get through this, and then the Dalmatians are coming.
STORY
I kid you not, this movie opens with a role call of the characters. Okay, I’m skipping ahead. There’s a book opening onto Major John Wesley Powell’s journal and a narrator to explain that this expedition is exploring the as-yet uncharted Colorado River. Everyone gathers around to see the expedition off, including a reporter. And then he asks for them to rattle off their names and their defining personality trait. Which they do. It’s not a great character introduction, man.
Anyway, the reporter yells a bunch of stuff on the riverbank. We meet Major Powell, who’s doing this for science. Because he’s missing a hand, he gets to sit on a dining room chair tied to the top of the boat instead of rowing. His brother, Walter, is doing this to recover from the trauma caused by the Civil War. Another set of brothers named Seneca and Oramel Howland are… here, same as Jack Sumner and George Bradley. They don’t really have character traits. Bill Dunn is trying to get away from people and dude, same. Andy Hall is Scottish, but you’d never know it from his truly appalling accent. “Bet you dinnae ken where I’m from” sounds absolutely ridiculous in a Midwestern American accent, I’m just saying. Missouri No-Last-Name-Given is here to cook. And Frank Goodman is British and he’s the absolute worst. And that makes ten!
Nothing happens for the first few days of the journey, which is pretty par for the course because not much happens throughout this movie. George Bradley tries to make conversation with Walter, but it’s like talking to a wall. There’s a lot of rowing down the river. Oh, wait! Something is about to happen! Andy opens up the hold to sneak food to the adorable puppy he’s stowed away! The guy with him whose name I didn’t bother to write down catches him but doesn’t do anything about it. Jarvie’s too cute to punish. He’s like a cockapoo kinda thing which doesn’t fit with the setting at all but I want twelve.
In one of the other boats, Frank Goodman is continuing to be a smug dbag and taunt Missouri for no reason. He’s trying to coax him into drinking despite Missouri’s repeated insistence that he’s clean. He also recognizes him as… Billy Hawkins! Does that name have any meaning to you? Me neither. But Missouri flinches and gets suspiciously quiet while Goodman talks about what a raging alcoholic this Hawkins guy was. This will be a pattern in this movie. Dramatic reveals just don’t have any drama to them. It’s infuriating.
Late that night, the men all make camp for the first of many, many times. Bill Dunn spots Major Powell’s sextant in his hand and Major Powell gets all science nerd. Seeing an opportunity to bond, Dunn pulls out his almanac and declares that he’s interested in stars, too. His knowledge, however, is in astrology, not real science. Because that’s not enough to make him look like an idiot, he can barely read the book, either. But there’s no time to dwell on silly things like this, a bird is singing! This inspires Goodman to start reciting his own terrible poetry, which in turn inspires Seneca to grab a banjo to drown him out. They all sing and have a grand old time until Goodman decides that he’s going to jump in the middle of the circle and recite Lord Byron. Then they all go to sleep.
The next day there’s some more sailing through the lovely vistas of the Grand Canyon and some muddy, muddy water. Andy sneaks more food to precious little Jarvie, but this time Walter catches him. Now, Walter is the second-worst person on this expedition. I mean, this guy is determined that no one should be happy ever. He snitches on Andy to the Major, who, offscreen, decreed that there would be no dogs on this trip. Just letting the poor dog go wouldn’t be bad enough, so Walter hands Andy a gun and tells him to shoot him! It’s horrible! Andy just can’t do it because the dog is too cute, and the other guys tell Walter off for being completely heartless. Walter notices how long Andy is taking and offers to do the deed himself, but Major Powell takes over. He can’t do it either and the pupper is saved!
Suddenly, we cut to the dreaded rapids! Everyone’s pretty excited to have an action sequence, including me. It’s a pretty disappointing action sequence, though. No one’s in any peril. The bluescreen is terrible. It ends as soon as it began. Again, this is kind of a theme in this movie. Whenever something interesting happens, it lasts about five minutes before the narration goes “well, that’s over”. It’s infuriating. But we stop the rapids chase dead to go pan for gold. Walter goes berserk on George Bradley for panning with his basin because he doesn’t want no dirty rebel touching his stuff. The other men start to gang up on him, but Major Powell steps in to defend his little brother. Walter was a POW in a Confederate camp. so they need to lay off.
Missouri breaks it up by calling lunch is ready, so Bradley tries to be friendly and invite Walter to eat with him. He makes one fatal mistake, though: he calls the gravy “kush”, which, as we learn later, is Southern Slang. I grew up in North Carolina and I have never heard that in my life, but sure. When they continue down the river, Walter tauntingly sings part of Battle Hymn of the Republic. Bradley doesn’t rise to the bait, reminding him that they’re not fighting opposite sides of the war anymore, but that doesn’t stop Walter from being super salty.
They’re not the only boat experiencing some tension, either. Goodman is still trying to force Missouri to drink. He eventually wears him down by revealing that he has whiskey hidden in their boat’s hold. Goodman laughs while Missouri gulps down a whole flask, even refilling it for later. He tries to drink from a cup, which Missouri tries to snatch away, and the two scuffle over the right to drink the whiskey. While they’re fighting, Major Powell calls that there are rapids ahead, but they don’t hear because they’re too busy beating the snot out of each other. In fact, they’re so busy beating out of the snot each other they allow their whole boat to smash against the rocks! Jack Sumner, safe on shore with the rest of the men, hops back into his boat to come to their rescue. It’s some pretty impressive sailing. Everyone’s safe, but half of their provisions were on the boat that was lost. Major Powell rightfully chews them out for being idiots, because now they’ve got 800 miles to go and not enough rations to get them there.
Seneca (I think) offers to try to recover some of the provisions from the halves of the boat. And he’s somewhat successful! Most importantly to the men, he rescues the keg of whiskey. Major Powell tries to stop them from getting schwasted but they’re having none of it, instead playing keepaway with the whiskey while pouring it all over everything. Finally, Walter the killjoy hurls the keg into the river and shoots it until it sinks. You’re not making them like you any more, dude. Even Major Powell is worried about it. But at least there’s plenty of long, long, loooooong shots of the Grand Canyon.
The men discover Echo Cliff and have a little fun playing with the acoustics in the valley. Out of blue, a trapper named Jim Baker startles them by joining the game. Everyone welcomes him and his Shoshone wife into their camp, and he makes himself comfortable. Side note, apparently this Baker guy is a famous frontiersman who really did stay to live with the Shoshone but I’ve never heard of him so the impact of his appearance was completely lost on me. I just kept thinking about how weird that he keeps referring to his wife as “my woman”. Using Baker as a translator, the Native American woman warns the group that no one has ever made it all the way down the Colorado. Legend has it that the gods filled the valley with a river to prevent man from finding heaven.
The men are a lot more spooked by this story than is particularly called for. Missouri gets ready to walk away, but Goodman stills him. In the one good thing he does this entire movie, he confesses to sabotaging Missouri’s journey by tempting him with whiskey. Major Powell accepts his apology and his honesty. Repentant for throwing Missouri off the wagon, Goodman decides to leave. And nothing of value was lost. Only one among their number has no fear of the river: the Major himself, of course. Still, things don’t look great with one man and one boat gone, and Walter still acting out every five seconds.
The expedition goes on and Walter continues to accuse everyone around him of being Confederate sympathizers, especially George Bradley. Everyone’s getting pretty sick of it, especially me. Out of nowhere, Bill Dunn falls into the river and everyone laughs. Walter even jokes that it’s the only way he’ll ever bathe which triggers Dunn into going nuts and attacking him. Only Bradley’s intervention stops Dunn drowning Walter in the river, but by now Walter’s blood is hot and he starts flinging punches at the “dirty reb”. It’s important to note that this comes out of absolutely nowhere. That cannot be overstated. Major Powell breaks up the fight before someone gets killed, but Walter’s still not done being the worst. He calls his brother a “cripple” and gets decked in the face for it. After all, the Major still has one good hand.
And Walter’s still not finished! Later on, George Bradley sets out alone to shoot a deer to replenish their dwindling rations. Walter creeps away from camp carrying a pistol to shoot Bradley. He fires two shots, spooking Bradley into hiding in a cave out of reach. When he climbs up to get a better shot, he finds himself face-to-barrel with Bradley’s own gun. Lucky for him, Bradley’s a lot less trigger happy and a lot more willing to let bygones be bygones. Back at camp, the men anxiously wait for the two missing men to return. Major Powell is most relieved of all when they shout from the rocks. To celebrate, Seneca offers to play a song, and to everyone’s surprise, Walter is cheerful, even enthusiastic, when Bradley suggests an old Southern tune. He even sings along! That’s right, all that enmity and interpersonal conflict that has driven the entire movie so far was resolved entirely offscreen. Now they’re best buds. What?!
Well, we’re only halfway through and we need conflict somewhere. So everyone gets distracted from the task at hand looking for gold along the riverbanks. They’re just not finding it, but they have noticed that Major Powell keeps running off with a pick and his brother. They turn on him in seconds flat and give chase so they can demand he share the gold they’re all convinced he’s searching for. But when they find him, Major Powell is only digging for fossils! He gets all science nerd about the trilobyte he found, but it goes right over the mens’ heads. Only Dunn offers to join the fossil game, and even then only if he can profit.
Major Powell is midsentence explaining that fossils like this are much too priceless to sell when Dunn suddenly shoves him aside. There’s a rattlesnake at his feet! And this is where Bill Dunn takes over for Walter as being the worst. He pokes the rattlesnake with a stick. Okay, that’s roughly how to move a snake, waiting until it bites the stick and flinging it into the safety of the bushes. That’s what I thought Dunn was doing. But no. When the snake bites onto the stick, Dunn raises it over his head and twirls it around like a lasso. Major Powell has the sane reaction of “what the hell, man?” and reminds him that that’s a really good way to die a really painful death. Dunn blows him off because apparently agitating deadly poisonous animals is how he gets his kicks. I hate this movie.
Not a minute later, they make it to Granite Gorge, the deadliest stretch of the Colorado River. The narration makes a big deal about how deadly the rapids here are but just like everything else that could lead to an interesting scene, nothing comes of it. Instead, Dunn finds another rattlesnake to pester. He pokes it with the barrel of his gun, he spits tobacco all over it, and… wait. You’re never going to believe this. It bites him! I know. I was shocked too. Who would have expected that? Major Powell sucks out the poison which makes him a better person than I am because I would totally have just left him and serve him right. Late that night, he’s still suffering. Powell brings him some water and tells him off, but Dunn won’t stop being a moron because flirting with death makes him feel alive or something. They have to stay camped here while Dunn recovers, which is going to add several days onto their trip.
But why would we see any of those days? Why allow any dramatic moment to sit? Dunn makes a miraculous recovery entirely offscreen and off we go through more sweeping vistas of rocks. Or, as Major Powell calls it, “fantastic erosion.” That’s right, so little is happening that we’re reduced to admiring erosion.The men are just as fed up with the movie- I mean the Major- stopping every five seconds to look at rocks, and they’re all getting a little testy. They press on until they reach the deadly rapids the Shoshone were so afraid of. Now is the time to make a choice. There’s 40 miles of river left and they’re nearly out of food. Instead of discussing this like an adult, Major Powell leaves to stare at more rocks. Completely done with this nonsense, the men resolve to leave without him if he’s not back in an hour.
While he’s staring at the beauty of the Grand Canyon, the Major slips and falls, dangling above the canyon below! And he only has one hand, so he can’t very well pull himself up! Oh no! From what I can tell he’s only like three feet up and can easily drop back down but it’s supposed to be tense. I’ll take onscreen tension where I can get it at this point. Jarvie hears his screams for help and alerts Andy, who alerts Walter. The whole squad jumps into help… and by help, I mean Walter goes up the three foot ridge and helps his brother down. And so another moment of peril ends really anticlimactically. Powell apologizes for his recklessness, but he has made a discovery: they can get to the top of the canyon and walk across much less ground than 40 miles!
Their victory is shortlived. When they return to the camp to get their stuff, they find that Jarvie has done what all dogs do when unattended and eaten all their food. Now they’re completely out of provisions. Seeing red, Dunn suggests they just eat the dog! You can’t do that! Look at his face! Major Powell tries to calm everyone down but they no longer respect him so he asks Walter to put in a good word for him. Walter pointedly does not agree to this, instead warning his brother that the rest of the men value their lives above science. I mean, fair enough.
When they reconvene, the men, including Walter, have come to the consensus that they’re going to walk through the desert instead of traveling the longer but safer route of the river. And Major Powell is coming whether he wants to or not. Well, he doesn’t want to, so he hops into a boat and starts rowing towards his dreams of science. Somehow this inspires all but three men to jump into the boats after him, one by one, in which is clearly meant to be inspirational but falls super flat because there’s no motivation for any of it. In the end, though, only Dunn, Oramel, and Seneca opt to go the desert route. Blessedly, we follow them instead of suffering through more endless long shots of the Grand Canyon.
But what’s a Western without the obligatory Angry Savages? The Three Stooges here run into a Ute hunting party who know some white dudes killed an Ute woman. Dunn, who apparently speaks Ute because plot convenience, tries to convince them that they’re not the same white dudes but the leader of the hunting party isn’t having it. By the way, he’s the same guy who played Chief Red Stick in Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier, so at least we have Native American people playing Native American characters. Anyway, eventually Dunn convinces the Ute hunting party to let them go, so they pack up their guns and continue on their way. Once again, we could have had tension, but it’s resolved immediately in the most anticlimactic way possible. I’m getting real tired of this.
But don’t worry, we’re almost done. The narrator tells us that Major Powell and his buddies made it to the end of the Colorado River and were hailed as heroes. But we don’t see it. Instead, the camera focuses on the plaque that honors the Ten Who Dared that really sits on the Grand Canyon to tell visitors the history. For like… ten minutes. Oh, and the last line of the movie informs us that Bill Dunn and the Howland brothers were killed by Utes. Which could have been really interesting but once again, it happens entirely offscreen in the most anticlimactic way possible. And that’s how we end it! “They died horribly because Bill Dunn is an idiot, but you know what? They were there!”
This was not a good movie. In any sense of the word. But honestly? I don’t think it’s the worst I’ve seen up to this point. It was boring, yes, and the fact that every single plot point was resolved in about thirty seconds offscreen or by just… talking it out. There were so many points that could have been interesting but the filmmakers backed down every time they had the chance. It’s terrible storytelling, especially by Disney’s standards. But I thought it was better than Westward Ho for the simple reason that it didn’t make me frothing at the mouth angry to the point where I didn’t want to write about it.*. Also Fess Parker wasn’t in it. There, I said it.
* Yes, I know this one took forever for me to post. Blame grad school.
CHARACTERS
For the most part, this movie tries to be a character driven piece and fails spectacularly. These guys are an amalgamation of white dudes descending into madness because there’s just too much white dude energy in too tight quarters for too long. I’m not even sure the pictures below are the correct white dudes. So we’ll see how this goes.
Major John Wesley Powell is the leader of the expedition and pretty much the only sane person here. He lost a hand in the Civil War, so he’s decided to serve his country a different way: through scientific advancement. He doesn’t even care that none of the rest of his travel party cares about science. He just wants to hang out on a kitchen chair tied on top of his boat and look at rocks. He’s played by John Beal, who did the voiceover narration in So Dear to My Heart as adult Jeremiah. Dear Lord, that feels like a long time ago.
Walter Powell is the Major’s brother. He also served in the Civil War and was taken as a prisoner of war by the Confederates. As a result, he’s left with a whole lot of ugly PTSD, severe anger issues, and some serious hatred of all things Southern. Now, hating Confederates is pretty reasonable, especially given the circumstances, but it does cause a lot of unnecessary stress for the expedition that they really don’t need. It’s weird to see a dislike of a man who fought for the right to own people painted as petty and irrational, though. He’s played by James Drury, who we’ve seen as George in Pollyanna and the Hunter in Toby Tyler. Due to his role on TV’s The Virginian, he’s probably the closest thing this movie has to star power.
Bill Dunn starts out as a reasonable human being, if a little ditzy. He’s into astrology, he’s uneducated, he wears buckskins. Whatever. I can respect a dude going on a journey just to escape society. And then he starts antagonizing rattlesnakes and picking fights over nonexistent gold and it’s just like… man. You’re pretty much garbage. This is the first of several Disney movies featuring Brian Keith and I really hope the next few are less frustrating.
George Bradley is a former Confederate soldier who has made his peace with losing the war. Unfortunately for him, Walter has not made his peace with there being a war in the first place. He just wants to make it through this journey without incident but this guy keeps stalking him with a gun and picking fights. But once that plot is over (offscreen), he kind of fades into the background. He’s played by Ben Johnson and that’s all I wrote down.
Frank Goodman is the most pretentious human being this side of Lord Byron himself. He admits straight up that he wants glory and makes everyone around him listen to him dramatically recite his own terrible poetry. He’s also an alcoholic who tries to drag Missouri down with him for essentially no reason. As annoying as he is, though, we don’t have to put up with him for long. He’s the first to turn his back on the expedition because he’s a dirty coward. However, we will see- or hear- David Frankham again very soon as Sergeant Tibbs the cat in 101 Dalmatians!
Andy Hall is the owner of the cutest dog and the worst Scottish accent I have ever witnessed. His first line, “I bet you dinnae ken where I’m from”, is spoken in a straight up Midwestern accent so it’s like… no. I have no idea where you’re from or why you’re here or what’s going on. His defining character trait is that he owns a dog. He’s played by David Stollery, who we last saw as the idiot child Dan who ran from a Native camp and almost died several times until Fess Parker saved his bacon in Westward Ho. Back then, he was a nice young man doing his best with an awful script. Now he’s an adult and I have no qualms about saying his acting in this movie is awful. Awful.
Billy “Missouri” Hawkins is the group’s cook. He’s also got some kind of sordid past that Frank Goodman is determined to uncover through alcohol. It’s kind of implied that he’s an ex-con, but we never really delve into that. That would be interesting, and we just cannot have that. Also, Goodman? Dude? Don’t antagonize your cook. It’s not a great idea.
Oramel Howland is another one who fades into the background. He and his brother are newspaper men here to chronicle the journey. Mostly, though, he has a truly indecipherable Southern accent mixed with a serious case of marbles in his mouth. My only note about him was that I can’t understand a word he’s saying. And what kind of name is Oramel, anyway?
Seneca Howland is Oramel’s brother. He’s a lot more visible than Oramel because he usually has his guitar in hand. Yeah, he’s the music guy. And there’s a reason for that! He’s played by Stan Jones, a prolific country singer-songwriter who wrote both songs in this movie. He also wrote the famous song Ghost Riders in the Sky, which has a special place in my heart because of its use in the Boo to You Halloween Parade at the Magic Kingdom.
Jack Sumner is kinda there to round out the cast. He doesn’t have a plotline. The most notable thing he does is save everybody who falls overboard. Dan Sheridan kind of looks like a young John Cleese. That’s about it. But I got all ten!
MUSIC
The music here was composed by Oliver Wallace. It’s got the same folksy feel as… well, every other Western we’ve watched. Not much of it stuck in my mind. Both songs, as previously mentioned, were written by Stan Jones in his final piece of film work.
Jolly Rovers is an upbeat piece that really feels like a folk song along the lines of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall or Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. The men have fun thinking of dramatic ways to kill each other off and bring the number of Rovers down. It’s pretty much the only fun moment in the entire movie, so of course Frank Goodman has to ruin it.
Roll Along is, in universe, an old Southern song about the beauty of the river. It’s a soft, sweet peace that feels like a lullaby and is meant to show that there’s finally peace between Walter and Bradley. It’s a nice enough song on its own, but in context it’s incredibly syrupy.
ARTISTRY
Otis R. Marston and Gordon Avil led a crew through Big Bend, Utah to film the real Grand Canyon and Colorado River. Their work is stunning and really brings out the majesty of the place. The problem is, there’s so much of it. It actually tries to become a main focus over the story, which is already thin without being completely overshadowed.
FINAL THOUGHTS
There’s a good movie in here, just waiting to come out. You could have action. You could have adventure. You could have compelling, deep characterizations. The problem is, this movie doesn’t bother going anywhere with any of that. It flirts with Walter’s trauma, but the whole thing is resolved offscreen. They talk a lot about how dangerous the rapids are, but they conquer them so quickly we as an audience never feel that they’re dangerous. A solid fourth of the movie’s run time is spent on lingering shots of the Grand Canyon, which are lovely but if I wanted to see that for an hour and a half I’d watch a documentary. But hey, I wasn’t raging at the whole thing.
Favorite scene: Jolly Rovers. It’s the only time in the movie anybody really looked like they wanted to be there.
Final rating: 2/10. At least it wasn’t Westward Ho.
Get excited, Paul, because next up is one you’ve asked me to do two or three times now, lol!
