Reviews (6)

Somber but beautiful western adventure
This entertaining and colorful western is about the relationship between red men and white men and the differences in the values and ideals between the two cultures. The film has cavalry-Indian skirmishes and derring-do heroics by wagon train guide Johnny Hawks but the white man's greed for gold is the central theme of this story that undoes a peace treaty and has the Oregon-bound wagon beating a hasty retreat to the fort for safety from Red Cloud's warriors. The trouble centers around two unscrupulous white men who trade whiskey for gold to Indians in exchange for revealing the location of gold on Sioux land. Hawks is less interested in gold than he is in a Sioux maiden for whom he leaves the wagon train to be with against his better judgment. The peace treaty ceremonies at the fort have a patriotic flavor, what with the Indians approaching on horseback in their finest war regalia and fluttering war bonnets and colorful shields to the accompaniment of "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean", and a Mathew Brady protégé is on hand to photograph the event. As Indian fighter Hawks romances the beautiful Onahti, he is pursued by a marriage-minded frontier woman who has her own plans for him when the train gets to Oregon. The film has a brooding quality that's reflected in Franz Waxman's melancholy music score, especially those cues that are highlighted by a lyrical, solo flute.

Indian Fighter
I was very disappointed with this movie.
I saw the original TV airing of this movie in 1962. Over those 40 years, I still remember scenes of the movie, which were not part of this copy. There was a statement at the beginning of the movie, which indicated that the Indian would not speak in their native tongue so the audience would be able to understand the movie better. In addition, I remember that in the end, a soldier (the bugler), silhouetted by the dusk light was standing on a hill holding a girl.
The story line was weak, nearly uninteresting. I felt fidgety watching this poor film. The only thing, which kept me watching, besides the fact that I just threw away good money on this new release, was the fact that I had fond childhood memories of the Indian fighter. But, in all honesty, I have pulled better movies out of Wal-mart's $5.88 bins.
The movie DID appear to be choppy in its story line, as though it might have been pieced together, as if the original film had some damaged parts and were left out. Also, the movie ended abruptly, leaving me feeling cheated. There were several scenes, which looked grainy, as though they might have been 3rd generation copies.
I want a refund! If I had sent this in a theater, I would have walked out and demanded back my ticket price.

THE INDIAN FIGHTER
Have no idea what the guy who complained about the picture being fuzzy, shifting quality and looking chopped up was drinking the night he viewed this movie. Picture quality was excellent and saw no sign of it being chopped up. An excellent western.

disappointment
Either the original or transfer was terribly faulty but picture was poor. Aspect changed from moment to moment. Focus was a bit bleary and night shots were too dark to tell what was going on. And the story, it almost seemed like there were scenes deleted as story line had a very jerky feel to it. As a collector of western films, can only say this ranks among the worst I have purchased.

Kirk Douglas in a pro-Indian pro-environment Western romance
Kirk Douglas is "The Indian Fighter" Johnny Hawks, who returns to the West after the end of the Civil War to lead a wagon train bound for Oregon. Along the way there is the threat of an Indian war stirred up by bad guys Wes Todd (Walter Matthau) and Chivington (Lon Chaney), a couple of whiskey traders who are after gold on Indian land. The Indians in question are led by Red Cloud (Eduard Franz), the Sioux chief who tried to keep the white man from taking over his people's land. Johnny is smitten with Onahti (Elsa Martinelli), the chief's daughter, who distracts him enough from his job to put the wagon train and the local military outpost at risk when Red Cloud's brother is killed.

This 1955 western was filmed on location in Oregon by director André De Toth and the beautiful scenery along with composer Franz Waxman's evocative helps elevate "The Indian Fighter" to above average status. Given the time and genre, some of the scenes between Hawks and Onahti are quite risqué. In the end this is more of a Western romance than a Western action film, and with its inherent sympathy towards both the Indians and the environment, De Toth has made an extremely atypical Western. Elisha Cook has a nice supporting role as Briggs, a character who learned photography from Matthew Brady during the Civil War and has come out West to capture the grandeur of the landscape, and there are several moments when De Toth's has the camera provide the sort of beautiful panoramic shots that Briggs would aspire to take. Not a great Western but there is a lot here that warrants fans of the genre taking a long look.

Trivia Note: Diana Douglas, the wife of Kirk and mother of Michael Douglas at that point in hsitory, plays settler Susan Rogers, who has her eye on Hawks but ends up with hardy Will Crabtree (Alan Hale, Jr.). I remember the actress from playing Professor Tyler on "The Paper Chase." This was the only film the two appeared in together and certain an interesting choice given they each have different love interests. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Worth a look
Whereas W. L. Wilder's following film, 'Killers From Space' (1954), offers an original twist on the time-honored invasion theme (see my review), this movie plays it a lot straighter. Its progression closely follows that of similarly themed films: an unknown presence (the Other) disrupts order, is eventually identified, tracked, and found. Yet despite this predictable structure, some key points make the film worth watching. Previous reviewers have mentioned the movie's reliance on overly talky scenes; I personally did not mind it, since the discussions are interestingly written and acted. The Phantom himself is an intriguing character. As in most sci-fi films of the 1950s, the invader is considered an enemy, but his role is quite ambiguous: the havoc he creates is linked to his own precarious situation, and the humans do not become pure killing machines eager to get rid of the Other. Not that they mind much when he dies, though... in that regard, the final scene is a little disappointing. As a whole, this film is very modest and far from exceptional, but fans of 1950s sci-fi should be pleased with its redeeming facets.

Half "Invisible Man", Half "Radar Secret Service"
"The Phantom From Space" is a sci-fi cheapie from 1953. The first half is pretty boring, as most of the action involves driving around in ridiculous old cars with ludicrous antennae on their roofs looking for disturbances. This takes place in California, so there are some other wacky things going on, but just to make sure we understand, the bulk of the first half hour or so is narrated. As the narrator drones on over the scenes of stock footage, and the cars drive around endlessly, something finally happens! A murder by a guy in a diving suit happens, to be specific, but unfortunately for the audience, all that results for our entertainment is some really tough (not!) interrogation of the prime suspect. Ultimately a couple of people get killed and a refinery gets set on fire.

As the movie gets over the hump and starts picking up steam, we see some silly police foot chases of the diving-suit being that go on a bit too long, but ultimately corner the guy in a lab with a pretty female scientist. To evade capture the being takes off his suit and turns out to be invisible unless exposed to ultraviolet light. They chase him around until he needs to put his helmet back on while he practices Morse code with the lady scientist. She figures out that he needs to breathe methane (hence his attraction to the refinery...see how it all makes sense) but thanks to the comic relief newspaper reporter who is forever screwing everything up (at least they got that part right) he drops and breaks his helmet. Eventually we see him shriek and burn up in what I believe may be the Griffith Park Observatory, his mission having utterly failed.

This film is a borderline two or three star movie, but I decided to go with three as it was quite well made considering that it was from 1953. I liked that the film didn't attempt to make the invader from space into a killing machine, and that in the end actually made the audience feel sympathy for him. The special effects are not so special by the standards of today, but remember this was made 51 years ago, and I think was a pretty credible effort for the time. The acting is average, and the script is too. The biggest weaknesses were pacing and the whole silliness with the cars with ridiculous antennae. The second half is entertaining, and the creature actually looks good when we finally get to see him. If you can get past the first half, this is better than average for mid 1950s sci-fi.

Nothing special, but I enjoyed it
W. Lee Wilder had a penchant for making enjoyably average yet largely forgettable science fiction films. In Phantom From Space (1953), he introduces us to a much more agreeable alien than that found in his more familiar Killers From Space of the following year. Okay, so the phantom does kill a few people and cause some serious oil fires, but it's not all his fault. He's just not a people person, you see, what with being invisible and all. He's also not that bright, choosing to ditch his spacesuit and helmet rather than fall into the clutches of the humans on his tail. He needs something akin to a methane gas atmosphere in order to breathe, and a helmet-less jaunt on earth with its oxygen-based atmosphere threatens to cut short his visit in a most significant way.

The film starts out with an unidentified object hurtling from Alaska to the California coast, where the object seems to disappear. Mobile communications folks are sent out to determine the source of interference suddenly wreaking havoc in the area, and these guys keep bumping into cops investigating murders and other acts of destruction. Soon, these different forces team up with an army man and a scientist, and everyone eventually comes to the amazing conclusion that the source of all the trouble is actually a humanoid not of this world. The ending is not exactly a bright and chipper one, but it is just about the only plausible ending possible and, in its own way, it works pretty effectively.

I actually enjoyed Phantom From Space, despite a number of slow scenes in the first half of the film. The actors are reasonably good albeit colorless, and I was amused at the way the lead scientist seemed to become more and more German as the action progressed. There are certain limited parallels between this movie and Monster a Go-Go, and I feel compelled to state that the conclusion of Phantom From Space is far, far better than what you will find in its B-movie cousin. There's nothing here to make this film stand out, but it is a relatively painless and occasionally interesting cinematic diversion.

re-write would have helped
i liked the movie over-all. i liked the old-time mannerisms , these old flics are like windows into the past.
the story tho could have wrapped up better.
the alien kept trying to communicatem but the earthlings just didn't seem too excited about trying to figure out what he was saying. He dies because they are stupider than the crew of a star trek ship who can always find something to modify to solve a mewrely technical problem.
The foot chases are almost like the Keystone cops chases in the old silent movies.
a good movie to watch with friends when you need an opportunity to feel superior and have a laugh at some long dead movie people.

Bad sci-fi film is no "Killers from Space"!
W. Lee Wilder, brother of Billy Wilder, directed this exciting tale of people sitting around and talking while an invisible space alien flees all who come into his invisible path. Unfortunately, this 1953 clunker is not as beautifully campy and tacky as Wilder's "Killers from Space" or "Snow Creature," though it does feature some hilarious film-noir method acting in the person of a needlessly abusive cop who simply won't take anyone's word for anything. When the lead characters aren't sitting around discussing the obvious, they are running around outside and shouting the obvious. Perhaps this is some primal reaction to the unseen. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Pass the Pills
No wonder Elvis took "Prescription Medication" making dreadful movies like this. It's so awful words cannot describe. It looks cheap, nasty, badly acted, badly directed, badly edited with no story. It's just awful.

What on earth was going on in his and the Colonel's heads thinking that fans would put up with watching this crap at the movies when you had the real deal in Clint Eastwood. Even at the time it was made, Westerns were going out of fashion.

This was, thank God, one of the last movies he made. I'm a big Elvis Fan but could not bear to watch it twice.

The DVD is bad quality, no picture clean up, no extras, nothing. What's the point?

Put attention at this movie
The hits, the beats ( don't the critic) were in the reality.
Elvis was very beaten in this movie ( and isn't about the critics).
Put attention in this movie

A No-Budget King
The King is a rogue cowboy hunted by his former outlaw buddies in what is one of Elvis' lowest points in a not so celebrated film career. Yes, he doesn't stop what he is doing and burst out singing "Clambake, Gonna have a clambake" but that would have been better then this hard to watch western. I know EP was making a million dollars a picture by this time. The budget on this movie excluding his salary had to 10, maybe 20 bucks. It looks horrible. There is just no life in the movie. I know it was suppose to be a drama but come on. I'm an enormous Presley fan, just not so much with his acting movies. I'll blame the Colonel for that, but that's a totally different review for another time and place. Check out Change of Habit co-starring Mary Tyler Moore for a good acting role by the hillbilly cat and Elvis: That's the way it is for the real thing on and off stage.

The DVD should be called "CHARRED"
I read all the reviews about how poor the quality of this DVD was.Yes- they are absolutely correct.I refused to buy it until such time a quality dvd was released.But I was in an oddlot closeout-type store and guess what was sitting in their "bargain dvd" bin? You guessed it- a brand new,factory-sealed copy of Charro!I grabbed it and saw the price sticker: [$]I own it.It [stinks].The guy who said it looks like they used a camcorder to tape it off a TV screen was pretty accurate.It is hard to believe but I've NEVER seen a VHS tape as bad as this dvd.I can't imagine they went all through the trouble to get licensing rights,copy the film to DVD,design packaging,and set up distribution for something that, when viewed, assaults and insults simultaneously.I spent 2 weeks contacting everyone who would take my call at Graceland,NBC,RCA,Westlake,etc. and the best I could discover was nobody knows the whereabouts of the original print and negative.Perhaps Elvis,not liking what he saw,had them destroyed?This one should win an award for sheer ,unmitigated gall.

The worst DVD ever!!!!
Keep your VHS tape of this movie, it it head and shoulders in quality above this DVD - I've never seen a video tape this bad, let alone a DVD. Stay Away Joe as Elvis once said... ... Read more