646f9e108c A Civil War guerilla gang plans an attack on a Kansas arsenal. Confederate Captain Alan Westcott, posinga horse supplier for the army, is ordered to infiltrate the Union lines and contact William Quantrill to arrange a raid on the arsenal at Lawrence, Kansas. Westcott meets and falls in love with Sue Walters. Westcott&#39;s activities and associations begin to cause the Union vigilante committee to become suspicious of him, and he moves quickly in utilizing the Quantrill raiders. After laying their plans to attack Lawrence, Westcott learns that the arsenal is being moved out by wagon trail. He calls off the attack on Lawrence in favor of attacking the wagon train, but Quantrill pulls a treacherous double-cross and rides into Lawrence on a personal mission of bloodshed, murder and looting. Quite simply, this film is despicable. It&#39;s despicable because it perverts American history and what actually transpired in Lawrence, Kansas circa 1863. Of course the antagonist in the film, William Quantrill, portrayed by Leo Gordon, is a nasty, hard drinking, boorish leader of a gang of border ruffians. Director Edward Bernds creates such a detestable caricature of Quantrill, that it makes one wonder why so many men followed him? Clearly, the film&#39;s agenda was to paint Quantrill in the most simplistic termsevil and loathsome. This film simply does not have the even handed perspective of Ang Lee&#39;s &quot;Ride with the Devil&quot;, which far more honestly describes the life and times of an 1860&#39;s Missouri bushwhacker.<br/><br/>The film is completely biased in its perspective. Judge Wood laments in one scene, &quot;I wonder what would cause a man to be a traitor&quot;, referring to a past acquaintance who decided to side with the South. There&#39;s never a mention of atrocities committed by the &quot;Kansas Red Legs&quot;. In fact there is no mention of them at all in this film. Sadly the movie falls in to the category of, &quot;never let facts get in the way of a good story&quot;.<br/><br/>The plot line builds to a crescendo of the final scene with Bill Quantrill and his men attacking Lawrence, Kansas. In this fantasy version of the events that took place on August 21, 1863 in Lawrence, Kansas, Quantrill is repelled by the Union forces in town. In reality, Quantrill sacked Lawrence thereby achieving a great Confederate victory. Contrary to published reports at the time, the individuals killed in the Lawrence Raid were nearly all Kansas Red Legs or partisans, whose notorious malevolent excursions in to Missouri were well documented. The film does allude to the fact that Quantrill maintained a list of Red Legs in Lawrence, whose prior actions he felt deserved retaliation. As a matter of record, Quantrill asserted that his motivation for burning Lawrence came from the Osceola, Missouri Raid of 1861 in which all but three of that town&#39;s eight hundred buildings were torched. Led by Kansas Jayhawker and future Kansas senator James Lane, nine local citizens were summarily rounded up in Osceola, and after a brief trial, executed. There&#39;s no mention of the sacking of Osceola in this film. Also not mentioned is the Kansas City jail collapse of August 14, 1863, where four Southern civilian women, kin to Quantrill&#39;s men, were killed. Nine civilians were seriously injured in the jail collapse.<br/><br/>For his part it should be noted that Senator Lane escaped probable death during the Lawrence Raid by running in to a corn field in his nightshirt and hiding. Most historians would agree that retaliation is simply part of war and ascribing a sinister intent to Quantrill&#39;s actions is unjustifiable.<br/><br/>In an attempt to hold the interest of the 1950&#39;s wife who was dragged to the theater by her husband to see another quasi-Western, there is a romantic interlude between Captain Alan &quot;Wes&quot; Westcott&quot;, portrayed by Steve Cochran, and Sue Walters, portrayed by Diane Brewster. Westcott warnsthe town&#39;s people of Quantrill&#39;s imminent raid, and thereby saves the federal munitions depot. Shortly thereafter he gives himself up to the authorities. Judge Wood quips to Sue Walters that her love interest will spend some time incarcerated in a prison camp but will return to her after the war. This was a convenient and happy way to end the film, but is patently inaccurateto the period and events. Probably the shortest widescreen film in Technicolor, this Civil War themed western is unique in the sense that it utilizes some very different themes to tell its story. Quadrill (Leo Gordon) is an outlaw who seems to sell himself to the highest bidder to both sides of the war, and plays both ends against the middle. In other words, a traitor to both sides, and agent Steve Cochran is out to stop him from doing any further damage. He&#39;s willing to break laws and risk imprisonment to fulfill his mission, even risking the love of the heroine (Diane Brewster). MGM musical supporting star Gale Robbins (&quot;The Barkley&#39;s of Broadway&quot;, &quot;Three Little Words&quot;) gets some good momentsa tough moll with a typical heart of gold. Attractive scenery and some great action sequences take this from &quot;B&quot; level to a light &quot;A&quot;, one of the few widescreen movies released by Allied Artists, the poverty row studio formerly knownMonogram.
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