The Command (1954 film)
The Command | |
---|---|
Directed by | David Butler |
Written by | James Warner Bellah (novel "Rear Guard") Samuel Fuller Russell S. Hughes |
Produced by | David Weisbart |
Starring | Guy Madison Joan Weldon James Whitmore |
Cinematography | Wilfred M. Cline |
Edited by | Irene Morra |
Music by | Dimitri Tiomkin |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 94 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $2.5 million (US)[1] |
The Command is a 1954 CinemaScope Western film directed by David Butler. It stars Guy Madison and James Whitmore.[2] It was based on the novel Rear Guard by James Warner Bellah and features a screenplay by Sam Fuller.
Plot[]
When the commanding officer of a cavalry patrol was wounded and dying, he asks the surviving ranking officer of the patrol who is an army doctor to take over and lead the patrol back to their fort. On the way back to their fort, the cavalry troop passes a town where two companies of infantry troops commanded by a colonel were temporarily taking a breather from their duty of escorting a wagon train of settlers. When the colonel learned of the presence of the cavalry troop, he orders the attachment of the cavalry troop to his command with the specific duty of screening the main body of infantry troops and the wagon train. This attachment resulted in the cavalry troop being involved in several encounters with the native Indians who kept attacking the wagon train. During the trip, the colonel suffers a mild heart attack and is now unable to command. The infantry officers asks the cavalry officer to take over command from the incapacitated infantry colonel. The cavalry doctor-officer took over and lead the combined troops of infantry and cavalry in defeating the Indians.
Cast[]
- Guy Madison as Capt. Robert MacClaw
- Carl Benton Reid as Col. Janeway
- Joan Weldon as Martha Cutting
- Don Shelton as Maj. Gibbs
- Gregg Barton as Capt. Forsythe
- Robert Nichols as 2nd Lt. O'Hirons
- James Whitmore as 1st Sgt. Elliot
- Boyd 'Red' Morgan as Cpl. Fleming
- Harvey Lembeck as Pvt. Gottschalk
References[]
- ^ 'The Top Box-Office Hits of 1954', Variety Weekly, January 5, 1955
- ^ http://allmovie.com/work/the-command-87675
External links[]
- The Command at IMDb
- 1954 films
- English-language films
- 1954 Western (genre) films
- American Western (genre) films
- American films
- Films based on American novels
- Films based on Western (genre) novels
- Films directed by David Butler
- Films scored by Dimitri Tiomkin
- Warner Bros. films
- Western (genre) cavalry films
- 1950s Western (genre) film stubs
- CinemaScope films