A Distant Trumpet

Suzanne Pleshette spices up A Distant Trumpet

Raoul Walsh's A Distant Trumpet feels like the last gasp of the classic Hollywood Western. Not only was it Walsh's final film, but it sits uneasily on the cusp of the revisionist Westerns that would ascend to dominance in the late 1960s and early 70s. Tentatively revisionist elements are creeping into this picture, protagonist Troy Donahue is sympathetic to the plight of Native Americans and even rejects the Medal of Honor to protest the government's treatment of the Apaches, but do not dominate. Indeed, they are significantly watered down compared to Paul Hogan's source novel. The film, released in 1964, feels more like the Westerns Walsh had been churning out since the silent days and, since audience attitudes were changing, it was out of synch with the times and a commercial failure.

Part of that has to do with Troy Donahue, a black hole of Sixties cinema who was soon facing oblivion as a film star. A worse actor than even Jeffrey Hunter or Tab Hunter, Donahue cripples whatever chance A Distant Trumpet has of succeeding dramatically. Donahue plays an Army officer fresh from West Point who is sent to an obscure fort in Arizona. There, he whips his ragtag soldiers into shape, fends off the Apaches and his fiance (Diane McBain) while falling for the wife of a fellow officer (Suzanne Pleshette). As usual, McBain is dull and Pleshette lively.

As an aside, the revisionist or post-Western swept aside the cobwebs which cling to many major studio Westerns of the Sixties. Included in these holdovers of the past, were the glammed up hair, make-up, and costumes that were predominate in Westerns prior to 1968. The men in most 1960s Westerns were never hairy enough. Troy Donahue in A Distant Trumpet looks like he is about to head out to the beach and hit some waves with Gidget. The hair helmets of the women are even more hallucinatory. Pleshette's hair looks like an unkempt B-52 with a gay 90's fall. 

Claude Akins

The chemistry between Donahue and his two leading ladies is zilch. Curious, since Donahue and Pleshette, who co-starred in 1962's Rome Adventure,  were about pledge their troth. Maybe not so curious, since their marriage lasted nine months. Claude Akins, very good as a scoundrel selling guns, whiskey, and painted ladies, sums up Donahue's screen presence by calling his character "a plaster saint". The other especially good performance is by Paul Gregory as a Tacitus quoting General, based on George Crook, who opts for a peaceful accommodation with the Native Americans.

I despise Max Steiner's bombastic score, another example of a Hollywood trope that had overstayed its welcome, but there are many pleasures to be found in this film. The visual sweep of Wash's storytelling is helped greatly by William Clothier's cinematography. A Distant Trumpet demands to be see on as big a screen as possible. The comic overstatement of Walsh's fight sequences are where he excels. He is much better at comic donnybrooks than John Ford, a director I revere. Compare the dance that turns into a fight here with the fight in the harbor in Gentlemen Jim or the brawl between fire brigades in The Bowery. Walsh's touch, his bonhomie, is ever present. As for Donahue, by 1964, his pin-up pictures had been replaced on walls by images of four lads from Liverpool. By 1968, he was bankrupt.