User Reviews

Well the best this highly fictionalized film can boast about, is the beautiful scenery, and that includes Alan Ladd and shapely Shelley Winters. If you over look the story flaws, you can come up with an action filled western. Set in 1877, Alan Ladd has been brought up by the Cree and becomes a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman. He tries very hard to prevent the Cree allying with post-Little Big Horn Sioux. Ladd has a brother played by Jay Silverheels, who sides with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Robert Benton plays an insensitive British RCMP officer with whom Ladd mutinies against and leads a party to safety. In the group is saloon gal Shelley Winters, being accompanied by U.S Marshall, Hugh O'Brian, who is taking her to Montanna to stand trial for murder. Add some fighting action as the Sioux attack a lot, and there's even a canoe chase, that still does not rescue this film. But the mounties always get their man, in this case Ladd gets the the buxom saloon gal Winters. If you are a Alan Ladd fan, it could be a very enjoyable film for you to watch.

Yes, it would be nice if Hollywood had been more representative of the truth when dealing with world history, but when a film uses such gorgeous locations to tell a story, the viewer is drawn in for that breathtaking vista. This gorgeous "northern" utilizes snow-capped mountains, rushing rivers and visions of such greenery that the eye is in for a treat the moment that the film begins. It's important to know that this doesn't represent many facts about the place and time where this takes place, even though many historical figures of the time are mentioned.

The Northwest Mounted Police deals with possible treason when officer Alan Ladd stands up to his commanding officer who seems a bit mad and much needed to be reassigned. In the first 20 minutes of the film, he betrays surrogate brother Jay Silverheels whom he rejects over duty as opposed to honor. Ladd and Silverheels have rescused Shelley Winters after her wagon train was attacked, leaving her as the sole survivor. The mounties are busy escorting her to where she can get back to the United States when she breaks down to tell Ladd her secret.

In spite of the factual flaws, there is a lot to enjoy in this film as there is plenty of action and conflict. It's also interesting to have leading characters that are flawed, and there are also very good performances by J. Carroll Naish and Hugh O'Brian. In the end, there's plenty to root for as far as Ladd and Winters are concerned, especially in seeing Ladd and Silverheels reunite. I bet in a Vista vision movie screen as on a large digital TV, it is breathtaking.

This is one of the spin off films inspired by the 'Custer's Last Stand' saga, that so traumatized the American psyche of the times.The saga of the actual Battle of the Little Bighorn has, of course, been played out on film as a drama or documentary a number of times.In fact, Raoul Walsh, who directed the present film, also directed the classic Errol Flynn-Olivia de Haviland-starring 'They Died with their Boots On' version of this battle. In fact, we might think of the present film as a long-delayed fictionalized sequel to that film, as it deals with the post-Little Bighorn Sioux movement into adjacent Canada and their interactions with the resident Cree. On the other hand, the plot much more resembles 2 other spin offs of the late '40s and early '50s I am familiar with:John ford's 'Fort Apache'and Anthony Mann's 'The Last Frontier'. These 2 films generally get higher ratings than the present film, although 'The Last Frontier' is probably no better known today. That film dealt with the US army's conflicts with the Sioux headed by Red Cloud in a slightly earlier era, just as the Civil War was drawing to a close, and is based on a historical conflict. In 'Forte Apache', the Sioux are replaced by the Apache. In all 3 films, at some point, there is a strong conflict between an 'injin'-savvy subordinate and the company commander who is either naive in dealing with 'injins' or feels duty-bound to deal with them as he believes his distant superiors wish. In the end, the rebel is vindicated. To one who has seen all 3 of these films, clearly 'Fort Apache' is the most entertaining, because of the charisma of the main adversaries(John Wayne and Henry Fonda) and the periodically interjected humor of some of the supporting actors. In contrast, the other 2 films lack any substantial humor to break up the drama, save for Victor Mature's taunting of Robert Preston, who has fallen into a bear trap pit. In 'The Last Frontier', Mature certainly provides a more animated charismatic rebel than the rather stiff monotonic Alan Ladd in the present film. This is the third film of this era I have seen , in which Shelly Winters is the lone white female among a horde of men traveling through a hostile 'injin'-infested West. Usually, she comes across as a hard-bitten floozy, sporting a low-cut dress, although she seems a tad more respectable in the present film.

The gorgeous Canadian Rockies scenery is certainly one of the pluses for this film even though, geographically, it has no business being on the route from Saskatchewan to Great Falls, Montana.It was amusing seeing Alan Ladd in his cardinal red RCMP uniform sneaking up on the Cree encampment in broad daylight, in contrast to a much more appropriate drab buckskin outfit of his French Canadian scout. It was difficult for me to tell the Cree from the Sioux by their dress, horse riding and lodges. The Cree were a very diverse and widespread group. The Plains Cree, by necessity, adopted much the same lifestyle as the Plains Sioux, riding horses and living in bison-derived tepees, as opposed to the Woodland Cree, who made wigwams and canoes out of birch bark. By staging most of this film in the Rockies, both the horsemen and canoeing aspects of Cree transport were included. Jay Silverheels, who achieved fame as The Lone Ranger's constant companion in the TV series, again serves as a sometimes companion and confident to the hero. Hugh O'Brian plays a very conflicted character: a US marshal out to capture Shelly's character for the supposed murder of her brother, but who also has the hots for Shelly, to his ultimate demise.

I had the opportunity to see "Saskatchewan" lately, and viewing it brought back memories of my parents telling me about the film. When they saw it in a Calgary theatre in 1954, the audience didn't stop laughing from beginning to end. Mounties -- in 1950s DRESS UNIFORMS -- travelling through the mountains of Saskatchewan on horses! While singing! Short, skinny little Alan Ladd (with the strongest American accent on file) as a NWMP officer! Protecting his pure, innocent white girl from the evil Indians! While the towering Rockies surround FORT WALSH! Even now, knowing that the old Saskatchewan Territory took in much of Southern Alberta (but not the mountains), it's a very, very funny movie. Imagine Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas in character as Bob and Doug MacKenzie playing New Jersey State Police officers and riding around Arizona on horseback - and it's not a comedy - and you get the idea.

I'm sure that people who have never seen a mountain would love "Saskatchewan" for the scenery, but by God this was funnier than the mountains of New York City in "Rumble in the Bronx". If you live here, it'll make tears fall down your face.

Incidentally, my dad actually turned to my mom after the movie and asked her why the RCMP, who function in the west as the equivalent of US state troopers, had never been riding horses when they pulled him over for speeding. Her answer: "You drive faster than a horse."

Viewers will enjoy the staggering beauty of the Canadian Rocky Mountains in this no-nonsense, fast-paced, colorful story of a patrol of scarlet-coated Mounties guiding a diverse group of passengers over a perilous mountain pass while pursued and constantly noodged by Indians. The movie should have been called "Alberta" instead of "Saskatchewan," since Alberta is the province where shooting took place. But I suppose "Alberta" sounds too much like an Astair/Rogers musical, while "Saskatchewan," though longer and harder for youngsters to read and pronounce, sounds like a curse in some exotic language and implies violent action through "katch", "chew", and "chew an".

The viewer should enjoy the visual splendor and remain unchallenged by the familiar story of cavalry and Indians. I don't know how the Sioux will feel about it. They're the villains of the piece.

It seems that in the Canadian West of 1877, the white settlers and a handful of Royal Canadian Mounted Police lived in harmony with the local Cree Indians. The Mountie's second-in-command, Alan Ladd, is actually an adopted brother of one of the Cree braves, Jay Silverheels. So far, so reasonable -- and roughly accurate. Somehow the Canadian mountains and the high plains were absorbed into the country with a nearly complete absence of the kinds of violence that took place in that great nation to the south.

Then two flies appear in the ointment. One is the post's new commanding officer, the principled but adversarial Robert Douglas, heavy of an Errol Flynn swashbuckler and a couple of other such films. He is intent on preventing the peaceful Cree from causing any trouble, so he disarms and alienates them. Mutters Silverheels, "They teach us to hunt and then they take away our means to do it."

This betrayal tends to drive the Cree into an allegiance with Fly Number Two -- the American Sioux, who have just massacred General Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn and have now escaped across the border into Canada. Bang, bang, and then BOOM. (That's the explosion of a wagon filled with barrels of black gunpowder blowing a dozen Indians to smithereens.)

Let's see. What else. Ladd mutinies against Douglas and relieves him of his service revolver and his authority. Shelly Winters joins the party in a low-cut dress, accompanied by Hugh O'Brien as a sheriff escorting her back to Great Falls, Montana, to be hanged for a killing for which the treacherous O'Brien himself was responsible. And the victim was his own brother. Well, you can see what kind of guy Hugh O'Brien is. No wonder that Ladd, half his size, keeps punching him out.

The direction is by Raoul Walsh and it zips along as most of his Warners productions did. Walsh, like many old-school directors, didn't hold with psychological nonsense. A man was what a man was. Similarly, a woman was what a woman was. They were defined by their actions. No inferences allowed. You know, as a minor observation, when this movie was in first release it was criticized by some reviewers because Shelly Winters' wardrobe suggested that she had a bosom. It is to laugh. Actually, Winters' dialog, like all the rest, is concise to the point of being stilted, but she probably gives the most honest performance. Ladd seems content to glory in his blazing red coat with its gilded pips, his blue riding breeches with the gold stripes, and his black boots and silver spurs. As I said, this is colorful stuff. J. Carrol Naish, an Irish-American, is a raggedy French scout this time around. In the past he'd played Asians, Italians, Tibetans, and just about everything except a Siberian Chukchee -- and that only because nobody ever made a movie about the Chukchee. And in every role, he used the same all-purpose accent.

The plot seems to have been dreamed up by a committee but the location belongs to God alone. The images make you yearn for the clean, dry, cool air of sunny Banff and a scent of pine that doesn't come out of a bottle.

I had not seen Saskatchewan in years and I remember why I like it, Its in Technicolor! Mountains and scenery is awesome. Color after all these years is still outstanding and Alan Ladd was a fine actor and always a gentleman. I never care if a movie is factual or not, if I enjoy it, its a hit! This a good cowboys Indians movie and everyone come out a hero! The whole key here is Technicolor and the views of the mountains. Its a cool story and the Indians do not get beat up. Alan Ladd saves the day! Shelly Winters is pretty hot too. I need to keep writing until I get enough lines, so here is more lines! I enjoyed it! Sill not enough, Raul Walsh was a good outdoors director.