Blast from the Past:
One of the last movies made prolific director David Butler, The Command is a visually impressive CinemaScope Western, featuring Guy Madison, then a popular TV star, and character actor James Whitmore.
The screenplay by Sam Fuller was based on the novel “Rear Guard” by James Warner Bellah.
When the commanding officer of a cavalry patrol is wounded, he asks the patrol’s surviving ranking officer, an army doctor, to take over and lead the patrol.
On the way back to their fort, the cavalry troop passes a town where infantry troops are temporarily taking a breather from their duty of escorting a wagon train of settlers.
When the colonel learns of the presence of the cavalry troop, he orders its attachment to his command in order to help screening the main body of infantry troops and the wagon train.
This attachment results in the cavalry troop encountering the native Indians who keep attacking the wagon train. During the trip, the colonel suffers a mild heart attack and is now unable to command. The infantry officers ask the cavalry officer to take over command from the incapacitated infantry colonel.
The cavalry doctor-officer takes over and leads the combined troops of infantry and cavalry in defeating the Indians.
The film was meant to star Gary Cooper in a film then under the title of Rear Guard, and when he bowed out, Guy Madison replaced him as the leading man.
It was announced as a 3-D but Warner, but it was shot in Vistarama. However, in agreement with 20th Century Fox, The Command was publicly released as Warner’s first film in CinemaScope.
David Butler is perhaps better known for his frequent collaborations with Doris Day.
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
