not horrible nor great

Lack of good storyline.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

When the film begins, you see Captain Shafter (Ray Milland) being thrown out of the Cavalry for attacking another officer. The exact circumstances are unknown.In the next scene, years have passed and Shafter is heading west on a stage coach. He is going to re-enlist in the Cavalry under an assumed name...and wouldn't you know it that the guy he attacked years ago (Hugh Marlow) is there and looking to get revenge on Shafter. All this, by the way, is set during the period in which Crazy Horse is on the rampage and heading to a showdown at the Little Big Horn.This is a very standard western and Milland is just fine. There is nothing particularly bad nor good about this one...a decent time passer with a satisfying finale.

This is one of my favourite 'B' Westerns. It is highly enjoyable and very underrated (for example, in Halliwell's Film Guide, it gets no stars at all!).The cinematography and location filming are very impressive and evocative. The action scenes are exciting and well staged. The scene compositions are particularly well done. For example, in the confrontations and battles between cavalry and Indians, we often see both sides at once, in one shot, making it a lot more realistic and engrossing than cross-cutting between one side and the other.Sometimes there are moments that are gripping and even spine-tingling, such as the remorseless advance of the Indians up the cliff towards Forrest Tucker as he makes his heroic last stand.Some of the other reviewers complained about character actor heavies such as Tucker, Barton MacLane and James Millican playing good guys, but actually it is a pleasant change seeing them in sympathetic roles.There are many effective moments, even in brief shots, such as the ironic one when General Custer, on his way to the Little Big Horn, gives a sweeping, nonchalant bow to the woman who asks him to bring all the men home alive.I've seen this film about five times over the last few decades, and it is still just as good!

An interesting variation on the story of Custer's last stand. It deals with the same battle with the Sioux, but at a site a few miles away from where Custer and his men were massacred. This premise is a nice angle to focus on although I'm not sure that any part of this has any historical battle. The scenery is breathtaking and we were treated to arrows in the back, Indians flying off horses, hand to hand combat and fisticuffs between soldiers. Ray Milland looks alarmingly like John Wayne, but I enjoyed his performance. Too much of the movie concentrates on a love triangle between Milland, his boss and seemingly the only female in the whole area. Quite frankly, both men needed their heads banging together and told to get on with the job in hand. But where would the drama be in that? Despite this whole feud becoming a little tiresome, this was an interesting piece and is well worth a view.

The book "Bugles in the Afternoon" is regarded as one of the better novels relating to Custer's Last Stand, and this film is a reasonable adaptation, not that it devotes much time to the battle itself. Rather it concentrates on a love triangle, with some good cavalry action with the Indians that is almost incidental to the Custer massacre.I blinked a little at Kern Shafter's appearance on arriving to enlist at Fort Abraham Lincoln; he looked extremely smart, even for the gambler he had become. I assume his motivation in rejoining the colours was nostalgia for army life,though this wasn't completely evident.The well-known participants in the battle - Custer, Reno, Benteen - don't get much screen time, and the General himself has only a few lines. At least he looks the part, with the short hair he favoured for a hot campaign rather than his trademark long locks. Purists may raise their eyebrows at the cavalry using repeating rifles, when in fact they carried single-shot carbines, and pack-animals rather than the wagons shown supplied the troops in the general battlefield area.But all in all, it's a reasonable cavalry Western, but not in the same league as those of John Wayne and John Ford.