An Exercise In Nonsense

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

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

OKLAHOMA TERRITORY 1960This one is a low budget duster put out by independent producer, Robert E Kent. The cast includes, Bill Williams, Ted de Corcia, Gloria Talbott, Walter Sande and Grant Richards.This one has Sam Houston's son, Temple, (Bill Williams) working as a district attorney for the Oklahoma Territory. Williams is riding through the scrub country when he comes up on a gun battle being waged. On one side are several Cherokee including local Chief, de Corcia. On the other side are a handful of cowboys.Williams gets the drop on the cowboy types and disarms them. The men show Williams a warrant they have for the arrest of the Chief. Williams, who has known de Corsia for years, has the man come to town in order to straighten the matter out.Things turn out to be not so simple. There are witnesses who claim to have seen de Corcia kill the local Indian agent. Williams is forced to hand over the Chief to the local law, Walter Sande. In the mix now is de Corcia's son, X Brands and daughter, Gloria Talbott. Both say that their father is being framed. Williams of course ends up being the man who is in charge of prosecuting their father.The court day arrives and any witnesses for de Corcia, are now dead or unable to be found. The Chief is found guilty and sentenced to be strung up. Now the viewer finds out the whole affair is indeed a frame-up. Local businessman Grant Richards is trying to prod the Cherokee into going on the warpath. Such an action would cancel the treaty and the tribe would lose their land.Needless to say, that is exactly what the tribe intends to do. They even make a small attempt to break de Corcia out of the crowbar hotel. Williams, after looking over the evidence again, is starting to smell a large rodent in play. He is sure when Richards and some political types offer him the Governor's job.Williams of course finds the evidence needed to quash the charges against the Chief. Richards and his henchmen are shot, or gobbled up for a date of their own with the rope.This Edward L Cahn directed low renter is better than I was expecting. With only a 67 minute runtime it moves along at a decent enough clip. B-film specialist, Cahn is best known for the 1950's sci-fi classic, IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE.

Although there's not a word of truth in this story Temple Houston in his own right was quite the colorful character of the old west. Like his illustrious father Sam Houston, Temple inherited Sam's love and respect for the Indians, particularly the Cherokee who were now living in what later became Oklahoma. He was also quite the frontier lawyer equally adept as defense and prosecuting attorney. He plays both roles in this film.Bill Williams plays Temple Houston and as federal prosecutor he has to try Cherokee chief Ted DeCorsia for the murder of an Indian agent. Williams gets his conviction but afterward as facts emerge Williams becomes DeCorsia's staunch advocate and together with crusading newspaper owner Walter Baldwin gets justice done. As is the case in these film there are some powerful interests who want to see DeCorsia hang and send the Cherokees on a warpath.I'm not sure if Temple Houston was also a fast gun, but Williams certainly backs his play with a pair of Colts. Also in the cast of note are Tom Browne Henry as the legendary judge Isaac Parker, Walter Sande as the federal marshal, Gloria Talbott as DeCorsia's daughter and Grant Richards as an unscrupulous businessman.Shot on a shoestring budget and not a word of truth in the plot, Oklahoma Territory is a fine film in that dwindling genre of B westerns.

Intelligent little western coming at the end of the great B-movie era (1959). Unfortunately, this is the kind of cheap b&w project that was soon swallowed up by TV. Nonetheless, the movie has an intelligent script with a good premise, grounded I believe in fact. Greedy land grabbers want to divide up Cherokee tribal land so they can buy it off piecemeal. So they concoct a scheme to remove the resistant tribal chief (de Corsia). But the local DA (Williams) puts justice before greed and tracks the scheme looking for guilty parties.Bill Williams (Barbara Hale's real life husband) never had the career his talent deserved. He could be convincingly tough, as he is here. All in all, he's a fine actor, deserving of more breaks than he got. Sorry to say cult actress Gloria Talbott is little more than comely window dressing, but I'll take her anyway. Happily, it's a better-than-average supporting cast, which helps, since the shoot-outs are pedestrian as heck. And what would these cheap westerns do without Iverson Ranch as a location. So, you cheap western fans (myself included) be prepared to see scrubland backdrops you've seen a hundred times before. (In passing—if a location is less than 50 miles from LA, the producers don't have to pay higher location rates to the crew, etc. At least that was the case back then.) Anyway, the movie's a worthwhile little oater.

This is good western worth seeing. Of course it is not a classic western like High Noon but it is good of its' type. If you have 67 minutes to spare it is worth watching. It was made to be as part of double features that were common at the time it was made. It is a good movie with a good cast. Bill Williams plays Temple Houston (Sam Houston's son) who is the DA with a sense of Justice. He is located in Fort Smith, Ark and works with Judge Parker in 1872. His area includes the Oklahoma Territory which was the Indian territory at that time. Ted De Corsia is very good as Chief Buffalo Horn who is falsely accused of murder. This was an unusual role type for Ted and he was very good. Gloria Talbott plays the Chief's daughter and Walter Barlin (a character actor of many movies and television) plays the fair minded newspaper man. It is worth seeing even though it is not too historically accurate because Temple Houston was only 12 in 1872 and Judge Parker wasn't appointed to the area until 1875. Still worth seeing.