TROOPER HOOK - I really liked this 1957 western when I saw it as a
kid so nice to see it again 50 years later. Its a rather neglected wesern now, perhaps it would be screened more if it were in colour? I like Barbara Stanwyck's
other '50s westerns too (CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA, THE MAVERICK QUEEN, THE FURIES (a recent discovery, as per Stanwyck label), 40 GUNS, THE VIOLENT MEN), this is a nice black and white one made the year after THE SEARCHERS
and is also about a woman being rescued from living with the indians -
here though its a mature woman with her son by the Apache chief Nanchez
(Rudolfo Acosta). Joel McCrea is the Trooper Hook of the title who has
the task of taking Cora and her son back to her husband as they travel
though Indian territory on a stagecoach which also has Senorita Susan
Kohner, cowboy Earl Hollimann, and the splendidly venal Edward Andrews
on board). 
Stanwyck is very compelling as Cora and plays it mainly
silent as she re-adjusts to civilisation. Nanchez is also in pursuit as
he wants his son. John Dehner is the husband who wants his wife back but
not her half-breed child ... its tense and nicely resolved and its one
of Stanwyck's better '50s films, all wrapped up in 80 minutes and there
is even a Tex Ritter theme song! Directed by Charles Maquis Warren (?).
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