Die Hölle der roten Berge

Red Mountain comes at a point in Alan Ladd's career when he was starting to get known as a western star as well as a noir star. This was the third western he had done after Whispering Smith and Branded. The same year of 1951 he also made Shane, but Paramount held up its release for two years. And he and agent/wife Sue Carol made the decision to leave Paramount around this time. It turned out to be his worst career move.

But doing Red Mountain was far from that. Ladd plays a Confederate officer who in the dying days of the Civil War goes west to join Quantrill's Raiders. He's one Southerner not looking to be reconstructed. But along the way he kills a government assayer and Arthur Kennedy gets blamed for the crime who is also a Confederate veteran. Ladd rescues him from a lynch mob and Kennedy and wife Lizabeth Scott go along with him to join Quantrill. Along the way Kennedy breaks his leg.

Arriving at Quantrill's camp at Red Mountain, the three of them discover that John Ireland as Quantrill has an agenda all his own that has nothing to do with the Confederate States of America. He's setting himself up with an alliance of Indian tribes as a new western emperor. Similar in many ways to Jeff Chandler's character in The Jayhawkers. His ally is Ute chief Jay Silverheels and Quantrill think the Indians fight best in their own established way which doesn't sit well with Ladd.

Quantrill is an interesting figure and none of the Hollywood movies have ever gotten him quite right. Such people as Walter Pidgeon, Brian Donlevy and now John Ireland have played him as one bloodthirsty individual. In Red Mountain he's the deepest dyed kind of villain and quite pretentious as well.

The film was shot on location in Gallup, New Mexico and the battle scenes are well done and the pace from director William Dieterle is a good one. Red Mountain is a good western made at a time when the western was maturing in Hollywood.

I can watch both Alan Ladd and Lizabeth Scott in anything, but to my knowledge this is the only film that paired them up. In fact without minute checking I believe it is, and they are unlikely as possible lovers, and without spoiling the plot the question of that consummation is left dangling. What happens in between that possibility is a rugged Western set in a rocky landscape and it is a pity it was not made a few years later when Cinemascope was in its beginnings. That quibble put aside both Ladd and Scott give good performances and basically this is a Native American fight against the background of the American Civil war as it drew towards its close. Historically I am ignorant of the facts of that ending, but according to the film you get the impression that Ladd ends the war almost single handed versus the last of the Confederates. Judged simply as film the improbable situations work and suspense is held all the way through. I prefer the UK title of ' Red Mountain ' to its American title, and given the amount of action and in your face action at that, as if rehearing for the imminent arrival of films in 3-D, it is never boring. I saw it many years ago and liked it and thought it was lost until it showed up on UK television. By the amount of reviews it has not been seen by many, so catch it when you can. Ladd was at the time at his peak and ' Shane ' his finest Western was waiting in the wings, and although his acting is not top notch his presence is and he deserved his popular appeal from the last part of the 1940's to the late 1950's. Nobody alive now who was a child then will forget his escapist films, and ' Red Mountain ' is high up there in its position of being pure, basic and fun to watch cinema.

It's 1865 and the Union army are beating the Confederates. Circumstances evolve so that we have Alan Ladd (Sherwood), Arthur Kennedy (Waldron) and Lizabeth Scott (Chris) seeking the help of Confederate Colonel John Ireland (Quantrill) as he sneaks around the mountains with his troops and Indian factions in the disguise of the blue cavalry. Blue is the Unionist colour whilst it should be grey for the Confederates. Deception is the order of the day.

I think the film's message of unity is kind of rubbish and tacked on at the end. The film is an excuse to put Alan Ladd into a film and we get a love triangle in which there is only going to be one winner. It's all pretty unconvincing stuff. However, the Technicolour does save the film as the scenery is amazing. It's incredible to think of all the history that has gone before on this rocky terrain. If the film's best point is the scenery, then I think we can agree that we are in trouble! The cast aren't particularly interesting and despite making out that Ireland is a bad guy, he does make sense - he should shoot the prisoners. This is war not a charity.

It's an ok film to watch once.

I quite like Director William Dieterle's work. He first impressed me with PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948), a rather whimsical love story, and SEPTEMBER AFFAIR (1950) only confirmed in my mind his penchant for directing love stories with a sensitive touch.

Of course, RED MOUNTAIN does have a love angle, too, which ultimately symbolizes the union of North and South, for the US to become one nation. But it involves a triangle: Ladd, playing Captain Sherwood, carries a torch for lovely Lizabeth Scott... pity that she is married to Arthur Kennedy!

The film opens with the murder of an assayer weighing gold on a scale. The assailant's face is not shown but by the short steps I had an inknling as to the killer's identity: "Nah, can't be Ladd!" - I thought - "He doesn't sneak up on unsuspecting souls and ice them so coldly!"

How wrong I was, but then nothing in RED MOUNTAIN really pans out normally: Ladd is a Confederate, but you do not see him in Confederate uniform, only in Union colors as he saves Kennedy from hanging and for a while you do not know why he does it, until you learn that he was the real finder of the gold motherlode. That ain't all, either: This Ladd is a real bad lad!, thick as thieves with scheming Confederate General Quantrill until the latter reveals his real hand and his nefarious plans with the Indians.

Unfortunately, that denouement involves a deluge of talking, with repeated situations where Ladd saves Kennedy, Kennedy saves Ladd, Scott also saves them. Finally, Ladd realizes that Quantrill is a criminal. As the old saying prior to the 5th amendment had it, a criminal who kills a criminal deserves 100-year pardon.

Such is the dubious moral standard embodied against type by Ladd, normally a standup guy.

Pleasant cinematography, mediocre script. 5/10.

This one is good, but not great, although it had a lot going for it: beautiful color photography of the Southwest, fine Franz Waxman score (somewhat reminiscent of the one he did a year earlier for The Furies, another and superior western), good-lucking leads--two diminutive blonds, both of whom are enjoyably minimal in their expressiveness. However, they do not have quite the chemistry that Ladd had with Veronica Lake, another diminutive blonde. In addition, the script could be a little more inventive, but its slant on the actual historical figure of Quantrell is interesting, and John Ireland makes the most of his part. So the film never quite catches fire the way that The Furies does--and in moody black and white--but it's certainly worth a look.