this be a luminously photograph and unusually well write western by veteran creator of rawhide charles marquis warren . direcxtor gordon douglas be it chief help in this regard . it strong plot line can be tell in a few sentence . a hard nose by the book and cavalry officer and captain richard lance and capture a leader of the indian enemy after a massacre at a fort . he insist on bring the man back for trial and to be send totucson while his commander send another man to try to take the prisoner for trial and the patrol be wipe out . this mean the leader have escape and and lance must now lead a second patrol and he pick the men the fort can most spare and a company of problem to defend the advance fort that have be wipe out and save the command from another attack by stop up the bottleneck pas in that sector . a lance and young gregory peck be quite strong . other in the large cast of this film which really show life at a cavalry outpost look like an army establishment of heterogeneous and quarrel type include war bond powerful a a hard drinking sergeant and neville brand and steve brodie a troublemaker and warner anderson and lon chaney jr. a psychological troublemaker and gig young and art baker and herbert heyes a fellow officer with nana bryant a the colonel wife . even barbara payton a the love interest get by in a difficult role while michael ansara be the captured war chief and and jeff corey play the fort scout . there be really two great scene in this very well make western the long section at the fort before the last patrol be send out and and that long patrol to the doom ft. defiant itself . once at that fort and peck get to deliver a grand speech in which at the demand of the men he have line up for order and he tell them each why he take them along . read them their shortcoming one by one while they then tell them why they think he send his best friend to die in his place take the indian in instead of go himself and he prove them wrong for the remainder of the film by win his lonely battle through intelligence and courage . the music by franz waxman be good and the production quality admirable while the argument about what would happen if lance take the war chief in happens to be true while other than this unsolvable mistake by the central character and this be be great western . it have be a favorite of mine for fifty year .