Seminole

Setting the action in 1835 Florida lends this frontier saga a distinctive look, with uniforms evidently from an earlier age than the usual cavalry fare. Boetticher makes the most of the visual contrast between the stiff collars and the swampy environs when aggressive commander Carlson squares up to the Seminoles purportedly blocking the progress of white civilisation. Fellow officer Hudson is the voice of decent compromise, Quinn searingly sincere as the half-breed Indian leader once the latter's boyhood friend. Contrived the scenario might be, but the director whips up a fair momentum with it, and the army attack on a Seminole encampment which turns out to be deserted is a wonderfully vivid piece of sequence-building, thanks in no small part to Metty's atmospheric camerawork.