TROOPER HOOK

US, 1957, 81 minutes, Black and white.
Joel Mc Crea, Barbara Stanwyck, Earl Holliman, Edward Andrews, John Dehner, Susan Kohner, Royal Dano, Rudolfo Acosta.
Directed by Charles Marquis Warren.

Trooper Hook is one of several brief films made by Charles Marquis Warren in the 1950s. The following year he made Cattle Empire, again with Joel Mc Crea.

Joel Mc Crea made mainly westerns from the middle of the 40s to the 80s. Only one or two films from this period were not westerns. However, he had been a popular star of drama and comedy during the 1930s and 1940s. Here he is matched with Barbara Stanwyck, one of the strong women of the Hollywood screen. There is a strong supporting cast including Earl Holliman and Susan Kohner who were to appear in a number of popular films at this time, Holliman making the transition to television.

The film raises issues that were popular in later decades. Some consider that the film is a bit ahead of its time though it echoes some aspects of John Ford’s The Searchers released the previous year. The film focuses on a confrontation between cavalry and Indians, the capture of the Apache chief, Nanchez (Rudolfo Acosta) who has taken a white woman to the camp and they have a son. The troopers are to accompany mother and son back to meet her husband. In the meantime, the chief escapes and leads a confrontation party against the troopers.

While the popular western themes are here, the film focuses on attitudes towards the native Americans (clearer from such films as The Devil’s Doorway and Broken Arrow at the beginning of the 1950s) as well as issues of race, family, child custody.

1. How good a western was this?

2. What conventions of westerns were used: hero, Indians, town, stagecoach and journey? How well used were these usual ingredients? Was the film more than conventional?

3. The black and white photography, the small scope of the film, its short length, the ballad and song technique?

4. The setting of the fights, the Indian chief, the massacres, the burning of the Indian village? Audience mood affected by this for the rest of the film? How well did the film present the Indians. sympathy for the white man?

5. The attitude of the people of the west, the attitude of the audience to the Chief and his cruelty? To his capture? His pride, hatred. need for revenge?

6. Cora in the context of the west, the captivity? How well explained was her situation? Her accepting the life of a squaw? Her love for her son? Her need for survival? The humiliation? The humiliation by the people and her reaction to it? Her decision to build a new life?

7. How convincing a hero was Hook? How heroic in term of the west? His abiding by the letter of the law? His attitude towards Cora, to the boy? His being likened to Stone and as hard as the Chief? His not making judgements, his protection? His growing love? The humanity of his final heroism? His handling of the situation with the stagecoach?

8. How well did the film explore racial prejudice? Racial arrogance? The picturing of hostility? The importance of the speech of the Commander’s wife that it could happen to anyone?

9. The character of Jeff? The young western gambler? His helping and his life being challenged? His holding the gun to the boy?

10. The conventions of the stagecoach situation? The man who asked all the questions? The driver and the humour? The man with his wealth and the ironic death? The grandmother and her granddaughter? How well were these characters explored? In relationship to Cora, and Hook? The dramatic force of the encounter with Sutcliffe? His being offended by the situation? His inability to love? To accept the boy?

11. The final decision? The confrontation with the Chief? The mutual shooting? The parallel then with the siege of the coach and Hook's ingenuity?

12. What were the main messages of this western? Were they well integrated?