Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

TankGuy You're always in for a treat when you watch a Universal made B western or B movie even,there's a lot to be said for films like THE BATTLE AT APACHE PASS,TOMAHAWK,WAR ARROW,WINCHESTER 73 and THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON,but Pillars of the sky(also known as The Tomahawk and the cross)is different from all the rest.Let me begin by saying it is one fantastic western,it has a brilliant storyline,wonderfully filmed scenes and brilliant action sequences,but what makes it unique is it's Christian undertones,which is a good thing as this works very well,George Marshall did an great job at directing some of the scenes,but i will talk about these later.But first,the plot. In Oregon in 1868,all the native American tribes living in that area have been moved onto reservations and are learning to live in peace with the white man,a preacher played by Ward Bond(whom some of you may remember as Burt the cop from It's a wonderful life)has converted many of the indians to Christianity and baptises them giving them biblical names,all is going well but Chief Kamiakin and some Indian braves want to return to ways of war and seize their chance when the army decides to build a road through the reservation for white settlers,breaking the treaty.Kamiakin persuades the other indians to renounce their Christian faith and fight alongside him against the white man and when they do,so beings killing and misery,Sergeant Emmet Bell(JEFF CHANDLER)is sent out to stop the bloodshed and prevent a war.So i'll come back to what i was saying earlier,some of the scenes are magnificently done,like the scene when Sgt Bell confronts the Indian chiefs and angrily berates them for renouncing their faith and killing needlessly and the final scene when he reads from the bible before praying is so powerful and moving and very well directed.Now you can see why this is different from all the other B westerns.But a B western wouldn't be a B western without a couple of excellent action scenes,and Pillars of the sky really does deliver in the action department,there are a few small shootouts but it's the epic battle scene in the middle of the film which is the highlight.It's stands out from a lot of the other battle scenes that i have seen,it's fantastic,the indians charge the soldiers but are in turn blasted into oblivion by a couple of Cannons,then all of the soldiers and their wagons race up a hill whilst being chased and shot at but the wagons tumble over and crash in the process and at the same time the soldiers engage the indians in swordfights and shootouts.Its one epic battle scene which must have taken great dedication and care to film.All in all one gem of a western,highly recommended,thanks to Pegasus it has been released onto DVD but it's extremely rare so if you ever see it buy it,but when you talk of all the great westerns,you will talk of Pillars of the sky.10/10.

dbdumonteil That scene,when the good doctor courts danger ,when he comes towards an army of angry bloodthirsty Indians ,strongly reminds you of that scene in "the war of the worlds" (1953) when Uncle Matthews ,the minister ,faces up to the Martians ,a Bible and a cross in his hands .But those Indians were supposed to be Christians whereas the ETs were not .Which would tend to show that religion does necessarily calm people down !Jeff Chandler is efficient as sergeant Bell but the love affair is totally bland and Dorothy Malone is totally wasted (hardly 10 lines to say in the whole movie)-she would win an AA for her next movie the famous "written on the wind" melodrama -.Some (Indian only) sadism in certain scenes.

ccthemovieman-1 Since I love westerns, and usually have no problems watching actors like Jeff Chandler, Dorothy Malone, Ward Bond and Lee Marvin, I thought for sure I would enjoy this movie.Wrong. The lead, "1st Sgt. Emmetr Bell" (Chandler) was a unlikeable, bitter guy who gets a quick slam in about "having no use for the Bible" and appearing as a bitter guy. My major complaint, however, was that - especially in a western - you better grab the audience's attention early on, if you want to hold. Nothing happens in this movie for at least the first half hour. By then I was bored, and I couldn't have been the only one. If memory serves me, the big calvary-vs. Indians battle doesn't happen for at least an hour.Malone also did not look the part at all. Marvin with an Irish accent? Puh-leeze! They and some of the others either had no credibility or they sounded like they just mailed in their performances. At least they were good enough to film this on location, in the Pacific Northwest, which always looks impressive on film. This might have been an interesting had they punched it up in the first half, but you can't expect to hold audiences with something this lackluster.

Neil Doyle Slow-paced story gets off to a ponderous start with too much talk and too little action, with only some gorgeous scenery for eye comfort. The fault seems to be George Marshall's sluggish direction of a uniformly bland cast.All of the actors go through their paces in rather standard roles, including JEFF CHANDLER, KEITH ANDES, WARD BOND and LEE MARVIN and for a western that promises some action when the plot thickens, it's a good half-hour before the conflict between cavalry and Indians provides any thrills.DOROTHY MALONE has the only substantial female role, as a woman no longer in love with her husband. In make-up and hairstyle, she looks and acts more as though she's a woman of modern times rather than frontier days. The romantic triangle (Malone, Chandler, Andes) is a weak one.The big set piece is the Indian attack that occurs an hour into the film and wipes out most of the command. It's well staged and vigorously mounted for western action. But it comes too late to alter the slow pacing of most of the story which is either Marshall's or the scriptwriter's fault.A minor quibble: All of the night scenes have a soundstage look to them, in sharp contrast to all the daytime locations.Summing up: Lackluster western needed the John Ford touch from George Marshall, with Lee Marvin and his Irish accent less than credible in the sort of supporting role Victor McLaglen usually played. Nothing more than average.