Make no mistake, Guy Madison invented the word "cool". Any dictionary dated before his birth that has the word "cool" in it, is a forgery.Knowing this helps to cast him in the correct role. He was meant to be the "cool" character who makes sense out of situations in which lesser characters lose their heads.Here, he is perfectly cast. He is the fourth character, actually, in the love triangle, which is where he does best.The southern belle's husband appears only briefly, and is afterwards only spoken of in his endeavors in this Civil War adventure.The other member of the triangle is an artillery officer for the South, who resembles Gable in looks, but in character is more like John Wayne.Guy Madison plays the Union artillery officer opposing him. He is also a friend of all three of the other characters.The story is a familiar one, one that has been made many times since, of Confederates on a mountain, trying to buy time for their army.What really makes this film special is that it could have been cliché, but it avoids all of the clichés. The characters are probably much too believable and three dimensional for the modern beavis or butthead, but easy for most people to relate to and feel some empathy for. This is not for the IMDb bubble boy.The soldiers are especially three dimensional. One Union soldier whom we expect to be the usual cliché jerk, actually becomes a very sympathetic character in this drama.The events seem to be written as they occur. Nothing looks contrived, so when we find the coincidence of the friends meeting in battle on opposite sides, it becomes the only coincidence, making it quite credible, as in a world where there are a million possible coincidences an hour, one is sure to happen.It is the natural flow and non judgmental occurrences, where the chips land wherever they may land, that make this special.Excellent war Western.

Many films which show battles tend not to be very specific about it and what we end up seeing are the highlights while the rest is told by the actors or narrated. What is remarkable about this film is that it shows us in detail how some southern soldiers climb trough an inside cavern a gigantic rock taking some cannons and from there manage to hit the northern trains and everything that happens in the ensuing battle. No director could have done a better job than Cameron Menzies, who was a great art director and production designer. He also directed uncredited, significant parts of Duel in the Sun. Guy Madison was at the beginning of a successful career, he would star in "The Command" a few years later, which was a great box office hit. Unfortunately it would be the opposite for co star Barbara Payton. It is amazing that this is a forgotten film, barely mentioned in books.

Barbara Payton is who keeps those drums a beating in the Deep South. She's the mistress of a southern plantation which is a cut down version of that other Georgia plantation, Tara. In the film's prologue she and husband Craig Stevens are entertaining two old friends from West Point, Yankee boy Guy Madison and Barbara's secret paramour James Craig.Babs is planning to run away with Jim that night, but news of the firing on Fort Sumter brings everybody's plans to a halt as the men go off to war on their respective sides. Flash forward to four years later and Stevens is in prison, but circumstance has brought Madison and Craig back to the neighborhood.Craig is given a rough assignment, bring a pair of cannons to the top of a hollow ridge called Devil's Mountain and rain fire and destruction down on Sherman's supply train on the railroad tracks below. Guy has the unenviable duty of blasting him off the mountain. Of course neither knows the other is in command on the other side. If the sets look familiar, particularly the plantation sequences it's because they come from Mourning Becomes Electra. That was RKO's prestige picture a few years earlier. The famous Eugene O'Neill drama cost RKO a mint and flopped at the box office. If you were Howard Hughes running RKO and looking to recoup some money, you'd find use for those expensive sets also. I'm sure that's why Drums in the Deep South was made as well as to showcase Barbara Payton. I'm sure she was on the lot because Howard had a personal interest in her as well.Drums in the Deep South is a cut rate Gone With the Wind with heavy overtones of Eugene O'Neill. Maybe being around that Mourning Becomes Electra set might have given the writers the idea, but what emerges is a turgid melodrama and by the end of the film you don't really care who survives the film and who doesn't. Barbara Payton is no Vivien Leigh and James Craig is one pale imitation of Clark Gable.

Was Menzies making "Gone With the Wind" light? Or the tragic counterpoint thereto? "Drums" is a surprise: nary an anachronistic weapon to be seen. I am so accustomed to seeing 1873 revolvers in movies about the War Between the States that this came as a shock. To see uniforms of some exactitude, especially for the artillery of all things, was refreshing indeed. I was also surprised by a very non-1950s ending. Really a far better "Civil War" motion picture than I had expected although I must say I found both the Confederate major and his lost love a bit cardboard. Madison chewed the scenery a trifle to make up for it. There were indeed plot twists and character touches although I missed any resolution for the Confederate colonel. Not at all a bad way to spend a couple of hours.