After watching this film I thought back to 1957 when this film first came out and I wonder if anyone noticed that Pawnee was a remake of The Ten Commandments set in the old west. I guess that Paramount thought that Herbert J. Yates and Republic Pictures which was on its uppers at that time had nothing worth suing over.George Montgomery plays a man who was raised by the Pawnee after his white parents were killed. At least that explained those baby blue eyes that Burt Lancaster in Apache and Chuck Connors in Geronimo couldn't explain. He's the adopted son of Chief Ralph Moody, favored so much so that blood kin Charles Horvath is jealous. Montgomery is even moving in on Charlotte Austin the Indian maid set to marry the chief to be.It's Moody's wish that Montgomery go among his own race and see how they live and how the Pawnee can adapt in their world. Which he does by taking a job as wagon train scout for a wagon train headed by Bill Williams. And then Montgomery catches the eye of his girl Lola Albright.I think you can see the similarities and the final climax between the Pawnees, settlers, and cavalry is the parting of the Red Sea and it all ends romantically as it did for Moses.Pawnee is a below par western that has me wondering if Cecil B. DeMille was insulted or flattered.

This is just one in a huge string of westerns that Montgomery made over the course of his career. This one, however, falls pretty near the bottom of the heap in quality and prestige. In it, Montgomery plays a white man raised by Indians. (Hilariously, even though he has been reared among the Native Americans his entire life, his hair isn't as long as theirs and it's parted on the side just as it would be in any other film, but with two braided pig tails down either side!) Soon after he saves Albright and her crusty father from his own people's attack, he decides to rejoin the white race. This agonizing adjustment consists of him wiping off his face paint, removing the faux ponytails and changing clothes.......VOILA! He's white! Through plot contrivance, he winds up as the scout for Albright's wagon train (which is chock full of annoying stock characters who are shown in long shots knocking violently over rugged terrain, yet in the close-ups are barely rocking on a static, stationary prop wagon!) Chief among the silly characters is a frail, ancient pioneer wife who is pregnant with her first child. She is shown in shawls, etc...but occasionally can be seen in cinch-waisted dresses which reveal no belly yet gives birth right after! She and Freeman (later famous for her comedic gifts) and Albright (who still looked human at this stage in her career before turning her skin brown and her hair white) take time out from getting slaughtered by the Indians to buy themselves some new dresses in a nearby town. "Little House on the Prairie" fans will recognize the pregnant lady's husband as the Reverend from the later TV series. Eventually, Montgomery finds himself caught in the middle of the distrusting wagon train participants and his Indian family (incited by a particularly irritable "brother" who is out for blood.) All of the battle sequences are lifted from another film. This is ludicrously brought home when the screen is filled with epic numbers of settlers and warriors but the stars are behind a rock or off to the side watching! Unless it is to poke fun at the sorriness of the production, there's not much reason to watch, though Montgomery does display a still fit figure during some of his scenes as a Pawnee (notably in a "washing up" shot as observed by Albright.)

Despite a veteran cast, this one just doesn't make the grade. The script is routine at best, and most of the location and action scenes are nothing more than stock footage, most of it gleaned from "Buffalo Bill" (1944). Ms. Albright can almost always lift a B picture to the status of "watchable" however, here she is reduced to nothing more than window dressing between old stock footage action scenes. Pass on this one.

Pawnee is a cliche ridden mid-fifties Western made bearable by a good cast, professional direction, and some decent scenery. George Montgomery stars as a white man raised by the Pawnee Indians who must decide whether to remain an Indian and become chief of the Pawnee nation or return to his roots and save a wagon train from an Indian attack. The basic premise is old hat, and the film is loaded with stock characters includng the wise old Indian chief who seeks peace with the whites and the younger, violent war-mongering chief who seeks to kill the settlers (and his long despised white "brother" and rival Goerge Montgomery), the kindly and wise wagon train doctor, the wagon master who also becomes a rival of Montgomery for the love of a whte woman, a crusty, but lovable old coot of a settler, and so on. The film is juvenile and simplistic, but is watchable thanks to a good cast of old pros, fast and knowing direction, and excellent color photography of the scenic west. George Montgomery was a solid, leading man in many westerns of the fifties, and turns in his typically solid performance as the hero here. He is ably supported by such stalwarts of fifties westerns as Robert Griffin, Francis McDonald, Dabbs Greer, and Bill Williams. Lola Albright, an excellent, but underrated actress who later costarred on TV's Peter Gunn, gives a good performance as a yong woman traveling with the wagon train, who comes between Bill Williams, the wagon master, and Montgomery. It is noted that the lead Indian parts are played by caucasion actors and Native Americans are used almost exclusively as extras. The direction is by George Waggner, who directed the Wolfman and other horror films at Universal in the forties. Waggner is an old pro who moves the script along quickly and makes the cliches bearable while keeping the cast from going over the top in roles that could have easily become laughable. There is nothing new here, but it is a competent film which should mildly entertain western fans and youngsters who have never sat through a western programmer from the fifties.