Warpath (film)

Warpath
Film poster
Directed by	Byron Haskin
Screenplay by	Frank Gruber
Story by	Frank Gruber[1]
Produced by	Nat Holt
Starring	Edmond O'Brien Dean Jagger Forrest Tucker Harry Carey Jr.
Cinematography	Ray Rennahan
Edited by	Philip Martin
Music by	Paul Sawtell
Color process	Technicolor
Production company	Nat Holt Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	August 1951 (1951-08)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$1.25 million (US rentals)[2]

Warpath is a 1951 American Western film directed by Byron Haskin and starring Edmond O'Brien, Polly Bergen and Dean Jagger and Harry Carey Jr. The film was released as a Fawcett Comics Film #9 in August 1951.

John Vickers has spent eight years hunting for the three men who murdered the woman he loved. He finds one, Woodson, and kills him in a gunfight, but not before learning that the other two men have joined the U.S. Cavalry.

En route to North Dakota, where Vickers plans to join the men under the command of George Armstrong Custer to continue his search, he sees a sergeant named O'Hara physically manhandling a woman. Molly Quade is grateful for his intervention, but O'Hara gets even when Vickers ends up serving under him at the fort, giving him the most unpleasant duties.

Molly has come to the fort to help her father Sam Quade run a general store. He is opposed to her attraction to Vickers. On an assignment, soldiers are badly outnumbered by a band of Sioux until being rescued by Custer and his troops. Vickers is recognized by Custer as a former Union officer and is promoted to first sergeant.

O'Hara realizes that Vickers suspects him to be one of the killers of his fiancée. An ambush attempt fails, so he deserts the Army and flees. A wagon train is formed to evacuate civilians while Custer prepares to do battle at Little Big Horn, but along the way, Molly, her father and Vickers are taken captive. O'Hara is a prisoner, too, and when he learns Custer's men will be hopelessly outnumbered and slaughtered, he tries to go warn the general and sacrifices his own life, distracting the Sioux until the others can escape.

Molly becomes aware that Sam, her father, is the third killer Vickers has been seeking. Before she can persuade Vickers not to kill him, Sam rides off to warn Custer, which will certainly lead to his own death.

• Edmond O'Brien as John Vickers
• Dean Jagger as Sam Quade
• Forrest Tucker as Sgt. O'Hara
• Harry Carey Jr. as Capt. Gregson
• Polly Bergen as Molly Quade
• James Millican as Gen. George Armstrong Custer
• Wallace Ford as Pvt. 'Irish' Potts
• Paul Fix as Pvt. Fiore
• Louis Jean Heydt as Herb Woodson
• Paul Lees as Cpl. Stockbridge
• Walter Sande as Sgt. Parker
• Charles Dayton as Lt. Nelson
• Robert Bray as Maj. Comstock (as Bob Bray)
• Douglas Spencer as Kelso
• James Burke as Oldtimer
• Chief Yowlachie as Chief
• John Mansfield as Sub-chief
• Monte Blue as First Emigrant
• Frank Ferguson as Marshal
• Cliff Clark as Bartender
• Paul E. Burns as Bum (as Paul Burns)
• Charles Stevenson as Curier
• John Hart as Sgt. Plennert

• List of American films of 1951

• Warpath at IMDb
• Warpath at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• Warpath at the TCM Movie Database