Raid of the Ogalalla

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Movie
German title Raid of the Ogalalla
Original title Western Union
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1941
length 96 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Fritz Lang
script Robert Carson
production Harry Joe Brown ,
Darryl F. Zanuck
music David Buttolph
camera Edward Cronjager ,
Allen M. Davey
cut Robert Bischoff
occupation

Raid of the Ogalalla (original title: Western Union ) is an American western by the Austrian director Fritz Lang from 1941, which is based on the novel The Singing Wire (original title: Western Union ) by Zane Gray .

action

America in 1861: Vance Shaw is on the run. On the way he loses his horse and has to continue the escape on foot. He meets a man and decides to steal his horse. But when he sees that the man is wounded, he lets go of his plan. Vance helps the injured man, who is in charge of the telegraph installation and is called Edward Creighton .

Healed of his injuries, Creighton hires a few people, including Vance, to continue working on the lines. While at work, the group is attacked by Indians of the Ogalalla , a Lakota tribe , and one of the men is killed. Vance pursues the attackers and finds out that it is white people who have disguised themselves as Indians. Among them are some of Vance's former friends. The group's leader, Jack Slade, tells Vance that they work for the Confederates . They are supposed to disrupt the Western Union telegraph company because it helps the enemy Union.

When Vance is back with his work force, they are again attacked by (drunk) Indians. Vance wrestles with an Indian who tries to steal a telescope. The Indian is then shot by Richard Blake, an engineer. The men learn that their main camp is also being attacked. You rush back to repel the attack, but the Indians steal your horses.

The army reaches the city and reports to Creighton that the Ogalalla Indian chief, contrary to an earlier agreement, is now refusing to have the telegraph line built through his country because his son has been wounded by a white man. In addition, the Indians asserted that they were incited to the attacks by white deserters using alcohol. Meanwhile, Vance gets a message that Slade wants to meet him again. On the way to the meeting point, he is captured by Slade's men. Slade tells him that his men want to burn down the Western Union camp. Vance should not be able to intervene. After Slade and his men leave, Vance manages to break free, but is late. His hands were burned while rescuing some men.

After the extinguishing work, Creighton wants Vance to tell everything he knows. But Vance refuses and is released. Before he leaves the camp, he seeks Blake and admits that Slade is his brother and that he now wants to stop the gang. Vance rides into town to find Slade. There is a shooting with Slade, and Vance is hampered by the burns on his hands. He manages to kill some gang members, but is then shot himself by his brother. Meanwhile, Blake has followed Vance and takes up the fight. He can wound Slade so badly that he dies shortly afterwards. Finally, the men of the Western Union can celebrate the completion of the telegraph line. Creighton's sister Sue mourns Vance Shaw.

background

The film was shot in House Rock Canyon in Arizona and in Zion National Park in Utah . The film was Fritz Lang's second work on a western. His first western Revenge for Jesse James was written a year earlier. Overall, it was the sixth film that Lang shot in the USA.

Lang liked to quote a letter in which former track workers confirmed to him that they had never seen the old West depicted so authentically as in the Ogalalla attack . At the same time, Lang was surprised at this compliment, since he had fictionalized the plot about the construction of the telegraph line and had completely invented the Indian raids on it: “In reality, the man primarily responsible for the construction of the telegraph line was married and had seven children - I made it out him a bachelor with a love story. In reality, there were hardly any major difficulties in building the line - apart from the fact that the buffaloes liked to rub their fur on the telegraph poles, so that many of the poles soon fell over again. "

Reviews

The film-dienst described the film as a "[w] it routine and a clear delight in the common ingredients of the genre, entertainingly staged western, which clearly shows Fritz Lang's authoritative handwriting in details: on the narrative level, it is an indissoluble Loyalty conflict, on the optical one it is the correspondence between the crosses of telegraph poles and graves as well as the peculiar narrowness of the rooms and landscapes, which actually counteracts the genre. "

Phil Hardy noted in The Encyclopedia of Western Movies that the film was photographed in a manner that avoided the "flatness of color" that characterized many early Technicolor films. He has a " fatalistic tone" like many of Lang's films. The evangelical film observer drew the conclusion: "A western from Fritz Lang's American time, which is rich in comic effects in addition to moving fight scenes."

Enno Patalas noted that Western Union is the only film by Lang in which an “open, level space plays a constitutive role for the whole ”.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for the Ogalalla raid . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , June 2006 (PDF; test number: 106 451 DVD).
  2. ^ Joe Hembus: Western Lexicon - 1272. Films from 1894–1975 . Carl Hanser Verlag Munich, Vienna 2nd edition 1977, ISBN 3-446-12189-7 , p. 691.
  3. ↑ a b Dieter Dürrenmatt: Fritz Lang - Life and Work . Basel 1982, p. 132 .
  4. ^ Raid the Ogalalla. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ^ Phil Hardy: The Encyclopedia of Western Movies . Woodbury Press, Minneapolis 1984, ISBN 0-8300-0405-X , p. 125.
  6. ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 230/1949.