By Glenn Erickson
Frontier Rangers
Brief Synopsis
Major Robert Rogers leads his rangers in search of a water route through America's Northwest territory.
Cast & Crew
Read More
Jacques Tourneur
Director
Keith Larsen
Buddy Ebsen
Don Burnett
Lisa Davis
Philip Tonge
Film Details
Also Known As
Bound Woman, The, Gunsmith
Genre
Western
Action
Release Date
1959
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 23m
Sound
Mono
Color
Color (Metrocolor)
Synopsis
Major Robert Rogers leads his rangers in search of a water route through America's Northwest territory.
Director
Jacques Tourneur
Director
Film Details
Also Known As
Bound Woman, The, Gunsmith
Genre
Western
Action
Release Date
1959
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 23m
Sound
Mono
Color
Color (Metrocolor)
Articles
Frontier Rangers -
By the second half of the 1950s several major studios had become deeply invested in Television production, and attempted to adapt some of their more famous film properties for home screens. Warners tried out its classic Casablanca as a TV series in 1955. MGM's successful TV reboot of The Thin Man (1957), prompted an ambitious full-color NBC TV show based on Northwest Passage, the 1940 epic starring Spencer Tracy. Set among the tomahawks and muzzle-loading rifles of the French and Indian War, the action-adventure show was an anomaly in a TV season dominated by gun-slinging B&W westerns. Keith Larsen plays the colonial guerrilla fighter Major Robert Rogers. Co-star Buddy Ebsen is the commander's loyal Sergeant Hunk Marriner, reminding viewers of his similar sidekick stint with Fess Parker in Disney's earlier blockbuster miniseries Davy Crockett. Large-scale action is repurposed from the old Spencer Tracy movie, adding spectacle to new color footage shot on MGM's Culver City lot. After the 26-episode series ended MGM quickly reformatted it into three feature films: Frontier Rangers (1959), Mission of Danger (1960) and Fury River (1961). Each is comprised of three episodes. In this first compilation Major Rogers and Sgt. Marriner must make friends with captive 'white' Algonquin Natula (Lisa Gaye) and rescue Harvard-educated Ensign Langton Towne (Don Burnett) from the Redcoats. In a segment starring Angie Dickinson and Claude Akins, they intervene to prevent an innkeeper from selling indentured women as frontier wives. The director of all three episodes that form this composite feature was the accomplished stylist Jacques Tourneur, once known for classics like The Cat People 1942) and Out of the Past (1947).
By Glenn Erickson
By Glenn Erickson
Frontier Rangers -
By the second half of the 1950s several major studios had become deeply invested in Television production, and attempted to adapt some of their more famous film properties for home screens. Warners tried out its classic Casablanca as a TV series in 1955. MGM's successful TV reboot of The Thin Man (1957), prompted an ambitious full-color NBC TV show based on Northwest Passage, the 1940 epic starring Spencer Tracy. Set among the tomahawks and muzzle-loading rifles of the French and Indian War, the action-adventure show was an anomaly in a TV season dominated by gun-slinging B&W westerns. Keith Larsen plays the colonial guerrilla fighter Major Robert Rogers. Co-star Buddy Ebsen is the commander's loyal Sergeant Hunk Marriner, reminding viewers of his similar sidekick stint with Fess Parker in Disney's earlier blockbuster miniseries Davy Crockett. Large-scale action is repurposed from the old Spencer Tracy movie, adding spectacle to new color footage shot on MGM's Culver City lot. After the 26-episode series ended MGM quickly reformatted it into three feature films: Frontier Rangers (1959), Mission of Danger (1960) and Fury River (1961). Each is comprised of three episodes. In this first compilation Major Rogers and Sgt. Marriner must make friends with captive 'white' Algonquin Natula (Lisa Gaye) and rescue Harvard-educated Ensign Langton Towne (Don Burnett) from the Redcoats. In a segment starring Angie Dickinson and Claude Akins, they intervene to prevent an innkeeper from selling indentured women as frontier wives. The director of all three episodes that form this composite feature was the accomplished stylist Jacques Tourneur, once known for classics like The Cat People 1942) and Out of the Past (1947).
By Glenn Erickson
