Untamed (1955 film)

Untamed

Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by Henry King
Produced by William A. Bacher
Bert E. Friedlob
Written by Helga Moray (novel)
Screenplay by Michael Blankfort
Frank Fenton
William A. Bacher
Talbot Jennings
Based on Untamed (1950)
Starring Tyrone Power
Susan Hayward
Richard Egan
Narrated by Susan Hayward
Music by Franz Waxman
Cinematography Leo Tover
Edited by Barbara McLean
Distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Release dates
  • March 1, 1955 (1955-03-01)
Running time
 111 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $3,560,000[1]
Box office $2.5 million (US rentals)[2]

Untamed is a 1955 CinemaScope adventure film made by Twentieth Century-Fox in DeLuxe Color. It was directed by Henry King and produced by William A. Bacher, Bert E. Friedlob and Gerd Oswald as associate producer. The screenplay was by William A. Bacher, Michael Blankfort, Frank Fenton and Talbot Jennings from a 1950 novel by Helga Moray. The music score was by Franz Waxman and the cinematography by Leo Tover.

The film stars Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward and Richard Egan with Agnes Moorehead, Rita Moreno and Hope Emerson.

Untamed was the last film edited by Barbara McLean, and her twenty-ninth with Henry King. Four of their films together were nominated for the Academy Award for Film Editing.

Plot

Dutchman Paul van Riebeck (Tyrone Power) a Boer cavalry commander travels to Ireland from his native South Africa in 1847 to buy horses for his commandos back home, who need them to fight Zulu tribal warriors. He meets lovely Katie O'Neill (Susan Hayward), daughter of the man selling the horses. She falls in love, but Paul feels he must return home alone.

Squire O'Neill (Henry O'Neill) dies and a potato famine cripples the Irish people financially. Katie decides to marry Shawn Kildare (John Justin) and persuades him to move to South Africa, a place Paul has told her much about. They have a son before arriving in Cape Town, where an 800-mile trek to Hoffen Valley awaits them.

Commando leader Kurt Hout (Richard Egan) guides the wagon train and becomes fixated on Katie after the Zulu kill her husband. Paul and his other men save the settlers, and he ends up in a brutal fight against Kurt with whips.

Kurt stays behind to help Katie build and run a farm because Paul is called away to lead his men. Kurt tries to force himself on her during a storm. A tree falls, resulting in the amputation of one of his legs.

The impoverished Katie is brought a valuable diamond by a native, so she and her son return to Cape Town to buy Paul's ancestral home. She loses both her fortune and her husband, who is not pleased by the turn of events. Kurt, meantime, has become leader of a band of outlaws, and his one remaining desire is to kill Paul.

Cast

See also

References

  1. ↑ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1. p249
  2. ↑ 'The Top Box-Office Hits of 1955', Variety Weekly, January 25, 1956

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, September 06, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.