The Nebraskan

Director: Fred F. Sears, Harry L. Fraser, Fred Sears Fred F. Sears

Overview

Virile leading man Phil Carey heads the cast of the 3D western The Nebraskan. Carey plays U.S. Army scout Wade Harper, assigned to keep his Native American aide Wingfoot (Maurice Jara) in protective custody. Accused of killing an Indian chief, Wingfoot is dearly coveted by the dead man's tribe, who'd like to exact their own brand of justice. Stirring up trouble among the whites is the scurrilous Reno (Lee Van Cleef), who gives psychos a bad name. The film's tiny budget is able to accommodate a few gratuitous "comin' at ya" 3D effects, which do little to enhance the overall quality of the film. More fascinating is the presence of Richard Webb, TV's stalwart "Captain Midnight", as a craven coward.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/07/2012
UPC:	0043396408630
Original Release:	1953
Rating:	NR
Source:	SONY
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:07:00
Sales rank:	50,167

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Phil Carey	Wade Harper,Wade Harper
Roberta Haynes	Mrs. Paris Elliott
Wally Ford	'Mac' McBride
Lee Van Cleef	Pvt. Reno Benton
Maurice Jara	Wingfoot
Regis Toomey	Col. Markham
Jay Silverheels	Spotted Bear
Pat Hogan	Yellow Knife
Bill Catching	Anderson
Boyd Morgan	Sgt. Phillips

Technical Credits

Martin Berkeley

David Lang

Burl R. Tuttle

Fred F. Sears	Director,Director
Martin Berkeley	Screenwriter
David Lang	Screenwriter
Harry Fraser	Director
Paul Carey	Producer
Burl R. Tuttle	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

The notion of Fred F. Sears, he of low-budget exploitation fame (and Rock Around The Clock probably representing his magnum opus), doing the 3-D movie, carries with it a certain degree of discontinuity. Sears was associated with low-rent cinema for so long, that the idea of him working in 3-D and color appeared even more absurd. And so going into The Nebraskan, one wonders how Sears would pull this off, spending more money per day than he ever normally had the chance to do -- and the answer is that he didn't, at least not entirely. It's a 3-D movie alright, but Sears was working so fast that neither he nor the two credited cinematographers appear to have had time for any but the most obvious exploitation of the 3-D format (knives and arrows aimed at the camera etc.). On a technical level it's all closer to what one would expect from a Three Stooges short (and they did make a couple in 3-D, for the same studio) than a feature film. What's more, the makers were under so much pressure to deliver this B-picture on time and on (or under) budget, that there clearly wasn't any time to work with the actors, which is why most of the performances are as perfunctory as are. Philip Carey does well enough in a part that, in a bigger-budgeted movie, would have gone to Charlton Heston or, in a major studio release, Kirk Douglas. And Lee Van Cleef successfully projects some of the menace that would make him a prime villain and anti-hero in the decades to come, while Wallace Ford and Regis Toomey successfully handle lines they could have dealt with in their sleep. Most of the movie comes off as clunkier than it need have been, owing to its low-budget -- some of the action scenes are actually "flat" (i.e., 2-D) footage with prop-rocks (which actually get spun around to move some "action" and motion into the foreground). No one will mistake this movie for the work of John Ford or John Huston, but it is entertaining -- in all, a valiant effort that is finally harmed by what seem to be some continuity problems near the denouement, as though Sears was under siege as much as the people trapped in the homestead.