I finally got to see Yellowstone Kelly today and found it to be a decent enough western. Back in the day I was going to see it at the age of 12, but did not want to deal with the unbelievably long lines or the screaming teens who came to see Kookie.

This was not Edd Byrnes first feature film, but the first after his success on 77 Sunset Strip. The bobbysoxers were nuts about him back in the day and crowded out us connoisseurs of the western. I remember the long lines and the stories about how one could not hear the dialog with the adolescent females going gaga for Kookie.

The real star in the title role was another Warner Brothers TV veteran, Clint Walker. He plays a mountain man trapper and scout, the last of a breed. He's allowed to do his thing on Sioux land because he saved John Russell's life who is the chief.

After taking on Edd Byrnes as a young assistant, the two visit the Sioux where both of them catch the eye of Andra Martin who is an Arapahoe captive and Russell's personal squeeze. Another brave Ray Danton would like to replace Russell in her tepee. When she runs away and follows Walker and Byrnes to their cabin, Russell and Danton come calling with the tribe. These kind of things start wars as the Ancient Greeks would be the first to tell you.

As much as Kookie got all the publicity and was the reason for Yellowstone Kelly's box office, this film belongs to the stoic Clint Walker who if he had come along a decade earlier would have been a great cowboy hero. Walker is smart and stoic in the title role.

I have to say that Andra Martin as a blue eyed Arapahoe was most disconcerting. Just like Burt Lancaster in Apache.

Despite that Yellowstone Kelly was a well made action western that any fan of the horse opera will love.

Yellowstone Kelly is directed by Gordon Douglas and adapted to screenplay by Burt Kennedy from the Clay Fisher (AKA: Heck Allen) book of the same name. It stars Clint Walker, Edd Byrnes, John Russell, Ray Danton, Claude Akins, Andra Martin and Rhodes Reason. A Technicolor production filmed out of Sedona and Coconino National Forest in Arizona, with music by Howard Jackson and cinematography by Carl Guthrie.

"The West was opened by courageous trail-blazing pioneers like Lewis and Clark and Luther "Yellowstone" Kelly - - trapper, surveyor, and Indian scout who was the first frontiersman to cross the mighty Yellowstone Valley."

A very well made Western, one that features some quite breath taking scenery captured by Carl Guthrie (Fort Massacre/Gunfight At Dodge City),Yellowstone Kelly falls into the category of straight conventional Oaters.

Story concerns fabled fur trapper Luther Kelly (Walker),who having saved the life of a Sioux chief (Russell) is allowed to move freely in the Sioux territories. However, he finds himself piggy in the middle when the oafish US Cavalry move in to shake their might at the Native Americans. Things are further complicated when he is forced to save the life of an Arapaho woman (Martin),who subsequently runs away from the Sioux's to seek shelter with Kelly and his newly acquired companion, greenhorn Anse Harper (Byrnes). With potential love in the air putting another problem into the equation, Kelly has much to carry on his mightily broad shoulders.

Originally slated to be a John Ford/John Wayne production (they decided to make The Horse Soldiers instead),Yellowstone Kelly is pretty much what it appears to be, that of a vehicle built around Walker as a device to push him forward as a lead actor. Unfortunately, in spite of his massive screen presence, Walker just didn't have the acting chops to be a grade "A" lead off man in film. Yet he was always watchable and engaging, such is the case here. The character of Kelly is interesting and around Walker are a number of TV stars and contract players to ensure there's a professional polish to the production.

There's no surprises in store or deep psychological stirrings, though one extended sequence of Walker and Byrnes shacked up in a log cabin is open to homo-erotic interpretation, and the host of white actors playing Native Americans will irritate some, but this moves along at a good clip and makes for a fun afternoon viewing experience. 6.5/10

Lived: May 30, 1927 - May 21, 2018 (age 90) Height: 6' 6" My favorite cowboy hero growing up in the '50s. Such a nice man. Thank you, God Bless...