Along with Ramrod this is one of the two western styled movies that Veronica Lake made. A friend of mine kindly loaned me a copy of "Stronghold" and to be honest I was expecting a copy of a copy of a copy, if you know what I mean. Anyway, the quality of the film isn't bad at all. You can watch it without it hurting your eyes.
I do hope some enterprising video company will someday come along and remaster all of Veronica's films onto VHS/DVD. Back to the film, which also features Zachary Scott. Veronica plays the daughter of a well to do family. She and her Mother have returned to Mexico to escape the troubles of the American Civil War but find themselves kidnapped by bandits. They manage to evade these villains and flee to what they think is the safety of a friend's house. To their shock the bandit and his gang are actually on very good terms with their "friend".
I won't spoil this for you but the film I found to be very entertaining. Perhaps a few more scene with Veronica would've been nice but you can't have everything. Catch this one if you can.
Author: Paul Ashwell (UK)The stilted performances all round really hamper the drama. Everyone feels awkward in their seriousness and every edit feels too clipped leaving you with something way too dry and functional.
Lake looks wonderful and remains a professional performer as she chews through the dialogue with everyone else. It's a movie with no room to breathe and with flat scenery and cheap sets.
For a swansong there are worse movies to go out on.. and yes Lake made more but this was the last serious movie and that has a place in her canon that maybe should have gone better but it's watchable only because of her.
Author: Mark R Nash (South Wales, UK)