Pony Soldier

Pony Soldier (1952) Tyrone Power, Cameron Mitchell and Thomas Gomez

In 1876, Duncan MacDonald joins the new, 300-member Mounted Police in western Canada, just in time for a dangerous mission. It seems the Cree Indians, raiding across the border in Montana, took two hostages for their safe return to Canada. But MacDonald, with only scout Natayo to help, will need all his diplomacy and then some to extract the captives from the midst of a thousand Cree.

Pony Soldier is a 1952 Technicolor Northern Western set in Canada but filmed in Sedona, Arizona. It is based on a 1951 Saturday Evening Post story Mounted Patrol by Garnett Weston. It was retitled MacDonald of the Canadian Mounties in England and The Last Arrow in France and Spain.

Plot

In 1876, the North-West Mounted Police send Constable Duncan MacDonald (Tyrone Power) and a blackmailed Blackfoot scout (Thomas Gomez) to get the Cree to sign Treaty 6 with The Crown. In addition to negotiating with the Cree, MacDonald of the Mounted rescues white hostages (Robert Horton and Penny Edwards) arrests a murderer, and adopts a Cree son (Anthony Earl Numkena).

Production

Director Newman originally scouted locations in Montana but finding nothing he thought suitable, the film was made in Sedona, Arizona.   During the filming at Sedona, production was interrupted by snowstorms and the flash of a nuclear weapon tested 300 miles away in Nevada.   The producers recruited 450 Navajoto play Cree and used the services of technical advisor Chief Nipo T. Strongheart (who also plays a Medicine Man in the film) to ensure a sympathetic portrayal. Strongheart had appeared in the film Braveheart withTyrone Power Sr..

Included in the cast were Richard Boone, Frank deKova, and in his film debut, Anthony Earl Numkena.