Pony Express

Rhonda Fleming and Jan Sterling seem an unlikely pair but here they are cast in this mythical Western. I say mythical not as a compliment, but it must have got audiences in to see Charlton Heston as Buffalo Bill and Forrest Tucker as Wild Bill Hickok. Both are adequate in the roles but the great ( yes, great and underrated actress ) Jan Sterling does her very best to save this mediocre film. Not as conventionally beautiful as Fleming she takes the actor honours here while Rhonda Fleming lets her. Fleming was utterly wasted in most films, but it is Jan Sterling who overcomes the waste of her talent by sheer force of presence. She has short hair and dresses like a man, and does not succumb to a dress until the approaching end. Surviving in an awful pink dress she looks ridiculous, but like a really committed actor she ignores the change. She could do anything. The cameo role in ' The High and the Mighty ' is an example of standing out above the rest, including Claire Trevor. Watch it and do not care about the plot as it is barely worth describing. But there are lots of Buffalos, lots of ' bad ' Native Americans and of course phallic gunplay between Heston and Tucker. All that was needed in 1953 for the adolescent mind.