Joseph H. Lewis's Seventh Cavalry is part of a fascinating sub-group of western movies built around -- but not specifically dealing with -- Custer's last stand. That group of pictures includes Anthony Mann's Winchester '73 -- probably the most celebrated of the bunch -- and Charles Marquis Warren's Little Big Horn (with which this movie would make a great double-feature). As a production Lewis's picture stands midway between them, not as quietly opulent as Mann's picture nor as threadbare as Warren's (it also, perhaps not coincidentally, shared one cast member (Jay C. Flippen) with Mann's movie and, like Mann's picture, offered the production involvement of its star, Randolph Scott, as an inducement to quality). And quality it has, with firm performances all around -- from reliables like Flippen, Harry Carey Jr., and Leo Gordon, and a surprising dramatic turn from Frank Faylen -- and a great set-up for dramatic tension in its script, which embraces a range of issues, including cowardice, honor, and self-preservation in its 75 minute running time. The original story, curiously enough, was the work of Glendon Swarthout, who would return to these issues on a much bigger canvas in his book They Came To Cordura, which was filmed by the same studio three years later, this time with Gary Cooper as the embattled cavalry officer.