Dr. Allen Seward (Robert Francis) is assigned to a western cavalry post where his predecessors had been drunks and slackers. The post doesn't take kindly to him either, especially after he disregards regulations and tends to sick Indians on the malaria-infested reservation. The Indians break away from the reservation to move to a healthier higher ground, and when they join with the Comanches to besiege the fort, Seward is branded as a "woodhawk", the bird that turns against its own. Donna Reed is present as the niece of the post commander; Phil Carey is a cavalry captain that believes the only good Indian is a dead Indian, and May Wynn (who shared a screen debut with Francis in "The Caine Mutiny)is the white girl raised by the Indians and married to the chief's son. Francis would make only two more films before being killed in a 1955 plane crash. Synopsis by IMDb
After Robert Francis became an "instant star" in Columbia's The Caine Mutiny (54), the studio rushed Francis into as many vehicles as possible. In They Rode West, Francis plays a young Army doctor, stationed at a remote cavalry post. The post's commander (Philip Carey) immediately clashes with Francis due to the latter's humanitarian attitudes towards Native Americans. When a malaria epidemic breaks out at a local Kiowa encampment, Francis insists upon treating the Indians, despite opposition from both Carey and the tribe's medicine men. May Wynn, Francis' Caine Mutiny vis-a-vis, is third-billed in They Rode West. Alas, Robert Francis' skyrocketing career plummeted to earth when he was killed in a 1955 accident.
Straight out of medical school into his first Cavalry commission, young Francis has his work cut out impressing battle-hardened frontier commander Carey. And treating the local Kiowa after a malaria outbreak wins the new medic little initial favour in this liberally inclined Western. Will his concern stack up the against threat of a war party? A predictable enough encounter, making play on the relative status of the medicine men in each camp, but Karlson perks it up with his usual snappy action. Handsome leading man Francis shows poise and sincerity in his first feature, but a year later (at the age of 25) he died in a private plane crash
Spare a thought for Robert Francis who made The Caine Mutiny (1954), alongside Humphrey Bogart after They Rode West he did two more John Ford's The Long Gray Line and The Bamboo Prison.Then in July 1955 Francis and two passengers were killed when the small aircraft he was piloting crashed in Burbank, California.[
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