"Red Skies of Montana" is all about a group of firefighters who battle forest fires. Soon after the story begins, Cliff Mason (Richard Widmark) leads a crew to battle a fire and the fire turns and soon their lives are in danger...and presumed lost. However, when a rescue party arrives later, they find a survivor. Mason, dazed in incoherent, is stumbling about the rubble and brought back to camp. Not surprisingly, he has little recollection of the incident and cannot recall how he managed to survive when his coworkers perished.
Now the notion of how Mason copes with this situation could have been very interesting. Survivor Guilt and PTSD are interesting topics and were almost never talked about in 1952. However, the film choses to go a completely different direction. Instead of focusing on Mason's mental health, they introduce a new recruit, Ed Miller (Jeffery Hunter)...the son of one of the dead firefighters. This young man blames Mason for the deaths, even though this isn't rational and there isn't any evidence Mason was responsible. To make things worse, it's odd that they allowed Mason and Miller to work together with such animosity. As a result, the film becomes more a routine programmer than a film which seriously deals with trauma. Still, it's not a bad film....but one that could have been a lot better had they made the focus more on Mason and less on the annoyed son.
Now the notion of how Mason copes with this situation could have been very interesting. Survivor Guilt and PTSD are interesting topics and were almost never talked about in 1952. However, the film choses to go a completely different direction. Instead of focusing on Mason's mental health, they introduce a new recruit, Ed Miller (Jeffery Hunter)...the son of one of the dead firefighters. This young man blames Mason for the deaths, even though this isn't rational and there isn't any evidence Mason was responsible. To make things worse, it's odd that they allowed Mason and Miller to work together with such animosity. As a result, the film becomes more a routine programmer than a film which seriously deals with trauma. Still, it's not a bad film....but one that could have been a lot better had they made the focus more on Mason and less on the annoyed son.