Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

classicsoncall I never made the "Bad Day at Black Rock" connection that some other reviewers mention for this film, so I had to go back and take a look at my own comments for that film. It turns out Spencer Tracy made an observation about Black Rock that went something like this - "... only just seems to me there aren't many towns like this in America, but one town like it is enough." Well, with this story, I guess there really was another town like Black Rock, going by the name of Arborville. It wasn't much of a town really, and wasn't mentioned to be in any particular state; the only thing you could assume was that it was out West somewhere.The thing about the filming that I find most curious were the handful of scenes in which characters get covered with oil. That first time with Joe Dakota (Jock Mahoney) had me jumping out of my seat - how'd they do that? I mean, Mahoney was seriously covered head to foot in some kind of black gunk, and even assuming it wasn't really oil, how did the film makers get the consistency right, and how did Mahoney keep it out of his eyes? I'm still puzzling over that.As it turns out, Mahoney's character becomes the conscience of the town of Arborville when he begins digging into the disappearance of the 'other' Joe Dakota. The story did a credible job of explaining what that was all about, leaving no loopholes for the citizens to employ once it became evident that the 'real' Joe Dakota had done his homework.Two things bothered me though. The first was the flashback scene showing the Old Indian coming to Jody Weaver's (Luana Patten) aid after she was assaulted by the unidentified attacker. He was smiling, and that didn't square with the situation. The other was during the eruption of the oil well when Joe got into the scrap with Cal Moore (Charles McGraw). Moore's tough guy henchmen (Claude Akins and Lee Van Cleef) were actually cheering for Joe! Why would that be the case? That situation just seemed to be out of synch with the story and the characters.Oh yeah, one other comment I made in my 'Black Rock' review - the Eastman Color format managed to add a modern sensibility to what might otherwise have been an out of place 1950's Western. Guess what? - this turned out to be that out of place 1950's Western.

bkoganbing TV's Range Rider tried his hand at big screen westerns and this one, Joe Dakota is one of them. Sad to say though that Jock Mahoney came along a bit too late to be a big screen cowboy hero. And the film while good is not anything you wouldn't see as a Gunsmoke episode.The plot is considerably borrowed from MGM's Bad Day At Black Rock, but its hero is a soft spoken Tom Destry like character. Jock Mahoney is in the title role and he comes to town looking for someone the locals only knew as 'The Old Indian'. He's disappeared now and a bunch of the locals under the supervision of town tough Charles McGraw are drilling an oil well on the Old Indian's land.Only it's not his land, it's Mahoney's land which 'the old Indian' was squatting on for Mahoney. Mahoney starts investigating, start asking questions and pretty soon the town is riled. Something McGraw hopes to use when the time comes.Mahoney does make a good cowboy hero, born a little too late to have made a career on the big screen. I remember him well as the Range Rider during my childhood years. As for 'the Old Indian' and McGraw if you've seen Bad Day At Black Rock you know how this one comes out.Such fine folks as Luana Patten, Barbara Lawrence, Paul Birch, Claude Akins and Lee Van Cleef fill out the cast. Sad Jock Mahoney came along too late to be a big screen cowboy hero.

dougdoepke A mysterious stranger (Mahoney) comes to town asking after the whereabouts of former resident Joe Dakota. Townsfolk are not very obliging, which seems to have something to do with a recently drilled oil well and who owns it.The movie year 1957 was saturated with westerns. This one tries to be different, and largely succeeds. Notice that no one—not even arch-movie villains Van Cleef or Akins—sports a six- gun. And, unless I missed something, not even a single shot is fired. Add to that an oil well, of all things, plus a woebegone little prairie town that's definitely not a studio set, and you've got a different looking western.Then too, the first part manages some pretty good low-key humor; at the same time, Mahoney gets an oil bath, courtesy the townsfolk, that leaves him looking like a human inkblot. For a western, however, there's not much action and none of the usual suspense of good-guy vs. bad-guy showdown. And truth be told, the basic plot is borrowed from 1955's mega-hit Bad Day at Black Rock. But the writers have added enough clever twists and turns to keep the viewer entertained. All in all, it's an interesting, if not very intense, little western.(In passing—I checked to see if the oil well was an anachronism for this time period. It's not. The first well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. Also, note that William Tallman who played the DA on the old Perry Mason series is one of the two screenwriters here.)

bonfay-1 I saw this movie when I was younger and never forgot the story, but I couldn't recall the title. I'm so glad to find it after a long search. A man called Joe Dakota arrives in a small western town in California looking for his friend, an old Native American who owns a farm nearby. Why is there such secrecy around the old man's disappearance? Nobody in town wants to talk about it. The mystery slowly unfolds as Joe Dakota launches an investigation. One scene that was unforgettable to me was the bathing scene with the sound of meadowlark birds singing in the background. Great story!