Welcome to Oregon Country, 1868.

As much as I want to love “Pillars of the Sky,” filmed in the La Grande and Joseph areas in the summer of 1955, I can’t. There is too much talk in the first hour. Too little action until the second hour. An outlandish plot. A hard-drinking hero. Angry acting, the kind seen frequently in the 1950s where actors yell at lamps and stand around in groups, looking befuddled.

Sure, the cinemascope and technicolor are great.

The scenery is beautiful — pine trees, rocks, dust, distant hazy mountains.

But that is not enough to save the day.

The story goes like this. The Native Americans on a newly formed reservation become agitated when the U.S. Army builds a road through the center of their land.

To make the movie, a cast and crew of about 150 people went on location for nearly six weeks.

The film stars Jeff Chandler as First Sgt. Emmett Bell, who rides in with Indian scouts hoping to keep peace. However, he has a personality that could start a war with a monk.

Ward Bond plays the one peaceable character. Dr. Joseph Holden runs the mission where most of the Indians, save Kamiakin of the Palouse tribe, have taken Biblical names and adopted Christian ways.

Kamiakin, however, is on edge. The Indian chief is concerned because the various tribes gathered on this vast reservation lack the game to feed their people. They are not used to being fenced in.

“We live here between the pillars of the sky, which have been sacred to the tribe long before the word of God was thrust upon us,” is basically Kamiakin’s speech before leading his people into battle.

The movie also involves a strange love triangle. Dorothy Malone as Calla Gaxton has come West with a wandering eye for First Sgt. Bell and is taken captive by Indians.

The would-be love birds have a problem as Calla also has feelings for her husband, Keith Andres as Capt. Tom Gaxton.

When Tom is wounded in battle, Calla hops back to her vulnerable husband, who moments before she was ready to drop like a basalt rock over a buffalo jump.

Lee Marvin plays the drunk Sgt. Lloyd Carracart. Living in a blurry world, he stays out of harm’s way — except presumably his liver.

The Indians ambush. Nearly everyone is injured or dies. One soldier nearly punches out his disobedient horse in a rare moment of levity.

Outdated cultural depictions may cause consternation among modern-day moviegoers.

The screenplay was based on the novel “To Follow a Flag” by Will Henry.

The movie has it all: bad acting, dramatic music, bizarre romance and many take-charge guys in battle leading others into harm’s way.

As the end credits roll, a shot unfolds from the East Moraine of Wallowa Lake that is reminiscent of “The Sounds of Music.” The hills are alive in “Pillars of the Sky” with the sound of a 1950s Western that will appeal to buffs of the genre but few others.