Only the Valiant

Only the Valiant, also known as Fort Invincible, is a 1951 American Western film produced by William Cagney (younger brother of James Cagney), directed by Gordon Douglas and starring Gregory Peck, Barbara Payton, and Ward Bond. The screenplay was written by Edmund H. North and Harry Brown, based on the 1943 novel of the same name by Charles Marquis Warren. Gregory Peck, in a role he considered a low point of his career, plays Captain Richard Lance, a by-the-book West Point graduate who is not very popular with the men under his command. This film is in the public domain. Plot Following the American Civil War, peace is maintained in the New Mexico Territory by Fort Invincible, a fortification set up outside a mountain pass that blocks marauding bands of Apache. The Apache are able to eventually take the fort by cutting off its water supply, then assaulting the fort when its garrison is at its weakest and killing all the defenders.