A Masterpiece!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

If you've seen " Fort. Apache", this will seem like deja vu. Again, we have a foolish fort commander brought in, with no experience dealing with western Indians. He rejects the sound advice of the staff, sure that his unyielding policy is the correct one. He seems to regard Native Americans as so much fodder to advance his career. One significant difference from "Ft. Apache", is that this commander doesn't die on the battlefield, only wounded. Nonetheless, quite a few of his charges die in his ill-advised charge toward the Apache in their rocky country.....George Montgomery, a leading man in several types of films, plays the hero: Capt. McCloud, who tries to keep the peace between Apache and whites by shooing out miners who are working inside Apache territory, irritating the Apache, who seem not interested in the yellow metal. But some of the miners, such as Sagebrush(Eddie Waller) claim they filed a claim before this area was awarded to the Apache. McCloud disregards this argument. ....The local businessmen, who are largely financing the mining, lobby for a new fort commander, who will support their pro-mining agenda. He arrives in the form of Major Stark, who disbands the guards who keep whites out of Indian territory, inciting an uprising by the Apache, which only McCloud can quell to by promising the Apache that there will be no reprisals against them if they stop their raids on white settlers. ...... Audrey Long , the token woman, has a very peripheral role in the story, as the daughter of the local Indian agent, who is trying to establish a school for Apache children. Her very peripheral romance with McCloud heats up in the parting scene, when he proposes...... Hugh Sanders and Douglas Kennedy, along with Stark, play the chief opponents of McCloud's anti-mining policy. ....Miguel Inclan plays the Spanish-speaking Geronimo, who is said to be chief of the Apache(The historical Geronimo was merely a medicine man, and apparently didn't speak Spanish). Geronimo's son, Tubia, takes part in some of the interactions between the Apache and whites.

What? That's how it ends!?!? Captain McCloud gets the girl? How did that happen, when the whole time Lieutenant Whitley called on her whenever he had the chance. Sure, McCloud might have shown a romantic interest, but if one recalls his self-invitation to dinner in the early part of the picture, Miss Clemson (Audrey Long) asked him to bring along the young lieutenant who 'seems a friendly sort and rather lonely'. I guess the Captain was good at ignoring the signals.You've got an average Cavalry Western here with the compulsory villains making trouble between the good guys and the Indians. However the good guys have a troublesome soldier in the ranks as well, as Major Nathan Stark (Robert Shayne) relieves the almost promoted McCloud, intent on keeping the Apaches led by Geronimo under control, if not outright removing them from the territory.As soon as old Sagebrush (Eddy Waller) got that arrow in the back from renegade Cliff Taggert (Douglas Kennedy) you had to figure what was coming next. If you've seen enough of these Western yarns, you knew that the arrow used was going to end up being from the arsenal of a different Indian tribe. No one ever lets the bad guys in on that trick so they keep right on using it to their disadvantage.A nice plus for this film was the use of a non-White actor in the role of Geronimo. Miguel Inclan appears to have quite a few movie credits to his name, and he did have kind of a warlike, regal bearing for an Apache that he used to good effect. That whole business with the Apaches speaking in Spanish though was a bit of a puzzler. Maybe that's what Geronimo meant when he said "There is bad medicine in the wind".

In a film that's a cut rate version of the story told in the John Ford classic Fort Apache, George Montgomery stars as the Indian wise and fair army captain on the Arizona frontier. Montgomery is in charge of a post that is dedicated to keeping the whites out of sacred Apache homeland.Easier said than done as there's gold in those Apache hills and some unscrupulous whites want it. Adding to that there's a glory hunting army major who's looking to advance his career by stopping Geronimo played by Robert Shayne.The only cast link to Fort Apache is that of Miguel Inclan who was a stoic and impassive Cochise in the Ford film and in Indian Uprising Inclan plays a more animated Geronimo.Though not quite as good as Fort Apache, Devil's Doorway or Broken Arrow Indian Uprising is a solid western film with good action sequences. And in that the Indians are three dimensional characters it's a valuable teaching tool as well.

There is nothing even remotely original about Indian Uprising which regurgitates themes and character types from countless Westerns that went before it ,but it remains a watchable movie aided by its brief running time (75 minutes ) and brisk direction ,which ensures the picture never outstays its welcome George Montgomery plays UC Cavalry officer ,Captain McLoud who is trying to keep the peace between Geronimo's Apaches on the San Carlos Reservation and the white prospectors who are violating the peace treaty by searching for gold on the Reservation .His endeavours are so successful that he becomes a threat to the businessman backing the miners that they have him suspended and replaced by the inexperienced martinet Major Stark whose bungling ,bull headed leadership soon starts a fully fledged war between the Apaches and the whites especially when the Apaches are falsely accused of murdering a miner.Mcloud must try to rebuild the peace in the face of enemies both civilian and military all the time while he is wooing the daughter of the local Indian agent and mentoring a callow young officer Lieutenant Whitley (played respectively by Audrey Long and John Baer)The movie is derivative and John Ford's cavalry pictures are a direct inspiration .The troopers are "types" lifted straight from Ford and one scene in which the blundering Stark leads his men into an ambush is evocative of a similar scene in Ford's masterly Fort Apache but done with less style and a lower budget .The acting is proficient and the movie will entertain Western devotees well enough despite some muddy colour and an original ploy .Professional and solid but no more