Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Blistering performances.

After gunning down two people in a saloon a gambler by the name of "Sam Leeds" (Stephen McNally) is told to leave the town of "Spanish Boot" at noon by the local mayor "Joe Madden" (Willard Parker). Although Joe believes that Sam's presence is bad for the town there is also a woman named "Sally" (Coleen Gray) who both men are attracted to that might have also factored into this decision. However, since he has little choice he sets out into the desert only to discover that the Apaches are on the warpath and rushes back to Spanish Boot to tell them of the news. At first they don't believe him but when a small cavalry unit arrives they realize that they will need every gun they can get—and even then it might not be enough. At any rate, rather than disclose any more of the film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a pretty good grade-B western movie for this particular time. It certainly would have been a fine picture to show at the local drive-in. Slightly above average.

During Stanley Baker's elaborate tissue of distortions and downright untruths the defenders at Rorke's Drift break into Men of Harlech as a riposte to their war-chanting opponents despite the fact that they were still an English regiment at the time and the concert never took place anyway. And they sing the song in English, not for the Zulus' benefit presumably but as maybe a concession to the film's American backers. The director Cy Endfield had been an old Hollywood hand until he was blacklisted and it's tempting to wonder if he lifted the idea from an identical scene in what proved to be Val Lewton's final production before an untimely death. I've no idea how true to history is the siege of Spanish Boot by the Mescalero Apaches but the presence of Welsh silver-miners among the population - and they were active in New Mexico and elsewhere - no doubt reflected Lewton's interest in ethnic cultures and traditions. And when the time comes they let rip with Harlech in Welsh which, for a Hollywood movie of its day, is doubly pleasing.Yet another regime-change at RKO had left Lewton out on a limb after his initial run of success and he drifted unhappily between uncongenial assignments at Paramount and MGM before fetching up at little Universal whose budget-restrictions and thematic preferences he found more accommodating. And for the first time he could use Technicolor though the film commences on a dark interior before a door opens onto the outside world (maybe John Ford had been watching it too). Lewton and director Fregonese craft a sturdy morality-tale about an anti-hero who makes good in face of various forms of prejudice. Gambler Sam Leeds (Stephen McNally) kills a man in self-defence but is sent packing as an 'undesirable' along with the local "dance-hall hostesses" whom he later finds massacred after an Indian attack. A notable Lewton touch involves their dying piano-player (Clarence Muse), his scalping concealed under his derby-hat. (Lewton made a point of using black players in impressive cameos e.g. the vivacious Theresa Harris in I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and the little page-boy in BEDLAM.) Sam returns to warn the town but is disbelieved until the stagecoach comes back bristling with arrows. A young townsman rides for help but is found mutilated down a well, polluting the water-supply. Sam leads an expedition for replenishments and the hellfire preacher (Arthur Shields) who had spoken against him comes to his aid when the party is attacked. (Shields virtually reprises his role from HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, the Welsh and the Irish usually interchangeable in matters of casting.) The chief Victorio is wounded and the Apaches withdraw for the time being. Back in Spanish Boot Sam is arrested for having given a beer to Pedro-Peter,the cavalry-scout(Armando Silvestre) during the waterless interim and is handcuffed to the bar-rail in the saloon. The town's mayor Joe Madden(Willard Parker) who's also the blacksmith and horse-doctor has an ulterior motive. Both men are rivals for Sally (Coleen Gray) the boarding-house keeper who's torn between love and security. But when the town is finally attacked in force she helps Sam get free and everyone takes refuge inside the church. The Apaches call for aid for their dying chief and Joe elects to go out to them but when Victorio dies they kill him. When night falls the "ghost dancers" - young painted braves deliberately sacrificing themselves for immortality - launch an assault on the defenders through the high windows in a wonderfully-lit and eerie sequence, the miners do their battle-song (one of them is actor and singer Sheb Wooley, later to add to Gary Cooper's woes in HIGH NOON) and the bigoted Reverend finds accord with Pedro-Peter as they pray together to their Great Spirit. As both sides fight fire with fire in the blazing finale the Cavalry arrive in a briskly minimalist wrap-up, Sam and Sally lead the congregation into safety and a pet donkey's newborn foal runs to its mother for milk. Solid and atmospheric with fine leads and an intriguing blend of the familiar and the unusual it rightly pleased Universal who wanted to keep Lewton on board but he decided to accept an offer to join Stanley Kramer. Sadly fate intervened and he never saw the release of his swansong.

Produced by Val Lewton, Apache Drums is directed by Hugo Fregonese and adapted for the screen by David Chandler from the book "Stand at Spanish Boot" written by Harry Brown. It stars Stephen McNally, Coleen Gray, Willard Parker and Arthur Shields. Music is by Hans J. Salter and cinematography is courtesy of Charles P. Boyle. It was shot on location at Red Rock Canyon State Park, California & it's a Technicolor production. Plot sees McNally as notorious gambler Sam Leeds, who after shooting a man in self defence, is forced to leave the town of Spanish Boot. However, outside of town Sam happens across a terrible scene that forces him back into town to warn the folk of an impending attack by the Mescalero Apaches.The name Val Lewton is synonymous with atmospheric horror, the likes of Cat People, The Body Snatcher, I Walked With a Zombie and Bedlam, have carried the brooding Lewton production stamp. For this, his last film before he sadly passed away, we find him entering the realm of the Western. An odd coupling without doubt, yet as odd as that seems, the oddest thing of all is that the film manages to rise above its budget restrictions and come out just about on top. Working with his director, Fregonese (The Raid), Lewton has produced a final movie that whilst not oozing those eerie atmospherics he's known for, does have enough about it to make it of interest to Lewton completists.Plot and narrative are simple, where on the surface it appears to be a run of the mill Western where the Indians are the bad guys, and the white man stand up to repel them. Yet to dismiss this as solely being formula fodder is unfair, for it has interesting characters, plenty of tension, a grand piece of action and a couple of genuinely haunting images. There's also some smarts in the writing, where racism and ethical principals are scrutinised. While the work involved for the final third of the film, as our group are holed up in a church awaiting Apache incursion, is of a very high standard. Here Fregonese and camera never leaves the room, as the town burns and the Apache chant and bang the drums, we along with the characters are left to our own imaginations, awaiting a savage death in semi darkness. It's a fine claustrophobic set up that's executed admirably. So why isn't the film better known and regarded, then?To get to the good stuff you have to suffer the bad, quite a bit of bad in fact. Running at only 75 minutes the film just about gets away with its drawn out periods of chatter, much of which is mundane; especially where the love triangle is concerned. And the acting ranges from the effective: McNally (Winchester '73/ Criss Cross) & Gray (Red River/Nightmare Alley) to the solid-Shields (The Quiet Man/She Wore a Yellow Ribbon), but away from those three it's pretty wooden fare. Problems also exist with the colour, with low budget comes very basic Technicolor lensing, Red Rock Canyon is reduced to being a dull observer on proceedings and the fiery flames during the finale lack colourful snap. There's also the bizarre use of the song "Men of Harlech". Zulu aficionados (and I'm one of them) know the song well, and the use here in Apache Drums is the same as in Cy Endfield's film, only here it's performed in native Welsh; with the actors dubbed! It's a poor fit all round. History tells us, tho, that the defenders of Rorke's Drift did not sing the song, so it's a distinct possibility that the film Zulu owes a debt of gratitude to Apache Drums. Thank you Lewton and Co.Good and bad every where you look in the film, but the final third swings it well above average in my book. A generous 7/10 rating to my fellow Western movie fans, 6/10 to the casual Sunday afternoon lounge lizard.

This is an enjoyable Western that moves along well enough, with three "suspenseful" sequences: Sam's unarmed ride through the desert, the townsmen's mission for water, and the church siege.Stephen McNally does fine in the lead, but another underrated actor, James Griffith, seemed miscast as the army officer - he was more suited to enigmatic or semi-sinister roles. Armando Silvestre makes an impressive and dignified Indian scout.The version I saw on British TV seemed to have been edited, because the "Variety" review mentions Sam distracting the frightened children with sleight-of-hand, and the kids singing "Oranges and Lemons"; had these scenes been included in the version I saw, I suspect I might have winced at their sentimentality but they would have added depth to Sam's character.The saloon girls evicted from Spanish Boot were the usual highly- glamourised girls that Hollywood used to depict in preference to the drabs they must have been to have worked in what looked quite a dump of a town.And there was a new take on my usual query about what happens to the bodies of felled Indians that mysteriously disappear between charges that follow closely on one another in attacks on forts and wagon trains. The defenders must have killed a dozen Indians jumping through the church windows (conveniently announcing their presence by screaming), and if the siege had gone on much longer their out-of-sight corpses would have begun to smell.Another commentator has referred to the concluding "cutesy shot of a little donkey trotting up to its mother. It's so weirdly sudden after all the long drawn out, moody, tense, heightened tension that preceded it that it completely whips the metaphorical carpet out from underneath you." In fact I saw this as a symbol of regeneration, that the town would be rebuilt and grow up, as Mayor Maddden indicated it would when the Apaches were burning the buildings.