alanrhobson This is an excellent B-Western. I first saw it as a child and found it hugely exciting and gripping - and I have seen no reason to change my mind in around four subsequent viewings!I am puzzled when I hear people saying that they can't see the influence of producer Val Lewton in it. To me it is very clear. His expertise in building tension and providing visual shocks (from his many horror films) is clearly in evidence, especially in the climactic attack on the church. I bet he helped director Hugo Fregonese a fair bit! The action scenes are all well shot and exciting, but one of the best bits doesn't have any action. It is the scene where Stephen McNally comes across the Indian massacre in the canyon. Now we've all seen many Westerns where someone, usually the leading man, comes across a massacre, whether by Indians or whites. Usually however, whilst they may look sad or occasionally even upset, they are completely blasé about any ongoing danger. This is always rather unrealistic: Who is to say that the perpetrators of the massacre aren't still around, just over the next ridge, or laying in wait behind a nearby group of rocks? However, here, McNally looks genuinely scared, looking nervously around him in case the Indians are still close by, and in case he's next. At last, some realism! It is also one of the many gripping moments.The rousing singing of 'Men of Harlech' by the defenders of the church works well for me, despite the criticism by another reviewer. However, I agree with him that that is almost certainly where the makers of 'Zulu' got the idea from! I gave 'Apache Drums' a 10, as it remains one of my very favourite B-Westerns.

huwdj As I watched this film I could not understand why they kept referring to Arthur Shields as Welsh. This is an actor who has specialised in Irish doctors and priests and who made no attempt to change his accent to play a Welsh preacher. And then came the song, Men of Harlech, in Welsh ! To watch everyone desperately trying to mime to the song was one of the silliest things I've seen in a very long time. Everyone has since seen how well this song can work in Zulu but to drop it into this average Western was decidedly odd. It was as if some one had a song to use and a someone else a script and the two were simply rammed together regardless of the fit.

tim_mcrae I am surprised that no one has made the connection between a sequence in this movie and an almost identical one in the movie 'Zulu'. I have seen no connection on the IMDb site or in any movie books or trivia sites. The townsfolk are surrounded and besieged by the Apaches in a small church. After an initial assault the Apaches withdraw and begin chanting and playing their drums. The anti-hero character suggests that they sing their own song to counter this and to lift their own spirits. A large number of the men in the besieged church are Welsh miners from the town, led by the preacher character they begin singing 'Men of Harlech' in Welsh. Apart from the fact that they sing in Welsh, which I think is more accurate and actually better, this is almost directly copied for the similar sequence in the movie 'Zulu'.

Brian Camp APACHE DRUMS (1951) is a routine western about Apaches on the warpath attacking isolated townsfolk in Arizona in 1880. A fairly low-budget film in color from Universal Pictures, it's something of a disappointment considering it was the final production of Val Lewton, the celebrated RKO producer who'd revolutionized the horror genre in the early-to-mid-1940s with such releases as CAT PEOPLE, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and THE BODY SNATCHER. While there are some interesting atmospheric touches and dramatic moments, the film is ultimately undone by a talky script that fails to generate much suspense. It focuses on a group of disparate characters in the town of Spanish Boot, with Sam Leeds (Stephen McNally), an itinerant gambler, emerging as the hero when, after being evicted from town by the upright blacksmith/mayor, Joe Madden (Willard Parker), he returns to warn them of the impending Apache attack. When the Apaches launch their big assault, all the townsfolk, including a contingent of Welsh miners, and a few soldiers hole up in the thick-walled adobe church and try to fend off entrance by Indians through the high windows. From the moment of the doors being locked, the entire remainder of the film (about 25 minutes) is from the point-of-view inside the church. Such a situation lends itself to great tension and there are some harrowing moments as the defenders stumble about in darkness and scramble for candles so they can see the Indians when they attack. Some of the fighting from this point is frenzied hand-to-hand combat in semi-darkness. One stirring moment comes when the townsfolk, frightened and intimidated by the strains of the Apaches' war song, decide to respond with a Welsh fighting song of their own. The suspense is undercut, however, by frequent lulls in the action, with too much talk and a pointless love triangle involving Sam, Joe and Sally (Coleen Gray), the young woman who runs the local boardinghouse for the Welsh miners. The Indians also spend far too little time fighting. They bring their drums with them and launch into a whole drumming-and-chanting number before the attack on the church, something I've never heard Apaches do in a western before (or since) and something I don't think Cochise or Geronimo, to name two famous Apaches, would have considered during their frequent skirmishes with the white man. (They might have sung a war song back at camp, but not during the actual battle!) At one jaw-dropping, head-shaking moment, the Apaches even stop the fighting to ask the whites if they've got a doctor to tend to their wounded leader, Victorio, promising to retreat if the doctor successfully patches him up. Again, this is something I've never seen the Apaches do in a western before. The cast is peppered with a number of fine character actors. The leading man, Stephen McNally, was quite busy in westerns in the postwar era, most memorably as a villain (WINCHESTER '73). Coleen Gray specialized in westerns and film noir (RED RIVER, KISS OF DEATH, THE KILLING). Underrated western actor James Griffith plays a philosophical army lieutenant who understands and respects the Apaches. Irish actor Arthur Shields plays a zealous Welsh minister who scorns the gamblers and drives the dance hall girls out of town, but winds up picking up a gun to fight alongside Sam during one battle. Mexican actor Armando Silvestre plays an Apache army scout who has to prove himself to the whites when the Apaches attack. Clarence Muse appears briefly as an employee of the dance hall troupe. Argentine director Hugo Fregonese did several more films in Hollywood, including the excellent Civil War adventure, THE RAID (1954), before heading to Argentina and Europe to continue his career.