King_man The only thing raising this movie to the level of a B-western is Ben Johnson in the unusual casting of being the movie's lead, Capt. Thompson. All other aspects, the dialog, plot, production values, you name it, just don't add up to the low expectations one expects of a middling B-lister. The plot is standard for this type of movie: A rabid Army officer bent on making a name starts an Indian war. The much more competent (and noble) lower ranking officer Johnson can do nothing to stop it, nor can he stop his colonel from becoming needlessly jealous, believing Johnson is having an affair with his wife. Any sane individual would only need to look at the wife and then at the Indian love interest played by Maureen Hingert to know Johnson would need to be daft or blind to go for the wife (OK, Hingert is Ceylonese, not Indian, but Ceylon is pretty close to India so in that respect, one could argue she's closer to Indian than most actresses in these westerns). Everything comes together in a battle for Ft. Bowie that must be seen to be believed. Like Hitler, forced to fight on two fronts, the Indians are on the fort walls fighting to keep the cavalry out of the fort while also fighting to break into buildings inside the fort. Bodies from both sides pile up on the walls and then mysteriously disappear to make room for more bodies. It's also in this fight that we get to see Jan Harrison turn on her "love switch" as she suddenly realizes her true feelings for her colonel husband (Kent Taylor, soon to be demoted to Captain and become one of the three Rough Riders for one season of TV) who stands fully exposed in front of a window even between shots. This leads to the worst scene in the movie as Johnson and Larry Chance (Victorio, who actually died in Mexico) fight it out forever while Taylor stands with drawn gun refusing to pull the trigger and end our misery.As for the noisy arrows in the summary... I don't know where these Indians got their bows but they need to buy some silencers for them as the noise they make when they release their arrows would alert a sentry miles distant. Except for the novelty of seeing Johnson headline a movie and maybe the eye candy of Ms. Hingert, there's nothing to recommend this film. Most Audie Murphy 1950s Westerns are more fun so if given a choice, Murphy is the way to go.

Robert J. Maxwell Ben Johnson is nothing if not a genuinely likable guy. Sure, he's from Oklahoma and Texas and grew up with horses and for all we know his politics, combined with all that equinity, may have put him somewhere to the right of Genghis Kahn. But that would be hard to believe. He's measured and slow in speech and demeanor. When he says "Yes, sir" or "No, sir", it sounds like he's been using those polite forms of address since infancy. I've always liked the guy, even when he was a heavy in "Shane." (He reformed.) He's handsome too, and he sits a horse splendidly. Under John Ford he was never anything except a "trooper" or, at most, a sergeant. Here, he's a commissioned officer. It's easy to see why he might have gotten mixed up in the unholy mess that is this movie.Alas, he's not only a Captain, he's a romantic lead. It just doesn't sound kosher when Ben Johnson is compelled to say something like, "Listen, you mean more to me than any woman I've ever known, but you're not for me." That's not Ben Johnson. That's the screenwriter, Maurice Tombragel, taking a snooze instead of working.At least the woman he's romancing, the mammose Maureen Hingert, is beautiful. She was Miss Ceylon somewhere back in the 1950s. She doesn't look much like an Apache though. She's all glamorized up with eye make up and lipstick and silken hair. But then so is the dissatisfied and ambitious wife of the Commanding Officer. He's Kent Taylor. She's Jan Harrison. Taylor has a Hollywood haircut and the neatly trimmed beard of a college professor. He acts like a Hollywood utility player. Jan Harrison can't act at all, but at least she was "Miss Washington State" at some point. With a little imagination Maurice Tombragel could have interpolated a swimsuit competition. ("Darling, why don't you and Chanzana go down to the river, slip into your tiny bikinis, and have a nice swim? I'll join you later with the videocam." See how easy it is?) I don't know how far I want to bother getting into this. The musical score is by Les Baxter, who did some nice arrangements for pop songs in the 50s, but this is generic and could have been written by a Magic 8 Ball. The Apaches speak Indianese. "You get off horse. Leave guns." (That's a direct quote.) You know, I hate saying this, but it's impossible to watch a movie like this -- cavalry versus Apache -- without Ford's enchiridion coming to mind, especially examples like "Fort Apache" and "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon." Ford's movies have a lived-in quality. It's not just that characters are fleshed out with human quirks, while here everyone is stripped of every feature that doesn't advance the story. It's that in "Yellow Ribbon," John Wayne wears red long johns under his dusty uniform. Here, the uniforms are tightly tailored, not baggy and used. The boots are refulgent. They're so polished they probably emit a glow in the dark.There's a scene in which a sergeant is captured and tortured by the Apache. ("Torture him. Torture him good.") Well, the truth is that the Plains Indians were pretty rough customers when it came to torture, though of course it wasn't torture to them. They probably called it "enhanced execution." The Apache might debone captives, beginning with the phalanges, but they expected the same treatment from their enemies. The attitude towards battle of the Indians on the high plains was remarkably similar to that of the Greek city states -- bravery was a virtue of the highest order.Anyway, however much I enjoy Ben Johnson, he's not enough to save this movie. Let's fillet this sucker.

dougdoepke At a cavalry outpost, the colonel (Taylor) dispatches a captain (Johnson) on a suicide mission among the Apaches because of rivalry over his wife's (Harrison) affections.The colonel loves wife Allison, but she loves the captain, I think. And, the captain loves her, at least some of the time. However, the rest of the time, he loves Chanzana, but Chanzana is half Apache, and I think she loves Apache leader Victorio. Oh well, I may be wrong about all this, but then the script can't seem to make up its mind either. So maybe you can sort it out.Good thing there's lots of action to interrupt this frontier soap opera. In fact I don't know when I've heard more shooting. Seems like somebody's always wiping out somebody else. Boy, was I surprised when the major shoots all the Indians carrying that white flag of truce. Pretty rotten thing for our guys to do, which sets off all the shooting because now the Apaches want revenge.But then it seems like the Indians like roasting our guys over an upside-down spit. That's pretty rotten too and not in any multi-cultural handbook I know of. Then too, that part reminds me of another good Apache movie, Ulzana's Raid (1971), where the Apaches also practice some strange culinary arts. Even stranger, however, is when the Indians defend the fort against attacking cavalry (I love that wagon-ramp trick). Now where has any Western fan seen that upside-down world before.Anyway, it's an okay Western with some interesting sidelights and the great Ben Johnson. I'm just wondering why they went all the way to scenic Kanab, Utah to film, and then didn't didn't do it in Technicolor. Then again, maybe they spent their budget on all the big shoot- outs. But-- bottom line-- if you can untangle the big who-loves-whom puzzle in this movie, I'm sure there's a place for you at People magazine. Otherwise, you might want to catch up with this cowboys-and-Indians on an especially slow night.

alexandre michel liberman (tmwest) This film is a surprise, it turns out to be much better than expected, considering few people ever heard about it. Ben Johnson as Capt. Thompson proves that he should had more leading roles. The two women, the beautiful Jana Davi (born in Ceylon) and Jan Harrison are responsible for making this a better than average B western. Harrison is Allison, the unfaithful wife of Col. James Garret. Jana Davi is Chanzana one of the wives of Victorio, who leaves the reservation and declares war. This reaction was caused by Major Wharton's bloody and unjustified massacre of Santo and his men who wanted to make peace. Both women fall in love with Thompson, who tries to resist because of the consequences. Good cinematography and the music is by Les Baxter.