Spikeopath War Drums is directed by Reginald Le Borg and written by Gerald Drayson Adams. Its stars Lex Barker, Joan Taylor, Ben Johnson, Larry Chance and Richard H. Cutting. Music is by Les Baxter and cinematography by William Margulies.Story pitches Barker as Apache chief Mangas Coloradas, who in spite of his strong friendship with white man Luke Fargo (Johnson), finds himself having to take arms up against his friend and his kind.Familiar territory on the surface here, it's a story that has featured numerous times in Westerns across the decades. Yet even though the execution is sadly drab, and the ridiculous casting for some of the principal characters is irksome, the honourable intentions withing the story keep it from the dustbin.The pro Native American angle is played with some feeling, though it required more depth and dramatic verve. Also of note is the deft handling of Taylor's character arc, who goes from being abused by all the men around her, into a warrior woman of substance, giving the pic a strong feminist bent.Musical score is of the traditional Cowboys and Indians fare so beloved of "B" Western movie makers of the era, sitting somewhat uncomfortably with the more serious strands of the narrative. The Kanab locations in De Luxe Color are most pleasing, as is the stunt work on offer.Though there's a few servings of action, such as ambush, Apache's fighting each other to the death, even a girl scrap! Pic never really gets out of a low gear for excitement purpose, while the ending just sort of fizzles out without fanfare. But for undemanding Western lovers there's enough here to not class it as a waste of time. 6/10

whitec-3 If you don't expect more than a small-time western from the 1950s can deliver, War Drums proves a pleasant and honest but minor genre and period piece with three strong actors in the leads, some specific historical contexts (though as BKLoganbing notes, inaccurate Apache history), and a reasonably adventurous approach to gender and ethnicity.The action concerning white encroachment on Apache lands in Nevada territory takes place simultaneously with the start of the Civil War. Cowboy-lead Luke Fargo, played by the ever-likable Ben Johnson, compares American Indian reservations to African American slavery and to the traffic in Mexican women among Indians and Americanos. When Fargo's friend, Apache Chief Mangas (a.k.a. Red Sleeves, played by former Tarzan beefcake Lex Barker), attacks illegal American mining camps in 1861, he shares headlines with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. By the end of the movie Fargo is a major in the Grand Army of the Republic.Most impressive and interesting is Joan Taylor (a regular in 50s-60s westerns and sci-fi) as Riva, whose mixed blood leads to gender innovations. She first appears as a captive servant (and maybe more) of Mexican banditos. When Mangas raids the Mexican camp, Riva impresses him with her fighting spirit, and soon Fargo too falls for the fiery-sweet woman, who is referred to alternately as Mexicano and Americano. (She later reveals her father was Americano and her mother full-blood Comanche.) Mangas violates Apache custom by announcing she will be his wife. Her refusal to fill the Apache woman's role of building and caring for Mangas's wickiup leads to the movie's most intriguing narrative turn. She rides with him as a warrior and hunter—such scenes are minimal, but Taylor rides well. (Brian Camp's review elsewhere on this page offers more appreciative detail.) Also pleasing are the various ways Fargo, Mangas, and Riva arrange showdowns to end in peace or at least truce. Director Reginald Le Borg skillfully uses a limited number of extras to suggest larger populations. The movie has plenty of action, color, and a seriously good heart.

JimB-4 I'll watch Ben Johnson in just about anything, and I just did. Though I've been a fan of Lex Barker's since his Tarzan days, in this he makes Ben Johnson look like Sir John Gielgud. This is possibly the worst Western I've ever seen, and I've spent my life studying them. This movie takes place in some weird Bizarro-Apache world, where the pseudo-word "Ayee!" is apparently the only word in the Apache language, because it's used for every possible meaning; where the tribe has a central camp, but the people blithely live in isolated single wikiup lodges apparently miles from each other, where the majority of the tribal folk have blue eyes, where Apache wedding gowns are apparently made by Laura Ashley, where a Mexican captive woman suddenly falls in love with her hated captor in the space of a two-minute fight scene, and where in about the same length of time she is transformed into a fierce warlike female co-chief in a beaded tank-top. There's not a moment of believable human behavior in the film. A handful of gold miners deep in Apache territory shoot a little Indian boy and let an Indian girl take him back to the tribe while they unconcernedly go back to panning for gold, despite the fact that even an idiot would know the entire tribe is going to show up in a few minutes looking for scalps...which is just what happens. A good drinking game would be to take a slug every time someone says, "Ayee!" or whenever someone does something stupidly and obviously against his own interests. It's also pretty convenient how often the heroes get devastating wounds yet ride off fairly comfortably after a little rest. Fortunately the photography is so drab and dim that it's hard always to be sure what's happening on screen--except in the day-for-night shots, which are sometimes brighter than the day-for-day shots! The only positive element of the entire film is some good stunt work and watching Ben Johnson gallop on horseback. That's always good to see. I hope he got a big paycheck for this one, though. At least it didn't have a title song.

dinky-4 It's not flamboyant enough to be "camp," but this movie still offers a number of those so-bad-it's-good moments. Most of these moments occur when the Indian characters have to spout such lines as: "A forked tongue is an evil thing." "The peace words of your people are written on the wind." "On a reservation an Apache warrior will be as an eagle with broken wings."There's also a visually amusing moment when Lex Barker and Joan Taylor emerge from their teepee wearing his-and-her warrior outfits.Looking past this hokiness, however, you'll find a briskly-told plot which differs a bit from the usual fare because it involves an Apache and a white man (Ben Johnson) in love with the same woman who's half-Mexican and half-Indian. Though most of the movie's Indians look a bit "Hollywood," they're treated in a sympathetic manner.Lex Barker, as in his Tarzan days, spends most of the time bare-chested and his torso is shown to advantage in a scene where he's tied between two horses and whipped by some greedy prospectors. "Sign your name on his stinkin' hide," someone suggests, to which the flogger replies: "I would if I knew how to write!" (This flogging ranks 71st in the book, "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies.")Barker's no stranger to the whip, having taken some lashes in "Tarzan and the She-Devil" and, more notably, in "Terror of the Red Mask." Joan Taylor, laughably miscast, fitted much more comfortably into her most famous role, that of the heroine in "Earth vs. Flying Saucers."