Apache Trail

A man with a shady past managing a stagecoach way station is reunited with his outlaw brother, whom he is convinced is up to no good. They are forced to put aside their differences to protect the town when a force of Apaches goes on the warpath, seeking retribution on a white man who deceived them.

A fairly dependable and enjoyable B-western about a pair of estranged brothers (William Lundigan and Lloyd Nolan) who are thrown together by an Apache uprising. Donna Reed provides the love interest, while Chill Wills supplies the philosophising, and there's an array of interesting characters - it was remade as Apache War Smoke, but Apache Trail is much better, more tighter and engaging with a sharp focus on the characters. The running time, however, is too short for more fleshing out the characters and having more tension. Lloyd Nolan takes the acting honours as a slimy criminal with an eye on the Stagecoach payroll, but his lingo and look seems to come out of a 1930's speakeasy. All he needed to do was flip a coin and say "Curtains."

APACHE TRAIL (1942) was Donna Reed's ninth role under her M.G.M. contract. As someone new at Culver City, Ms. Reed was put through her paces in a variety of roles, too learn the ropes. Here Donna is 'Rosalia Martinez' a immigrant with her Mother, recent from Spain and somehow stuck in the middle of the Arizona desert. Looking a bit too Middle-Western and with a unconvincing accent.

The story has all the makings of the 'B' Westerns churned out over at REPUBLIC. Brothers at odds with each other, the good, William Lundigan, the bad, Lloyd Nolan, renegade and all around creep. Usual cast of supporting Actors including Chill Wills, Grant Withers and Connie Gilchrist, etc. Also thrown in, some 'dudes' from the East with a 'femme fa-tales', plus a attack by the Apaches on their lone outpost. Competently directed by Richard Thorpe too the level or the limits of his talents, that were perfectly suited for this effort. At 66" it will not tax the viewer.

This was another of those thankless roles a rookie had to suffer through before making the grade and Stardom. I am sure that Ms. Reed's private thoughts were not that charitable when she first was given this assignment and the script. Though back then if you wanted to make it in the 'Studio System' you did what you were told. Ms. Reed proved not only a apt pupil but was good enough to play M.G.M. politics and soon would be getting more challenging roles. Her skills would finally be rewarded with the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953) COLUMBIA.

Tom O'Folliard (William Lundigan) is released after a 90 days stay in jail. He took the heat for his criminal brother Trigger Bill Folliard (Lloyd Nolan). His former boss reluctantly gives him a second chance at a remote stagecoach stop. Señora Martinez (Connie Gilchrist) and her daughter Rosalia (Donna Reed) are eager to leave until they see him arriving. A stagecoach stops with high class lady Constance Selden and the payroll box for the soldiers. Next comes Tom's no-good brother followed by hostile Apache. The disparate group has to defend the isolated compound.

This starts as a good solid B-western with a drive-by judging. I can almost accept Donna Reed as Latina. It ends with some good Indian killing action although it all looks very familiar. It turns out that I've already seen the action with another version called Apache War Smoke (1952). Nevertheless, the action is good and the rest is fine.

Apache Trail is directed by Richard Thorpe and adapted to screenplay by Maurice Geraghty from a story by Ernest Haycox. It stars Lloyd Nolan, Donna Reed, William Lundigan, Ann Ayars, Connie Gilchrist and Chill Wills. Music is by Sol Kaplan and cinematography by Sidney Wagner.

Ernest Haycox's "Stage Station" was put together as Apache Trail and ended up being a better than average "B" Western. Set essentially at the Tonto Valley Station, story finds Nolan and Lundigan as polar opposite brothers caught in the middle of the Apache's ire on account of Nolan's dastardly ways. Also at the station are a roll call of familiar 1940s Western characters, gruff men of honour, some lovely women causing sexual friction and a token Indian guy working for the whites.

This small group of people will have to defend the Station (come Fort) against what seems like 300 Apache's; that is unless they agree to give up Nolan, who of course has "not" exactly endeared himself to the group during the siege. While there's naturally the "brother" angle hanging heavy in the air, something which almost detracts from the love triangle sub-plot as the "honest as apple pie" Reed (playing a Latino!) and "smoking hot but questionable in morals" Ayars conspire to put hero in waiting Lundigan in a choice situation.

The production is a mixture of poor rear projection and stage work with gorgeous exterior location work (Tucson, Arizona), while the acting is exactly what it is, a group of actors either contracted to the studio, working for food or hopefully taking the first steps on the ladder to better opportunities. The photography is very nice, but the poor racist bravado of the era is not, while Thorpe's staging of action is indicative of his career in how he makes a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Accept it for the time it was made and this is a decent and enjoyable film. It was loosely remade in 1952 as Apache War Smoke, suffice to say that even then, ten years later, the material still didn't advance to anything out of the ordinary. 6/10

From MGM's B picture unit comes Apache Trail and the old saying in Hollywood is certainly true here such craftsmanship went into their B pictures at MGM that they would be top of the line at other studios. The story that Apache Trail was adapted from is by Ernest Haycox who wrote Stagecoach.

This is another stagecoach story with a group of men and women rapped in a stagecoach station with attacking Apaches. Among those trapped inside is Lloyd Nolan and it's him the Apaches want. His brother William Lundigan is the stationmaster. Will blood prove thicker than water?

Some of the plot elements and characters from Stagecoach you will immediately recognize. Apache Trail is not a classic like Stagecoach, but it's a competent and sturdy B western from that Tiffany of studios MGM.