Le Cri de guerre des Apaches

Before signing as ramrod Rowdy Yates in Rawhide, Clint Eastwood did a variety of films some of them better than others which if it weren't for his presence they would be obscure and forgotten. Ambush At Cimarron Pass falls in that category.

What Eastwood has is star presence, you can absolutely tell this man was going to have a future in the movie business just looking at him. Not that his character was anything special, someone else described him as petulant and I'm inclined to agree.

Sergeant Scott Brady and a small band of cavalry troopers are escorting Indian gun runner Breton Baynes and a lot of those valuable repeating rifles that he was about to sell to the Apaches. They run across a band of former Confederates, one of them being Clint Eastwood. Later on to make things interesting they pick up Margia Dean stranded out on the prairie courtesy of the Indians.

After that it's just one western cliché after another, nothing terribly original, just the same plot situations that have been done a gazillion times before. Along with the Confederates is Irving Bacon who says he's a judge, Scott Brady doubts it, pretty soon everyone else is also. He's trying to save his own skin, but there seems to be no real rhyme or reason to his character at all. When he's killed nobody mourns.

Other than it's listed in the body of work of a cinema legend, Ambush At Cimarron Pass would be lost to history. Clint Eastwood wishes it were.

This film essentially begins with a squad of cavalry escorting a prisoner known simply as "Corbin" (Baynes Barron) through Apache territory to a fort to stand trial over 100 miles away. However, on the way there, their squad is decimated by an Apache war party which leaves a man named "Sergeant Matt Blake" (Scott Brady) responsible for the delivery of his prisoner. As luck would have it, the cavalry squad comes across a few former confederate soldiers were taking part in a cattle drive but encountered a separate Apache war party on the way. That being said, while none of the former confederates have any great desire to serve with these cavalry soldiers, they realize that their only hope of survival depends on doing just that. It is then revealed that, along with their prisoner, the cavalry squad also has a great number of repeating rifles which Corbin had been planning on selling to the Apache. Needless to say, knowing how badly the Apache want these rifles, everyone now realizes that time is not on their side and that, if they are going to survive, they must make it to the fort as quickly as possible. What they don't realize, however, is that the Apache are equally determined to slow them down--and they have an idea on how to do just that. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was an okay Western which suffered to some degree by its rather low budget. As far as the acting was concerned, everyone played their parts well enough but nobody--to include Clint Eastwood (as the bitter confederate cowboy named "Keith Williams")--really impressed me that much. To be sure, he wasn't necessarily bad, by any means. It just wasn't one of his better performances. Regardless, while certainly not a great Western, it managed to pass the time well enough, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Let's face it - the only real reason to catch this pedestrian oater is to get a glimpse of a 27 year old Clinton Eastwood. The future star is still coltish in his acting craft here, and he hasn't fully developed his excellent timing and intensity as in "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" and "Dirty Harry", but the B western does show why this film was a good reason that he pursue acting. His scenes with Margia Dean are the best in showing a charisma which would one day make him box office.

Made in 1958, Eastwood looks very youthful. He holds his own in scenes with a sturdy and sullen Scott Brady, and is somewhat confined by a script that has him cast as the young fool. But Eastwood does well with what he's got, and exhibits a star quality as a young Hollywood actor.

'Ambush at Cimarron Pass' is a bit of a bore.

Even though I don't think it's as bad as one Clint Eastwood reportedly does, I do agree in the sense that this 1958 production is a limp effort at making a western. I found none of the characters to be likeable, not that they're necessarily unlikeable per se, and the events depicted onscreen failed to give me any form of entertainment/enjoyment.

Eastwood is solid in arguably his biggest role at this point in time, though the rest of those alongside the aforementioned aren't noteworthy to me - at a big push, Scott Brady is the standout of the others. Eastwood didn't return to film acting after this until 1964, but arrived back with a bang with the start of the Dollars Trilogy - I look forward to watching those!

Very low budget B-Movie. No surprise, no originality, no creativity, lots of cliche, but an honest sense of rythmn. We can almost see the paintings of the studio setting. One good reason to watch this is to see young Clint Eastwood before his cinema fame (circa 1965).