Apache Uprising

A stagecoach hauling honest citizens mixed with a few dubious people travels through the Southwest wilderness during an Apache uprising with everything culminating at a way station. Rory Calhoun, Lon Chaney Jr. And Corinne Calvet are the protagonists while John Russell, DeForest Kelley and Gene Evans play the outlaws

"Apache Uprising" (1965) is an A. C. Lyles Western, who produced over a dozen 'B' Westerns in the mid-60s. These flicks were shot in about 12 days, give or take, using past-their-prime actors mixed with a couple up-and-comers. They were shot on town sets with a few sequences done in the nearby wilderness of SoCal. The teams Lyles gathered always knew what they were doing and did it competently and efficiently, albeit with little artistic merit and just a notch above a TV movie.

This one has elements of "Stagecoach" (1939), "Hangman's Knot" (1952) and "Black Spurs" (1965) with Rory making for a tall, dark Western protagonist; he should've been more popular. While it isn't as good as his previous "Black Spurs," it's still a solid traditional Western with fleshed-out characters and a well-written story, albeit a tad complicated.

Kelley, who would go on to fame with Star Trek the next year, is entertaining as an irascible psycho while the towering John Russell is even more grim as the scarred ringleader.

On the female front, Corinne Calvet was almost 40 during shooting and still alluring. I liked the bit about her unjustly being an outcast purely through gossip/slander (or perhaps I should say impurely).

The movie runs 1 hour, 30 minutes, and was shot at Vasquez Rocks, just north of Hollywood in the high country east of Santa Clarita, with studio stuff done at Paramount Studios and some stock footage from Arizona.

GRADE: B-/B (6.5/10)

A motley assortment of passengers take the stage for Lordsburg and Apache Wells; two of them -- Rory Calhoun and Arthur Hunnicutt -- tell Richard Arlen that the Apaches burned a wagon train. I was all prepared for an A.C. Lyles produced remake of STAGECOACH. Instead, it switched halfway through and turned into something quite different.

It's still a Geezer Western, with all the actors of an earlier era, happy to pick up a paycheck: Red Barry. Jean Parker and Johnny Mack Brown in small parts, Lon Chaney Jr. as the coach driver, DeForest Kelly as the psycho gunman ... but in the end it switched gears often enough in surprising but sensible ways to keep up my interest, and turned into a tough, hard western.

I've a real affection for the A.C. Lyles westerns which gave employment to a lot of old time players who were finding work increasingly hard to get because of the decline of the studio system and in some cases a refusal to work in television. But Apache Uprising took elements from Stagecoach, Rawhide, Broken Arrow, Coroner Creek, with a little bit of English Gothic thrown in the mix and it didn't come out well.

The English Gothic gets into it when the passengers of a stagecoach get held hostage in a relay station by three outlaws, with thunder and lightning flashing outside together with Apaches on the warpath. It comes right out of innumerable old English murder mysteries.

Funny thing that with all the old stars like Rory Calhoun, Corinne Calvet, John Russell, Lon Chaney, Jr., Johnny Mack Brown, the one you will remember from this film is DeForest Kelley. The original Star Trek was debuting this year and I'm willing to bet this was Kelley's final work prior to becoming wise old Dr. Leonard McCoy. Toby Jack Saunders is as far from McCoy as you can get. He's reminiscent of the outlaw that Kelley played in The Law and Jake Wade. He's one hateful punk with some serious self esteem issues.

I've seen every member of this cast do better work, even better work for A.C. Lyles and it's too bad the film was beneath the talents of all of them.

And I would say unusual western from AC Lyles' stuff that usually take place in towns, between outlaws spreading terror and the good sheriff, with some more or less complex story to "spice" the story. Here it is question of Indian renegades, so the usual settings of Lyle's productions expand a bit, in more outdoor scenes...The most interest remains, as usual in Lyle's prod, the cast, mainly old timers from Hollywood with a bunch of villains absolutely exquisite - De Forest Kelley, Gene Evans and above all a convincing John Russel, the leader. Only John Doucette and Robert Wilke were missing in this villain gallery. But that remains a B vintage western, not a milestone in western history. A vert cruel ending, but for the villain. Some kind of taste as the final minutes if JOHNNY COOL.

The film takes place in Arizona circa 1880s and deals with the stage coach lines trying to run from Texas through Arizona over to Phoenix and points west. The stage coach and passengers are attacked by renegade Apaches. These stage coach hands, passengers, and various AZ outlaws, all of whom are travelling through Indian country, are forced to join forces against the Apaches in order to save their lives and scalps.

Old fashioned/traditional westerns like this A. C Lyle western is what I prefer and they were fast becoming anachronistic in the 1960s in the cinema halls, however this western is fairly ordinary with a few good points such as some action sequences, an array of older actors, nice location and an oddness - it's an ok time filler, nothing more. Deforest Kelley plays a psychotic gunman who goes into psycho mode every five seconds. It amazes how John Russell's character would hire such a loose wire when he would be attracting attention with his behaviour.