Apache Territory

Skilled Harmonica playing, Joshua Trees, outdoor scenery, great story line.

Apache Territory is directed by Ray Nazarro and collectively adapted to screenplay by George W. George, Charles R. Marion and Frank L. Moss from the novel Last Stand at Papago Wells written by Louis L'Amour. It stars Rory Calhoun, Barbara Bates, John Dehner, Carolyn Craig, Tom Pittman, Frank DeKova and Leo Gordon. Music is by Mischa Bakaleinikoff and cinematography by Irving Lippman.

Saddle Tramp Logan Cates (Calhoun) takes control of an assorted group of civilians and cavalrymen when they are thrust together by fate and come under siege from marauding Apache Indians. With inner conflict threatening the group and the Apache attacking like ghosts of the desert, their chance of survival is slim. But why does Calhoun keep looking at the sky?

Canteen Bombs of the Apocalpyse.

Routine and of standard siege formula stock, Apache Territory is however brisk and enjoyable if willing to forgive the cliche's and stereotypes. Plot unfolds as a group dynamic cracking under the strain whilst the nasty old Indians attack at intervals and use psychological warfare in the process. Within the group there's a double dose of love interest, with one of them featuring Calhoun and Bates as old lovers now thrust together under trying circumstance. Into the mix are a coward, an aloof racist, a cavalry Sergeant struggling to control his group, a hero in waiting and a Prima Indian who hates the Apache and also has some gold in his possession. So with no food and the water running dry, it's shaping up to be a hopeless situation.

Gila monster up the trouser leg?

Clocking in at just over 70 minutes the film never outstays its welcome, and in spite of the standard characterisations on the page, the cast do well to keep things pleasingly watchable. Calhoun (Powder River/The Hired Gun) makes for a good rugged hero, leading off the film with some telling gusto, New Yorker DeKovo (Run of the Arrow/Arrowhead) once again doesn't embarrass himself in another Native American role, while Dehner (Apache/The Fastest Gun Alive) and Gordon (Hondo/7th Cavalry) show why they were much used character actors. Filmed in Eastman Color, the budget just about stretched to feature some views of Red Rock Canyon, but mostly the action is based on a sound stage set. 6/10

There is sad trivia attached to the film. Within 12 years of this film's release three of the principal cast members would be dead. Bates in 1969 and Craig in 1970 died at their own hands and young Tom Pittman was killed in a car accident just a couple of months after Apache Territory was released to theatres, he was 26 years old.

Since he co-produced this movie for his own company (from Louis L'Amour's 1957 novel 'Last Stand at Papagos Wells') Rory Calhoun gets to enjoy himself enormously as the rock upon whom all the other characters depend in this strongly-cast reprise of the basic situation of 'The Lost Patrol'.

Obviously shot mainly on one set, which makes it resemble an episode of 'Star Trek', but also gives it a certain claustrophobic tension; it has two interesting and highly contrasting female characters, the handsome and seemingly capable Barbara Bates (whose last film this was), and fragile Carolyn Craig, both of them played by actresses who later committed suicide.

In a very tightly constructed and entertaining B Western that he produced as well as starred in, Rory Calhoun collects a motley crew of people to stand off hostile Apaches in Apache Territory. The title speaks for itself, but it begs the question as to what all these people were doing there?

Circumstance bring Calhoun together with a former flame and her new fiancé, Barbara Bates and John Dehner, a young girl played by Carolyn Craig whom Calhoun rescues on the trail, Tom Pittman an amiable young drifting cowboy, Indian prospector Frank DeKova and a patrol of cavalry who are led by a sergeant from the adjutant general's office with no field experience in Frank DeSales. DeSales gladly cedes leadership to Calhoun who knows far more about Indian fighting than he does.

DeSales has some malcontents among his troops, a homesick Myron Healey and a former sergeant in Leo Gordon who thinks he ought to be running things. I think you can see all the inherent conflicts and in the 70 minute running time they're all brought out.

Actually Calhoun does have a plan to get them all out and it depends on the weather. The trick is to see how many of them survive. What it is you'll have to see Apache Territory for.

If you didn't recognize it, Apache Territory is yet another reworking of John Ford's The Lost Patrol which was remade into Sahara and remade again as Last Of The Comanches. The last stand theme is enduringly popular and Columbia Pictures sure got a lot of use out of it.

Two tragedies were in this cast. Both Tom Pittman and Carolyn Craig died way too young and too violently. Pittman in a car crash after this film was completed and Craig several years later by gunshot. In John Mitchum's book Them Ornery Mitchum Boys about he and brother Bob he became friends with Pittman and described him as a nice kid and promising young actor. Pittman was missing for several days before police found the car he had been driving at the bottom of a ravine with Pittman's body.

Apache Territory is a good classic B western the kind that sadly Hollywood does not turn out any more.

Rory Calhoun is a loner named "Logan Cates" who rides upon an Apache war party in the middle of the desert. Hampering his ability to escape is the fact that there are three other groups of whites (arriving at different times) who are also in trouble and need his help. So, all of them seek refuge in a waterhole and take up as good a defensive posture as possible. Now, not wanting to spoil the film for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this is not a bad western movie. Most of the actors did a decent job but Rory Calhoun basically carried this film with a very creditable performance. On the flip side though, the cavalry soldiers were some of the most undisciplined and inept bunch I've ever seen and seemed out-of-character. Be that as it may, in my opinion any western film that has a Gila monster and the quote, "It's just a flesh wound" can't be that bad. Worth a watch for fans of this genre.