La vendetta degli Apache

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.

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.

1965's "Apache Uprising" was number 6 out of the 13 B-Westerns produced at Paramount by A.C. Lyles in the mid 60s, crammed full of incidents taken from better known titles, particularly John Ford's "Stagecoach." Rory Calhoun and Arthur Hunnicutt make an interesting team of drifters riding shotgun on a stagecoach to Lordsburg; like Berton Churchill, there's a corrupt businessman (Robert H. Harris) carrying a load of cash, and like Claire Trevor, there's a woman of ill repute (Corinne Calvet). The threat of Apache attack is of course present, along with the more immediate danger posed by deadly gunmen Gene Evans and an especially mean spirited DeForest Kelley, their boss (John Russell) only a few paces behind, just waiting to complete that big payday. Smaller roles are essayed by Richard Arlen, Donald Barry, George Chandler, and two actors making their final screen appearances, the still attractive Jean Parker ("Dead Man's Eyes," "Bluebeard") and Johnny Mack Brown, reduced to playing a lecherous sheriff. Best of all is Lon Chaney, now 6 for 6 in Lyles Westerns, doing the Andy Devine role of coach driver Charlie Russell, a hard drinking, lovable bear of a man, laughing and enjoying life no matter the danger. Present for 8 of the 13 Paramounts, Chaney rejoices in his biggest part yet, and happily survives to the very end. Despite so many familiar elements, Lyles makes it all work in unpredictable fashion, with John Russell getting his just desserts, while DeForest Kelley gets off lightly (offscreen, sad to say).

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.

but not by a whole lot. The cast is a bit more vigorous than the usual group of senior citizen actors who populate the typical Lyles western, the action is staged a bit more professionally and the script isn't one of the worst of the series (although it's nothing to write home about, either). Rory Calhoun and John Russell, unlike most of the leading men in this series, seem to have matured rather than "aged," and that fact alone lifts this picture up a notch from the usual run-of-the-mill Lyles extravaganza. It's still nothing special, but it's not as embarrassing as some of the other entries in Lyles' string of geezer oaters.