A Noite da Emboscada

From the same folks who brought you To Kill a Mockingbird, a good western thriller The Stalking Moon blends old west action with Alfred Hitchcock type suspense.

Gregory Peck is an old army scout who helped rescue captive white woman Eva Marie Saint and her son Noland Clay by one of the Apache chiefs. The father isn't about to give up his son and he pursues Peck all the way to his ranch after he quit the cavalry. The last 40% of the film deals with Peck and his ranch guests being stalked by a clever and dangerous Indian opponent.

The film itself touches on themes used in both The Searchers and Two Rode Together by John Ford and the fine Joel McCrea-Barbara Stanwyck western, Trooper Hook. But director Robert J. Mulligan took his style cues from Alfred Hitchcock.

We don't ever see the opponent except in long shot right up to the very end. We only know him from what is said about Nathaniel Narciso from what is said and the death and destruction in his wake. The anticipation is all the more terrifying.

Western and suspense, The Stalking Moon is a nice blend of film genres and fans of Gregory Peck and Eva Marie Saint will be pleased.

I happened to be searching for this title as I have wanted to collect it for years. It is difficult to find although it has been on cable a number of times.

It is an extraordinary look at life in the west from several important perspectives. I was reading comments and a critic's review of this great film and I would like to make 2 primary comments:

1. If you haven't seen the movie or didn't pay attention, you should not comment on it. You may talk someone out of a memorable entertainment experience. At least get the particulars correct.

2. Nothing could be further from the truth regarding it being a "forgettable" film. On the contrary it is a compelling and "unforgettable film." It's the real thing and very much worth watching!

I rank this film right up there with "The Wild Bunch", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "McCabe and Mrs. Miller", "True Grit", "The Magnificent Seven", "Hombre", "Shane", "Jeremiah Johnson","The Outlaw Josey Wales" and others.

Despite other comments, Robert Forster played the memorable role of "Nick" a "half-breed" scout taught by Sam Varner (Gregory Peck.) It was Nathaniel Narcisse who played the much feared Native American warrior, Salvaje, who tracked Sam and the others in search of his son and only heir.

This film was the quintessential film about scouting and tracking of that era. It was the first and only (serious) western film that was a thriller. The haunting sound track effects, sets, and the stealth and terror created by it's antogonist, Salvaje, was riveting. This "brave" could get in and out of places and kill many, single-handedly, without being heard or seen-like a ghost! He is more stealth and deadly in this film than "Rambo" was in the forest sequence in the movie "First Blood."

The movie is about a retiring army scout, Sam Varner (Gregory Peck) who agrees to transfer a white woman-who had been kidnapped years before by Indians-to someplace other than the reservation. She had a son by a fearsome warrior whom she feared would return to claim that son. On the way Sam (Peck) decided he would offer her and her half-breed son a new start at his ranch where he was headed to in retirement. That is where all of his (Peck's) trouble started. Salvaje wants his son and stops at nothing to find and take him.

This movie has every important element, the scenery and cinematography, full characters you care about, great soundtrack, fantastic acting, and unbelievable drama and terror. And the facts of living in that period are accurate and you live the experience. It is not predictable. It will have you on the edge of your seat!

With the exception of "To Kill a Mockingbird", this may well be Gregory Peck's finest performance. He is in his prime.

The tracking scenes are unforgettable. Whether you are a western buff or not this is a great movie. There will never be another western like this one.

A tense, fairly realistic, and mature western from 1968, when the genre was on the way to near oblivion, only to be saved now and then by the likes of Peckinpah and Eastwood. Unfortunately, this film is not so well known and has been unfairly characterized as plodding and slow. It definitely has a degree of introspectiveness to it, but their is a gem of a pursuit story. The film does its best not to sugarcoat the west. The locales and people are pretty impressive for their gritty primitiveness and overall authenticity. The central story about a fierce Apache warrior who's waging his own brutal campaign to kill as many whites as he can, chasing the white woman who was his wife and the mother of his son, while an ageing army scout does his best to protect them is framed by some pretty awesome photography of blinding sandstorms, thick vegetation, and lots of rocky cliffs and a fine score.

This is a very exciting, and somewhat unusual western, I suggest. Some have called it a thriller, bit that is a pejorative term for something 'empty", for a too-loud, over-musicked and graphically violent film with comic book level characters--at least most time, an implication of a seeking for sensationalism... This film is unarguably a well-directed "duel" film, whose setting in the U.S. West is justified by two things: first is that the opponent in the film is a powerful Apache warrior with the advantage of surprise and the motivation of trying to steal back his only son; second is that the ethical central character of the film is.a resourceful Westerner himself, a first-rate warrior, one who chooses to risk bringing the Apache warrior down upon him. Veteran author T.V. Olsen's thin-but-serviceable storyline was adapted for the screen by Wendell Mayes and written as a screenplay by Alvin Sargent. If this film's life began, as one might suspect it did, as a vehicle film for usually excellent leading man Gregory Peck, it was certainly made into something more because it was given a first-rate production in every respect. The ecologically minimal Southwest's scenery and the colors and changes of light at different hours of the clock were utilized to bring a sense of immense space to the setting. The director, solid achiever Robert Mulligan, was able to hire Frank Silvera for a small but important role as a Major who advises the star, Gregory Peck; Eva Marie Saint for the near-to-thankless role of a woman rescued from the Apache warrior, "Salvaje" (the Savage in Spanish); and Robert Forster, on the verge of a good little career as the star of TV's ""Banyon" and several films as the man who risks his life to help Peck. Adding Russell Thorson, Lou Frizzell, Richard Bull, long-time supporting actor Henry Beckman, and fine actor Lonny Chapman also helped immensely. The story breaks into four parts, one of the reasons it has such a biting edge, as cold as a wind coming up an arroyo out of the arid land at sunset. The first part is "the set-up", which details the captures of several renegade Apaches by Peck, a veteran scout, thus establishing his coolness, his credentials for the duel to come, and more. The second part I term "the leave-taking"; during this phase as he goes to a lonely post-army life before leaving for his own land, the scout takes along Eva Marie Saint, rescued from Apache hands, along with her son; his reasons are hinted at but not entirely made clear. The third portion of the films I call 'the preparation and waiting", as Peck knows Salvaje, played by Nathaniel Narcisco, is coming after them. And the fourth is the long body of "the duel itself", during which Peck is aided by Forster and proves his own mettle may times over, in strategy, tactics, fighting ability, courage and the stubborn ability that he has learned on the trail for many years to do whatever needs to be done without giving way to fear, doubt or fatigue. Some have commented on the music, supplied by Fred Karlin; it is eerie and lonesome but not in my opinion in any sense overdone. Charles Lang's cinematography is atmospheric everywhere and deserves special mention within this late western. Also, the art direction by Roland Anderson and Jack Poplin,  and the spare but important set decorations by Frank Tuttle add to the authentic feel of the film for me. I have lived in that zone, and I found it to be quite authentic in feel within the narrative. I had seen The Stalking Moon" when it was first released, but this feature I found even better the second time around, because instead of wishing some characters had been given more lines, this time I followed the director's purpose; I do not, as a writer, find this to be a "Cape Fear" type thriller; it is to me more like a number of older adventure films set in many places where the climactic duel is a prolonged one between individuals or groups, usually men fighting for a place of no intrinsic but only of situational or strategic value. In one sense, this film is not about the boy Salvaje wants nor even the mother; it is a film about Peck's accepting the final challenge in a very successful career in order to have what he wants, a sort of victory over the West that will justify his conclusion that he can handle whatever throws against him, natural, human or emotional. This is a powerful film, and one not to be missed in my judgment. This is not noir; there is no law in wilderness territory; and in Sam Varner, the West here serves as the stage for a man worthy of its harsh beauties and of its immense challenges.

I chose to see this film because of the always excellent work of Gregory Peck -- however, this being a relatively unknown film, I wasn't expecting so very much in the way of ingenuity, storyline or overall entertainment.

I'm very happy to say that I was very surprised. This is a very very good western. I've seen a lot of westerns and know pretty much what to expect out of your average fare. This is well above average. A couple facets in particular help it excel.

One of the things I really enjoyed was the understated mood of the characters and the film as a whole. The plot and the characters don't slap you in the face with standard western conventions saying "HERE I AM!" The characters and storyline unveil themselves slowly, deliberately, and I think, beautifully.

Some of the other negative comments site lack of character development and slow-moving story as major drawbacks. While each viewer may see the same thing from a number of different perspectives, I believe that these reviewers failed to recognize the subtleties which make this film stand out above others. True, there is not a lot of dialog. But consider how chatty most of the personalities out in the vast western frontier were likely to be. If you were a lover of social engagements and polite small-talk, this was not exactly your home sweet home. The main characters are an army scout and his half-breed friend who he trained; a captured, abused woman living among Indian tribes for the better part of a decade, and a little Indian boy put in circumstances where he is a fish out of water. The dialog of this film is seen the most by the characters' actions and expressions. Not many films dare to do this, and even then, not many succeed at it. It is a credit to this film that they pulled it off beautifully. In essence, the way the characters in this movie were handled came as a surprise and added a genuine sense of realism to the picture.

Also, the cinematography and choice of shooting locations are to be commended. The laconic characters blend seamlessly with the vast landscapes of barren Arizona and the rugged, striking New Mexico ranch. This also added to the realism of the film.

While this film does protrude ahead of many others, it is not perfect. I did find the utter, vast destruction supposedly wreaked by the one-man Apache army more than a little unlikely. Also, some of the cat and mouse between the "Stalking" warrior and our protagonists seemed stretched and a bit beneath the supposed cleverness of the characters. However, these things do not condemn the film, nor do they cancel out it's effectiveness. It's a great western, which lived up to much, if not quite all, of its potential.

It's a shame this film is not more well known. It is wonderful, however, to have an excellent print available on DVD (albeit an absolute bare bones disc). Give it a try -- you might just be surprised too!