For those who may have wondered what "Fort Apache" and, to a lesser extent, "The Searchers" might have looked like had they been directed by someone with roughly half the talent of John Ford, you now have your answer. In other words, "Ambush" is a too slow paced western with occasional flashes of interest that you cease to think about almost as soon as it is done. Its good points can be rather quickly summarized: sardonically intelligent dialogue by Marguerite Roberts, one of the better western scribes and one of the only women doing it, well executed battle scenes from director Sam Wood, whose last film this is (guy had a fatal coronary less than a year later, obviously worn out by decades of red baiting and commie hunting), and a good, hard bitten, low key performance from Rat Fink Bob. Its flaws, centered around an under developed love triangle between Taylor, Arlene Dahl and John Hodiak, as well as the standard racist depiction of Apaches, are too many to mention, although I feel I must single out the really dull sub plot involving a lieutenant played by Don Taylor, one of late 40s Hollywood's duller young actors, and an enlisted man's wife, played by the usually good, but not here, Jean Hagen. Oh and the cinematography is so dark that you feel you're watching an exercise in how not to shoot western noir. C plus.
