La chasse aux visages pâles

Rory Calhoun stars as Logan Cates who ends up helping a band of motley crew - army soldiers, his ex-flame and her beau, a young girl kidnapped by the Apaches and deserted on the plains, a young guy, and a Pima Native - and it's a taut 70 mins of some tense moments of an impending attack and some good action. There's a Gila monster scene that is quite nail biting. It never laborious in getting to the point, and you get that message from the action-packed intro. The finale with the blasting powder in the storm is really good. Typical stranger helping a motley crew story with some stereotypical characters but it's entertaining. Read the book and that was a really good read.

Rory Calhoun never really made it to "A" star status as a movie actor,but the roles he played in 'B' movies such as Apache Territory suited him well.A handsome and capable actor he made it bearable to watch movies such as this especially when you needed to while away a couple of hours and forget the troubles of the world.This is your basic story of a group of people in the desert surrounded by a horde of Apache indians intent on doing them harm. John Dehner and Leo Gordon -two extremely competent character actors- add to the allure of Apache Territory. The only failure I found was the addition of two goodlooking females to add romantic interest,when the filmmakers could have concentrated more on the interaction between the attacking Indians and the U.S. calvary. The movie tends to drag in the middle stages,due I think to the female cast members ,but finally builds to an entertaining climax. Overall a nice movie to watch when its raining outside and you don't want to mow the lawn.

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.

It could have been from a director as Lesley Selander, who was, as Ray Nazzaro, a prolific western maker, and who also provided solid grade B - A westerns. This one is made by a professional, where action scenes and character despiction are solid but bring nothing new, nothing exceptional. It is taut but not gritty. But it is more than worth watching, Rory Calhoun produced it, as some other ones and the result is at the level of what any western buff can expect. Don't forget that's only a B picture, lacking a bit ambition in story telling; it's not TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN nor NO NAME ON THE BULLET.

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.