Captain Apache

This is an outlandish and muddled American/Spanish Western starred by the great Lee Van Cleef. A native-American Captain Apache (Lee Van Cleef in the title role) is investigating a murder , some words : ¨April Morning¨ hold a special key about its solution. He deals with a suspect gunrunner (Stuart Whitman) and a gorgeous saloon girl (Carrol Baker). Meanwhile the captain is pursued by some cutthroats ( Percy Herbert, Tony Vogel) and uncovers an assassination scheme.

This offbeat Western packs shootouts, action Western, violence, some touches of humor and strange images about witchery and necromancy. Packs a cynic and ironic portrayal of a rough captain Indian and his exploits in Old West gunning down enemies with one-dimensional roles and dozens of stereotypes who cross his path. The picture turns out to be another Spaghetti Western which during the 60s and early the 70 were ordinarily shot in Spain. Numerous support cast full of secondaries from Spanish/Italian Western as Jose Bodalo,Ricardo Palacios, Dan Van Husen,Charly Bravo, Milo Quesada, among others. The tale is filmed in Texas Hollywood,(Almeria,Andalucia, Spain) and partially in the fortress built for ¨El Condor¨(John Guillermin also with Cleef) by the production designer Julio Molina . Nevertheless, today the fort has been crumbled and only remains some ruins. Rare musical score and songs are played by Lee Van Cleef. Atmospheric and colorful cinematography by John Cabrera. The movie is produced by Milton Sperling (¨Battle of Bulge¨), Irving Lerner(¨Royal hunt of sun¨) and the prestigious screenwriter Philip Jordan (the classic ¨Johnny Guitar¨ and ¨Bad man's river¨ again with Van Cleef). The motion picture is regularly directed by Alexander Singer. The flick will appeal to S.W. buffs and Lee Van Cleef fans .

One of my favorite Van Cleef spaghetti westerns--more TV-show in look than a feature film and Van Cleef goes against type. I'm not surprised that everyone here dislikes it. The movie is definitely an acquired taste. I saw it during its theatrical run and wish I could find a decent print on DVD. TNT used to run it, I hope the western channel airs it someday. The very funny script is a non-stop barrage of one-liners but played so totally straight and dry by everyone, Van Cleef, Whitman, Carroll Baker, that it works. I've read that the cast had a good time making Apache. The twanging guitar soundtrack is terrific--totally unlike the music composed for most Euro-westerns. I'd love to buy the soundtrack CD.

At first when accidentally stumbling upon "Captain Apache" on late night TV and knowing absolutely nothing about it, I derived it would be a story similar to the one told in "A Man Called Horse" (and thus also a predecessor to "Dances with Wolves") and revolving on a white man fighting alongside the oppressed Indians. What else do you expect from a film with a title like that? It quickly becomes obvious this isn't the case, and the titular Captain (the almighty Lee Van Cleef), is simply an eccentric loner but a genuine Indian. He works as an Army officer, but none of the white cowboy-machos respect him because he's a "Redass" and the Indians don't trust him because he does a white man's job. He even has to remove his uniform whilst talking to the Indians, resulting in a shameless and gratuitous naked Van Cleef scene. The whole movie searches for the meaning of the words "April Morning", and the dialogs in the script make damn sure you don't forget them as they're repeated approximately every 7,5 seconds. April and Morning were the last words of a dying officer and they are believed to have an important significance. Captain Apache investigates and quickly becomes entangled in a large-scaled conspiracy of Mexican gun smugglers, quality prostitutes, corrupt army commanders and … genuine witches! The plot is often needlessly convoluted and I easily admit I didn't bother to comprehend everything, especially because the basic premise is rudimentary simple and actually gets revealed already in the two-line plot synopsis here on this site. How absurd is that? Throughout the whole film the words "April Morning" bathes in an aura of mystery and their meaning is successfully kept secret until five minutes before the ending, yet around here the whole film is bluntly summarized in two sentences. "Captain Apache" is overall very forgettable, but it does feature a couple of brilliantly comical moments (Van Cleef's drinking contest with the freaky twin bodyguards or his acid trip inside the witches' cavern), some decent shootouts and – not to forget – two songs sung by no less than Lee Van Cleef himself. This is the only time Lee was ever credited as a singer and that trivia aspect alone makes "Captain Apache" a curious must-see for fans of Euro-westerns. The presence of cult-siren Carroll Baker ("Baba Yaga", "Knife of Ice", "Bad", "Cyclone"…) as every male character's love interest is another good reason for avid cult fanatics to track down this nonetheless mediocre film.

In spite of continuing abuse from the surrounding people the army life has obviously made good to Van Cleef. The hair from his upper lip has moved on the top of his head, multiplied and grown darker in color. He has never looked as good, relaxed and fast with women. He has never looked as much a comic book westerner either. Check out the fancy leather jacket and how he sucks in his whole belly while posing in a loin cloth.

Now seriously, this is a funny western without really being a western comedy. The cast and the director must have had a lot of fun too doing this and getting paid for it. The heavy hallucination scene jumps out as the most fun, even though the whole film seems like a mad dream. It is like something lifted out of a really old comic book. Gladly, I like a lot of comics and movies that are so bad they transform into good in a whole another context. All the like minded cultured ones, be informed.

By the way, the story of this film brings to mind something similar from Jean Giraud's great Blueberry comics albums. And the excellent movie 'Blueberry' having been hailed as the first psychedelic western with mushroom munching... sorry, Captain Apache kind of got there first. And he sings too!

this western is so bad that it sends it into the realms of an awesome cult classic. the best scene is when lee van cleef gets captured by the bad guys. he's held in a cave, where bizarrely he ends up doing magic mushrooms and beats the bad guys up, around a campfire, to psychedelic imagery. it also has lee van cleef singing the main vocal track for the theme tune. this alone makes it intriguing viewing for any movie fan.