Apache in agguato

What I noticed first about this movie is the colors. I don't know whether it is because the Eastmancolor print aged in odd ways, whether the colors around St. George in Utah are actually those colors, or some combination of the two, but the distant hills that vary from periwinkle to lavender, the bright orange dirt and the varying blues of the sky (indicating to my mind that time passed between the two shots, despite the in-movie continuity) are startling.

It starts when Audie Murphy cuts out what he thinks is a wild horse; his own had died some time earlier. Soon enough, he is being hanged for horse rustling, only to be rescued by Dan Duryea, playing one of his quixotic gunfighters. The two of them are hired by Joan O'Brien to get them to her husband, through warring Apaches.

In other words, it's plot 2: the Anabasis, getting from point A to point B. It's also got a script by Burt Kennedy, filled with exciting situations, dark humor and homely phrases. Good pictures, good stories, good actors.