Apache Ambush

APACHE AMBUSH (1955) opens promisingly with a sequence at the White House on April 14, 1865 (150 years ago today), in which President Abraham Lincoln, just before heading out to Ford's Theatre, gives an official assignment to an army scout (Bill Williams) and an army sergeant (Ray Teal) to round up Texas cattle and bring it back east to feed a hungry nation after the depredations of the Civil War. James Griffith does an excellent job of portraying Lincoln (not the first time he'd done it) and the scene reminds me that I first saw Griffith impersonate Lincoln in a famous 1957 episode of "The Lone Ranger" called "Message from Abe," in which Griffith plays a character who dresses up as Lincoln and recites the Gettysburg Address at a town's annual 4th of July festival.

However, once the action shifts to Abilene and then Texas, before settling in the fictional Texas-New Mexico border town of San Arturo, the storyline becomes more and more contrived as a number of different factions and plot elements come into play. The wagon train carrying Williams and Teal from Abilene to San Arturo comes under attack from Mexican bandits and Apaches, working together(!). (If I have my Texas lore correct, I'd have thought it would be Comanches and not Apaches raiding that territory, although I'm guessing COMANCHE AMBUSH didn't have the alliterative appeal of APACHE AMBUSH.) The plot focus shifts to a shipment of 100 Henry repeating rifles purchased by an arms dealer working for the bandits and which arrives in San Arturo in a wagon quickly slated for confiscation by the army general (James Flavin) stationed there. However, the rifles disappear and we eventually find that the one character who takes responsibility for hiding them is a one-armed ex-rebel (Richard Jaeckel) who would have had to unload the boxes of rifles and ammo, dig a hole and bury them—with one arm!--in a matter of minutes while the general's attention was diverted. There is one character who could have helped him, but that character disappears from the story at a certain point and is never heard from or mentioned again, so I had a hard time making sense of any of this. Also, Williams and Teal are denied the use of the soldiers they had requested to escort the cattle. Yet when they finally get to the cattle and start guiding it northwards, the Indians attack and somehow Williams and Teal have enough men to do the job even though it's not clear where they came from, other than the copious stock footage.

There are a lot of action scenes, but any scene involving multiple heads of cattle and dozens of Indians, raiders, or soldiers on horseback was evidently culled from another, more expensive movie. I wish I knew which movies, because I'd prefer to see those. Acting-wise, Williams is a particularly uncharismatic hero and the wild-eyed villain, Mexican bandit leader Joaquin Jironza (Alex Montoya), is not very formidable either. Movita, the actress who plays Rosita, Jironza's crafty lover, is a lot more compelling and should possibly have played the lead villain herself. (Movita, aka Movita Castaneda, died earlier this year at the age of 98.) Richard Jaeckel is very good as the embittered former Reb, who lost his arm in a Union prison camp, but one wishes he could have played this character in a better movie. And that whole bit where he takes credit for hiding all the rifles on his own just defies credulity. Tex Ritter and Ray "Crash" Corrigan, onetime mainstays of the B-western, turn up briefly in character parts early on as the shady businessmen responsible for the rifles. Iron Eyes Cody appears as the Apache chief who leads a band of stock footage warriors. George Chandler, who more often played comic or folksy character bits, here plays a cold-blooded killer working for the bandits in quite a change-of-pace role for him.

This was the fifth western I saw in a week that was written by David Lang and directed by Fred F. Sears and easily the weakest. The others were all very good. The best was THE OUTLAW STALLION (1954), which I've also reviewed here, and the others were AMBUSH AT TOMAHAWK GAP (1953), WYOMING RENEGADES (1954) and FURY AT GUNSIGHT PASS (1956), all solid, action-packed pieces with clever plotting and interesting characters. Look at the villains in these films: Roy Roberts, David Brian, Gene Evans, William Bishop, Trevor Bardette, Ray Teal, and the toughest of them all, Neville Brand. You get a bunch of guys like these together, give them horses and guns and put them in front of a camera and the movie practically writes itself. Too bad they had to work in so much stock footage to compile APACHE AMBUSH. The other four westerns were all completely original from start to finish.

Two former enemies find themselves together on a cattle drive and fighting marauding Apaches and Mexican bandits.

Ok western with a good idea and some long nifty action sequences ( I. E. the cattle stampede reversing back into marauding Apaches, the wagon train attack). The story can be confusing, but it's an adequate time pass . There's a really good performance by James Griffith as Abraham Lincoln.

Fred Sears does what he can with this, but armed as he is with a pretty lacklustre cast, it really does little more than plod along towards a pretty inevitable conclusion. The gist of the story involves a cattle drive, under the orders of President Lincoln himself, from Texas to cattle starved Kansas. This is a risky venture subject to attacks from marauding Apache and some opportunist Mexican banditos. "Kingston" (Bill Williams) and his sidekick sergeant "O'Roarke" (James Griffith) must work with the untrustworthy "McGuire" (Don Harvey) - a former Confederate officer who might just help them navigate the territory. To further complicate matters, we soon realise that their convoy also has a secret cargo bound for the unscrupulous bandit leader "Jironza" (Alex Montoya) - who is trying to get the Apache to join in his attacks on the ill-protected wagon train. The story is all pretty run of the mill. It could have been better - there is enough meat on the bones, had the acting talent been of a better calibre. As it is, everyone just comes across as if they are doing a day's work - and, aside from an early appearance from Richard Jaeckel this is largely unmemorable, drive-in, fodder.

Made on the Cheap but this Cobbled Together Western is not without Plenty of Action and a Heavy Political Post Civil War Statement.

Although the Title Implies that the said Ambush is the Central Piece, it comes Late and the Movie has more than that Clearly on its mind.

The North-South Battle is still Raging after Lee's Surrender with this Taking Place Immediately After the Assassination of Lincoln. Honest Abe shows up in the Film's First Scene setting the Plot of Delivering Needed Cattle from Down South to Up North to Feed Starving Americans.

In the Picture the Southerners still Don't Consider the North as Anything but Enemy and Bicker and Fight with Yankees Constantly. Richard Jaeckel Steals the Show as a One-Armed and extremely Bitter Rebel.

Overall, the Movie Never Slows Down and the Action is Fast and Furious. Recommended for Social Historians to Get a Glimpse at Mid-Fifties Political Commentary about the Healing of a Nation and Western Movie Fans for sure.

The "War is Over" Speeches are ever Present in the Blazing Western Format that includes Outlaw Mexicans in Cahoots with Indians, a Wild Cattle Stampede, Guns Blazing, and Stunt Work Galore (clipped from other Films). It is kind of a Cut and Paste Job that kinda Works. For its Own Contribution the Movie is Concerned with Verbiage about the Post Civil War Healing.

Immediately after the Civil War two Union soldiers by the names of "James Kingston" (Bill Williams) and "Sergeant Tim O'Roarke" (Ray Teale) are sent on a secret mission by "President Abraham Lincoln" (James Griffith) to West Texas to herd several hundred head of cattle back east where food has become quite scarce. In order to accomplish this, however, it will require them to trespass into Apache territory and because of that a former Confederate officer by the name of "Donald 'Tex' McGuire" (Don C. Harvey) is assigned to ride with them because he knows the landscape and how to successfully navigate through it. Yet, although neither Kingston nor O'Roarke trust McGuire since he was a convicted criminal prior to joining the Confederacy, these two soldiers obediently accept the assignment given to them and ride out west all the same. What they don't know at the time, however, is that the wagon train they are ordered to accompany has a secret shipment of repeating rifles being smuggled which a Mexican bandit by the name of "Joaquin Jironza" (Alex Montoya) wants to desperately acquire for his own selfish agenda. Likewise, the cattle are also badly needed by the Apaches and this fact is easily used by Jironza to persuade the Apaches to join his Mexican bandits in a raid upon the cattle drive. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started out pretty well but the intrigue and various other sub-plots seemed to hinder what could have been a very good Western film. Be that as it may, I thought it was still good enough for the time spent and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.