Tumbleweed

Tumbleweed is directed by Nathan Juran and adapted to screenplay by John Meredyth Lucas from the novel "Three Were Renegades" written by Kenneth Perkins. It stars Audie Murphy, Chill Wills, Lori Nelson, Roy Roberts, Russell Johnson, Lee Van Cleef, K.T. Stevens and Madge Meredith. Music is by Joseph Gershenson and cinematography by Russell Metty.

It's atypical Audie Murphy fare, which for his fans (of which I'm firmly one) is enough for a rollicking good time. Plot has Murphy as Jim Harvey, a Wagon Train leader who mistakenly gets called out for being a coward when the train he is leading is attacked by the Yaqui Indians, leaving all the men folk dead. Forced to evade lynch mobs and the law, he goes on the lam, armed with only his wits and an aging horse called Tumbleweed.

What follows for the 80 minute run time is plenty of action and near scrapes, some barely concealed romantic yearnings, and of course heroics from both man and beast. The locations used for the story are gorgeous, as Death Valley and Vasquez Rocks form a mightily impressive back drop to the unfolding drama. While stunts and machismo are up to the requisite standard. Cast are fine, with Audie being Audie, Wills a gruff lawman and Cleef in loose cannon side-kick mode. The girls are mere tokens, but the beauty of Nelson and Meredith is breath taking. While costuming (Bill Thomas) is high end as well.

A Technicolor treat for Murphy and B Western fans. 7/10

Audie Murphy is a scout on his way to meet a party he's guiding when he stops to help a wounded Yaqui. Later, when the party is attacked by Yaquis, he makes sure the women are safe, then goes to talk to them. They don't believe his story. After he escapes, he makes his way back to town. The women got away, but saw their men butchered. They think he's a turncoat. There'd be a necktie party, but sheriff Chill Wills sticks Murphy in protective custody. Things are getting ugly, when the Yaqui Murphy saved shows up and frees him from jail (getting killed in the process). Murphy heads off, but his horse is done for. Roy Roberts lets him have a horse, and he's on the run, hoping to get to the Yaquis to corroborate his story, with Wills and the posse trailing him.

Audie Murphy has a great co-star in this movie, the white horse he's on in the second half of the movie. Murphy thinks he a crazy horse, but he turns out to be smarter than Murphy, taking him over a pass that no one else can make, finding water when there is none. Amidst the conventional story and a great role for Wills, that horse makes this a fine picture -- that and the final slugfest between Murphy and the real villain, with Murphy doing some of his own stunts.

I feel the Summary misses the real point. True Jim Harvey has to right a wrong against him, but when making his getaway he is given what he thinks is a broken down nag. Tumbleweed turns out to be anything but broken down. The horse steals the movie and saves the hero over and over. It really seemed the plot of the movie was there just to show off the ability of Tumbleweed. As Nick Buckley tells him "I told you it was the best horse I have". I hope to get a copy of this movie just to show it to my grand kids so they can see a great example of not judging someone just by looks.

The best horse in a movie next to Trigger.

10 years ago, as a forty-year-old, I "discovered" Audie Murphy, and since then have tried to tape as many of his movies that are shown. Why? Because they entertain, and they also show the imperfect people that we all are, and even so, the good that can come out and how we can move on with our lives. Too bad Murphy had a sad personal life, for all the good messages he gave to us through his films over the years. But "Tumbleweed" is one of my favorites, and also of my 6 year-old granddaughter! It's the horse. Give credit to the horse for his quiet role in ALL westerns, without which they could not be made. This Tumbleweed horse shows the intelligence and stamina and unsung heroism that has lived in the breed, since early times. Add that to the HUMOR and the melodramatic "give a guy a chance because I was given a chance once myself" plot, and you have a nice mix of all the Western elements of the the wild, vast, half-civilized country we used to long for. I know Audie loved it, and understood the conflict in all our souls when faced with our raw natures and the better person inside. I pray he finally found rest from that conflict. So thank you, Audie, for giving the horse his due, and giving us some fun, in "Tumbleweed"!

In Tumbleweed Audie Murphy plays a young scout of a wagon train which is massacred leaving only Audie and two women, K.T. Stevens and Lori Nelson as survivors. The women hid in a cave, but Audie had gone out to parley with the Yaquis and they held him instead.

When Murphy gets back to the white settlement he's a most unpopular man. His only chance at regaining popularity and keeping his right to walk and breathe permanently is to find which white man gave the location of the train to the Yaquis for his own venal purposes.

Tumbleweed is also the name of a horse that Audie gets from sympathetic rancher Roy Roberts for his flight. The horse kind of marches to his own beat, but his brand of horse sense proves invaluable to Murphy.

There's a nice climax of an Indian fight with the Yaquis before the dying chief Ralph Moody reveals all. All in all a good western with Audie Murphy giving a good characterization of a wrongly accused man.