Ambush at Cimarron Pass

1st watched 9/14/2007, 6 out of 10(Dir-Jodie Copelan): Watchable story of former confederates and Yankees joining forces to thwart off some Apache's trying to get some repeating rifles that a traitor had sold to them. This is a very simple story that is executed very well by all involved. The idea behind it is that the Civil war has just ended but there are still hard feelings between the sides. The Yankee(northern troops) are trying to transfer some rifles and a prisoner to a nearby fort but are intercepted by some southern-folk that they think are Apache's dressed up like them(they had been fooled by the Apache's earlier this way). The Apache's then steal the whole combined troops horses and have to travel by foot six days the rest of the way. The conflict in the movie has to do with these two groups getting along while the Apache's slowly figure out how to overcome them and get the rifles. There is eventually a showdown but by this time the hard work of reconciliation has been done and the fight with the Indians is kind of anti-climatic. Clint Eastwood, in an early role, plays a young hard-hearted southern man who eventually turns to help out the crew and does a good job, but's its the story that keeps you interested. An abrupt end is the only real downside to the movie(which appeared to be mainly because the small film company ran out of money more than anything else), but this small film delivers otherwise and is enjoyable viewing.

It's just something that's not exceptional in any way, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. There's something about classic westerns that is so charming, something that no more modern film can ever hope to recapture. I thought that it was quite an enjoyable film from 1958, mind you, considering the way in which they showed the fights to their deaths back in those days. All in all, it had a certain unrefined quality to it that made it appear more authentic for its time period rather than any other film choice I could make.

Very low budget B-Movie. No surprise, no originality, no creativity, lots of cliche, but an honest sense of rythmn. We can almost see the paintings of the studio setting. One good reason to watch this is to see young Clint Eastwood before his cinema fame (circa 1965).

Before signing as ramrod Rowdy Yates in Rawhide, Clint Eastwood did a variety of films some of them better than others which if it weren't for his presence they would be obscure and forgotten. Ambush At Cimarron Pass falls in that category.

What Eastwood has is star presence, you can absolutely tell this man was going to have a future in the movie business just looking at him. Not that his character was anything special, someone else described him as petulant and I'm inclined to agree.

Sergeant Scott Brady and a small band of cavalry troopers are escorting Indian gun runner Breton Baynes and a lot of those valuable repeating rifles that he was about to sell to the Apaches. They run across a band of former Confederates, one of them being Clint Eastwood. Later on to make things interesting they pick up Margia Dean stranded out on the prairie courtesy of the Indians.

After that it's just one western cliché after another, nothing terribly original, just the same plot situations that have been done a gazillion times before. Along with the Confederates is Irving Bacon who says he's a judge, Scott Brady doubts it, pretty soon everyone else is also. He's trying to save his own skin, but there seems to be no real rhyme or reason to his character at all. When he's killed nobody mourns.

Other than it's listed in the body of work of a cinema legend, Ambush At Cimarron Pass would be lost to history. Clint Eastwood wishes it were.

A partially decimated Army unit teams up with a group of cowboys, who also had been hit by renegade injuns. The cavalry squad was trying to get a gun runner and 3 dozen rifles back to their fort, but had to fight their way through fierce indian raiders intent on getting the weapons. Average soldier vs. redskin shoot-em-up.