The Stalking Moon

This western was released when Hollywood was about finished with the genre and the film went largely unnoticed. However, the movie is well photographed, with good work by Gregory Peck, although Eva Marie Saint doesn't have much to do in the way of dialogue. Peck is a cavalry scout who quits the military to ranch in New Mexico and takes Saint and her half-breed son with him. Peck and Saint eventually turn up the romantic flames, but her boy is the object of a deadly game of search and destroy. The lad's father, a murderous Apache warrior, wants to reclaim him, and perhaps kill the woman for deserting him. The film has plenty of suspense, creepy shadows, and eerie noises in the dark and at times seems more like a mystery than a western. Most of the action occurs at picture's end, and Fred Karlin's plaintive yet thrilling score builds up the tension as Peck and Salvaje edge towards their showdown.

A tense, fairly realistic, and mature western from 1968, when the genre was on the way to near oblivion, only to be saved now and then by the likes of Peckinpah and Eastwood. Unfortunately, this film is not so well known and has been unfairly characterized as plodding and slow. It definitely has a degree of introspectiveness to it, but their is a gem of a pursuit story. The film does its best not to sugarcoat the west. The locales and people are pretty impressive for their gritty primitiveness and overall authenticity. The central story about a fierce Apache warrior who's waging his own brutal campaign to kill as many whites as he can, chasing the white woman who was his wife and the mother of his son, while an ageing army scout does his best to protect them is framed by some pretty awesome photography of blinding sandstorms, thick vegetation, and lots of rocky cliffs and a fine score.

I happened to be searching for this title as I have wanted to collect it for years. It is difficult to find although it has been on cable a number of times.

It is an extraordinary look at life in the west from several important perspectives. I was reading comments and a critic's review of this great film and I would like to make 2 primary comments:

1. If you haven't seen the movie or didn't pay attention, you should not comment on it. You may talk someone out of a memorable entertainment experience. At least get the particulars correct.

2. Nothing could be further from the truth regarding it being a "forgettable" film. On the contrary it is a compelling and "unforgettable film." It's the real thing and very much worth watching!

I rank this film right up there with "The Wild Bunch", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "McCabe and Mrs. Miller", "True Grit", "The Magnificent Seven", "Hombre", "Shane", "Jeremiah Johnson","The Outlaw Josey Wales" and others.

Despite other comments, Robert Forster played the memorable role of "Nick" a "half-breed" scout taught by Sam Varner (Gregory Peck.) It was Nathaniel Narcisse who played the much feared Native American warrior, Salvaje, who tracked Sam and the others in search of his son and only heir.

This film was the quintessential film about scouting and tracking of that era. It was the first and only (serious) western film that was a thriller. The haunting sound track effects, sets, and the stealth and terror created by it's antogonist, Salvaje, was riveting. This "brave" could get in and out of places and kill many, single-handedly, without being heard or seen-like a ghost! He is more stealth and deadly in this film than "Rambo" was in the forest sequence in the movie "First Blood."

The movie is about a retiring army scout, Sam Varner (Gregory Peck) who agrees to transfer a white woman-who had been kidnapped years before by Indians-to someplace other than the reservation. She had a son by a fearsome warrior whom she feared would return to claim that son. On the way Sam (Peck) decided he would offer her and her half-breed son a new start at his ranch where he was headed to in retirement. That is where all of his (Peck's) trouble started. Salvaje wants his son and stops at nothing to find and take him.

This movie has every important element, the scenery and cinematography, full characters you care about, great soundtrack, fantastic acting, and unbelievable drama and terror. And the facts of living in that period are accurate and you live the experience. It is not predictable. It will have you on the edge of your seat!

With the exception of "To Kill a Mockingbird", this may well be Gregory Peck's finest performance. He is in his prime.

The tracking scenes are unforgettable. Whether you are a western buff or not this is a great movie. There will never be another western like this one.

This is not your common variety of western, it's not even an action entry but presents a thoughtful look at the last days of the Indian tribes before the reservations took hold. It's a plausible story of these times that unfolds at a leisurely pace and builds to a suspenseful climax. It's also devoid of the simplistic over the top foolishness of the Italian spaghetti Westerns. Moon is a violent renegade Indian, who's hunting down a group of people who have rescued his forcefully abducted white woman, along with her/his young son, as they attempt to move them to the safety of civilisation.

Movie making veterans, director Robert Mulligan (To Kill A Mockingbird '60) & director of photography Charles Lang (The Magnificent 7 '60) capture superb mountain vistas along with the murderous 'stalking' being performed by this sociopathic Indian known as the 'ghost of the moon'. An evocative music score by Fred Karlin adds much haunting atmosphere to this seemingly little remembered film.

Stalking Moon should interest patient viewers of the genre & those who follow the careers of Gregory Peck and Eva Marie Saint, etc - the always interesting and under used Italian/Irish Robert Foster (Pieces of Dreams '70) makes an impression as Peck's half breed tracker friend, along with Frank Silvera as Major. Some have unfairly described this as a racist story but Pecks close friendship with Foster, and many of his comments and actions throughout the film tend to disprove this. Recommended for lovers of the more serious western stories.

I chose to see this film because of the always excellent work of Gregory Peck -- however, this being a relatively unknown film, I wasn't expecting so very much in the way of ingenuity, storyline or overall entertainment.

I'm very happy to say that I was very surprised. This is a very very good western. I've seen a lot of westerns and know pretty much what to expect out of your average fare. This is well above average. A couple facets in particular help it excel.

One of the things I really enjoyed was the understated mood of the characters and the film as a whole. The plot and the characters don't slap you in the face with standard western conventions saying "HERE I AM!" The characters and storyline unveil themselves slowly, deliberately, and I think, beautifully.

Some of the other negative comments site lack of character development and slow-moving story as major drawbacks. While each viewer may see the same thing from a number of different perspectives, I believe that these reviewers failed to recognize the subtleties which make this film stand out above others. True, there is not a lot of dialog. But consider how chatty most of the personalities out in the vast western frontier were likely to be. If you were a lover of social engagements and polite small-talk, this was not exactly your home sweet home. The main characters are an army scout and his half-breed friend who he trained; a captured, abused woman living among Indian tribes for the better part of a decade, and a little Indian boy put in circumstances where he is a fish out of water. The dialog of this film is seen the most by the characters' actions and expressions. Not many films dare to do this, and even then, not many succeed at it. It is a credit to this film that they pulled it off beautifully. In essence, the way the characters in this movie were handled came as a surprise and added a genuine sense of realism to the picture.

Also, the cinematography and choice of shooting locations are to be commended. The laconic characters blend seamlessly with the vast landscapes of barren Arizona and the rugged, striking New Mexico ranch. This also added to the realism of the film.

While this film does protrude ahead of many others, it is not perfect. I did find the utter, vast destruction supposedly wreaked by the one-man Apache army more than a little unlikely. Also, some of the cat and mouse between the "Stalking" warrior and our protagonists seemed stretched and a bit beneath the supposed cleverness of the characters. However, these things do not condemn the film, nor do they cancel out it's effectiveness. It's a great western, which lived up to much, if not quite all, of its potential.

It's a shame this film is not more well known. It is wonderful, however, to have an excellent print available on DVD (albeit an absolute bare bones disc). Give it a try -- you might just be surprised too!