The Bravos

George Peppard is the commander of a cavalry regiment out west in Apache territory. His motherless young son has just been sent out to him. Pernell Roberts is a civilian who wants him to do lots of stuff that Peppard resists. And the natives are restless.

It's an episodic TV movie, and shows all the signs of being a pilot for a series that was never picked up. Peppard plays his usual post-60s larger-than-life character, but there's still a blankness to him; earlier in his career it lent a certain juvenile appeal to his roles; now it's just..... impenetrable. Ted Post offers his usual competent but bland direction.

The Bravos was a failed TV pilot that became an ABC Sunday night movie in early 1972. Despite a first-rate cast and surprisingly high production values, it isn't very interesting. I stuck with it to the end, mostly because I was glad to see LQ Jones in a fairly large role.

"The Bravos" is a made for TV movie which stars George Peppard. It's set in the American west just after the US Civil War.

The story begins with a group of settlers passing through Navajo country. What the settlers don't realize is that the man leading them (Pernell Roberts) is an irresponsible idiot. His actions end up nearly killing all of them, as he thought it was prudent to shoot some natives he saw near their camp....and not surprisingly the dead men's friends and family want vengeance.

This incident with the natives came at a very bad time. It seems that the nearby cavalry unit (led by Peppard) is overextended and can barely take care of themselves...let alone the settlers. Soon both groups are under attack and to top things off, the angry natives kidnap the commander's son!

This is a good film...no doubt about it. The only negative is that so many westerns were made for TV in the 1950s, 60s and into the 70s that I am sure this one kind of got lost among them. But it is well written, well acted and tense. Not a great movie...but a very good one.

It's movies like this that give westerns a bad name. Yes, it was made for TV, but that's no reason to bore the viewers. But at least the Kiowas were played by Native Americans and not not a bunch of white guys with feathers in their rugs.

Not a bad film: an interesting-looking fort, good scenery, L Q Jones gets some decent screen-time and there's no contrived love interest (just a bit of on-off-on romance between two youngsters in the wagon train). But Peppard's persona is a bit too genial for a disciplinarian CO of an undermanned garrison; it was a bit of a shock when, after it has been surprised by the Indians, he puts enlisted men on 18 hours of duty a day and officers on 24 (for three days); not a good idea when there's meant to be 2,000 hostiles threatening 70 just soldiers. We don't get to see many of the 2,000, and the rescue bid (which, thankfully, doesn't descend into the A-team heroics that Peppard came to be identified with) seems to involve taking on just four or five of them. Funny title: I understand "bravos" to be hired ruffians or killers, and none of the protagonists fill this description. Even the fugitive from justice isn't really a bad guy.