Apache Blood

I absolutely do not understand why anyone would post a comment to a movie they hadn't bothered watching all the way through. Thank God for the internet, keeping these folks off the streets! I have not seen Apache Blood in years, but my recollection of it should be more useful than the "didn't watch it...fast-forwarded...made snide remarks" review that appeared previously. I saw it on the late, late movie, with commercials, several years before my area was even wired for cable! Apache Blood is a low-budget, independent effort, with only one "name" in the cast. It's a western concerning a soldier's efforts to get back to his fort while being pursued by an Apache, played by Ray Danton. I don't recall a great deal of dialog, but the movie managed to hold my attention to the end. The tone established in the first 99% of the movie abruptly changes at the end; I was never sure how I felt about that, but it was definitely a surprise! If you enjoy cheap little indies, you should like this one.

After a cavalry man is killed at the beginning, there is some stock footage with sloppily credits that must have been added at the last minute narrated by Ray Danton that explains that there was a treaty and Yellow Shirt (Danton) is fighting all by himself his personal war. The movie simply consists of Yellow Shirt that stalks these Cavalry men and takes them down one by one.

In every single aspect, this movie is horrible. Apart from the narration, there is barely any talking in the movie. And they almost all mumble incomprehensibly throughout. And when it comes to the cinematography it's even worse. From time to time some scenes jump illogically. In particular when the movie focuses on the last surviving man, there is some footage of desert animals (a owl, a group of pecaris and a rattlesnake that is thrown away) that simply doesn't make sense whatsoever.

All in all, a truly sad and wretched movie only of interest to bad movie fans or if you want to see once-respected actors in career suicide mode.

When "Apache Blood" begins, Danton himself provides some narration over some credits which seemed cheap and hastily added to the movie. It seems that a treaty has been broken and Yellow Shirt (Danton) is determined to fight the American government. What follows are some cavalry folks being stalked by Yellow Shirt and being picked off one by one.

Technically, the movie is a mess. In addition to the narration, the actors throughout the film sound as if they were recorded in a phone booth...a weirdly bad sound track! And, it doesn't get any better when it comes to the cinematography and editing. In particular, the edits are jumpy and illogically made...as if the editor simply had no idea what they were doing in many cases. The acting, at times, is amateurish. In many ways, the film looks as if many of the people making it had no experience in the business and they were simply learning by doing....much like some of the Ed Wood films...though not nearly as fun to watch. It's not surprising that this film sat on the shelf for several years before it was finally released...a sure sign that a picture is a dud.

Overall, a dull and horridly made film...one that features little to endear it to anyone except for the staunchest Ray Danton fans...both of them.Suave, sophisticated Ray Danton as a Mescalero Apache warrior??

Ultra low budget, and not particularly good, western from the 70s. The vastly underrated Ray Danton shows what ruined his acting career... although he had been on the slide for some time. This was his third last film - he went on to direct, mainly in TV.

Still for those who enjoy watching films (as I do) made on Hollywood's fringe with former stars this is for you.

The reality is these types of films kept former leading actors (albeit some of them were second string leading men) working when they grew older and had been forgotten by the major studios. ( great actor stars like Rory Calhoun, Guy Madison, Cameron Mitchell, John Carradine and many more). It's would be quite a experience to go ( like Ray here) from "under contract to ...." to small B pictures and drive-in fair, but an actor has to pay the bills. And this fringe Hollywood can produce minor classics ( although this is not one of them) and must be an interesting place to work in. The only film to capture a bit of this fringe low budget Hollywood cinema successfully is Frank Oz and Steve Martin's comedy "Bowfinger".

As for the film itself, the direction is basic, the editing is rotten, and the acting is passable... just.( better direction could have helped). But still through it all Ray Danton shines, you can tell he is a breed apart from everyone else involved in the film.

Apache Blood is a low-budget western exploitation flick aimed at the audience that appreciated some of the less realistic Native American-oriented films of the early 70s, such as Billy Jack.

What Apache Blood does effectively is to establish a life or death adversarial relationship between two sympathetic characters who are pitted against each other mainly because of prejudice and circumstance. However, once this is established, the film deteriorates into a badly directed, poorly filmed, seemingly unedited series of lengthy desert pans and weird apparently unplanned and unscripted scenes of Chief Yellow Shirt (Ray Danton) chasing down Sam Glass (Dewitt Lee), with orchestral music inappropriately wandering about in the background. Some of the scenes are actually laughable, not because of execution, but because of content.

The two big problems here are editing and directing. The story line is a cliché, but it is compelling enough to carry the film and the script because it is so minimal, works. What kills Apache Blood is the 40 or so minutes of unnecessary pans, zooms, and lengthy, uninteresting and unconvincing chase scenes. The story had about an hour's worth of interesting material, and this would have been a fine 1970s desert western had it been cut to about 45 minutes.

Thankfully, Danton and Lee dominate most of the film. The rest of the cast is pretty awful, and the poor editing does not enhance anybody's talent.

Two last remarks... If you enjoy surrealist 1970s westerns, you may want to see this... and if you make it half-way through the film, the end is definitely worth sticking around for.