Having watched quite a few B-Westerns lately it is obvious that this film had much more money spent on it; rather than a small cast and obvious California locations it has a large cast and is clearly filmed in the area it is set; this obviously benefits the film... it is also about half an hour longer than those B-films and I'm not so sure that is to its advantage. Set in 1883, later than many westerns, the Indian Wars are almost over; only a few renegades hold out over the border in Mexico from where they can strike with impunity. Into this situation West Point graduate 2nd Lt. Matt Hazard is sent to a remote border fort. Here he finds ill discipline and poorly trained men; while the acting CO Lt Mainwarring is away he takes it upon himself to bring the men up to the standard he believes is required if they are to survive combat with the Apaches of Chief War Eagle. After an incident where he rescue's Lt. Mainwarring's wife Kitty from the Indians the two of them grow close and when his fiancée turns up it is clear that she is jealous of Kitty. Inevitably there is a confrontation with War Eagle's troops but rather than ending in the expected military victory Hazard must follow War Eagle to Mexico with just an Indian Scout to talk War Eagle into surrendering by promising him that he hand his people will be free to live on a reservation in Arizona... a promise the government seem happy to break.
I was somewhat surprised at the lack of a well known lead; Troy Donahue did a good enough job as Lt Hazard but didn't really have the presence I'd have expected, Suzanne Pleshette was a good leading lady although her role was fairly small. The highlights of the film were the numerous action sequences where large numbers of cavalrymen fought against a similar number of Indians; people were constantly being shot off horses and no amount of modern CGI can match the skilled work of stuntmen used in a film like this. For much of the film I thought the Apache were clearly meant to be the bad guys but I was pleasantly surprised that by the end they were depicted as an honourable foe and it was the apparently good US Cavalry who were behaving dishonourably... although obviously our hero stood up for the people he had negotiated a peace with. At nearly two hours the film did drag a bit and would probably have been improved if the romantic subplot had been lost; still it was worth watching and I'd recommend it to fans of the Western genre.
I was somewhat surprised at the lack of a well known lead; Troy Donahue did a good enough job as Lt Hazard but didn't really have the presence I'd have expected, Suzanne Pleshette was a good leading lady although her role was fairly small. The highlights of the film were the numerous action sequences where large numbers of cavalrymen fought against a similar number of Indians; people were constantly being shot off horses and no amount of modern CGI can match the skilled work of stuntmen used in a film like this. For much of the film I thought the Apache were clearly meant to be the bad guys but I was pleasantly surprised that by the end they were depicted as an honourable foe and it was the apparently good US Cavalry who were behaving dishonourably... although obviously our hero stood up for the people he had negotiated a peace with. At nearly two hours the film did drag a bit and would probably have been improved if the romantic subplot had been lost; still it was worth watching and I'd recommend it to fans of the Western genre.