As many Audie Murphy movies as my dad and I watched when I was young, I’m surprised I never saw APACHE RIFLES, one of Murphy’s later movies that came out in 1964. But missing it back then gives me the opportunity to watch and enjoy it for the first time now.
This is a cavalry vs. Indians movie, but only sort of. Murphy plays Captain
Jeff Stanton, a young officer whose father, also a soldier, got himself and his
troops massacred because he was sympathetic to the Indians. Naturally enough,
this makes Murphy’s character more hostile to the Apaches . . . until he gets
to know some of them and falls in love with a young missionary teacher who
lives among them. A bunch of white men scheming to get control of Apache land
so they can mine on it complicates matters. These plotters are led by L.Q.
Jones and Ken Lynch, both of whom are suitably despicable.
This is an odd little movie, a bit of a forerunner to the revisionist Westerns
of the Seventies in which all Indians are noble and all white men (except for
the one or two who sympathize with the Indians) are evil. Honestly, Murphy
looks a little uncomfortable playing a character who becomes so sensitive by
the end of the movie. For another thing, when I saw that this movie was
directed by William Witney, I thought, “Oh, boy, lots of action!” Well, no.
There is some action, and when it takes place, it’s staged excitingly and
effectively, as you’d expect from a movie helmed by Witney. But an awful lot of
time is spent on guys standing around talking.
All that said, I had a good time watching APACHE RIFLES. Murphy may not have
been a very technically skilled actor, but the camera loved him and he takes
full advantage of that screen presence. The movie looks great with excellent
photography and production values. If you’re a Western fan, it’s a perfectly
fine way to spend an hour and a half and I’m glad I finally saw it. Just don’t
go into it expecting a lost gem.
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