Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Movies I've Missed Until Now: Apache Rifles (1964)


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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