Thu 21 May 2015
A Western Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: ARIZONA RAIDERS (1965).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[8] Comments
ARIZONA RAIDERS. Columbia Pictures, 1965. Audie Murphy, Michael Dante, Ben Cooper, Buster Crabbe, Gloria Talbott. Director: William Witney.
To enjoy Arizona Raiders, you’ll just make it past the first ten minutes or so. Then you’re free to discover that you’ll find that it’s pretty decent, if formulaic, Western. But first you’ll have to put up with an on-screen narrator breaking the fourth wall, as well as voice-over narration, all designed to provide the viewer with historical background about Quantrell’s Raiders. It’s all highly unnecessary and honestly one of the strangest things I’ve seen in a film of this nature.
But don’t let me give you the impression it’s not worth watching, because the movie has quite a bit going for it.
Directed by William Witney and shot in Technicolor and Techniscope, Arizona Raiders features Audie Murphy as Clint, a former member of Quantrell’s Raiders, now working for the Arizona Rangers. He’s tasked with rooting out the remnants of his former gang, which has holed itself up in a Yaqui village in preparation for a raid on a gold shipment.
Legendary serial film star Buster Crabbe portrays Captain Andrews, Clint’s nominal boss. With Witney at the helm, there’s plenty of action, including some beautifully choreographed fight sequences. Murphy wasn’t the greatest of Western actors, but he more than holds his own here. He certainly does appear tired and world weary, something that only adds to the film’s rather downbeat, pessimistic tone. There are a couple of particularly bloody scenes in Arizona Raiders, further delineating how much Westerns had changed since the time of Roy and Trigger.
May 21st, 2015 at 8:21 pm
This came in that period when everyone was too old for these westerns and they were trotting out older western stars like Johnny Mack Brown, Buster, and Rod Cameron in westerns with leads like Howard Keel. It didn’t work.
The television western was dying and the movie western was changing in strange ways and a lot of directors and actors were trying to hold on the western of the fifties as they knew it. They weren’t bad westerns, but they were desperate attempts to hold onto something that was dying and not going to come back no matter how hard they tried.
The classic western of that era really did die with Gary Cooper.
May 21st, 2015 at 8:24 pm
Concerning the bizarre newspaper-editor intro, I remember reading convincing speculation by Western movie buff Boyd Magers–to the effect that the intro sequence was tacked on to TV prints of the movie in order to make it fill a two-hour slot (with commercials). In support of this theory, I’ve often seen the film listed at a running time about ten minutes shy of the runtime of the version with the editor’s intro.
May 22nd, 2015 at 4:29 pm
I agree with David that the “B” Western of that time was sadly moribund. There were a few sparks of inspiration in THE BOUNTY KILLER, and “A” Westerns like SONS OF KATIE ELDER were still doing quite well as we awaited the release of FISTFUL OF DOLLARS here and the ensuing flood of Spaghetti Westerns, but the “B” Western had lost that perverse imagination that made it so interesting in the 1950s.
May 22nd, 2015 at 5:04 pm
The 1960s B-Western is a curious animal. It really didn’t have a reason to exist, especially in light of the Spaghetti Western onslaught and the loosening of the production code. There are quite a few of them though, some average, some less so, but they are a curiosity all their own. ARIZONA RAIDERS certainly had more blood and violence than many of the Westerns from the 1950s, but it lacked the visual sensibility of the RANOWN cycle and wasn’t anywhere near as violent or gritty as THE WILD BUNCH was to be
May 22nd, 2015 at 9:01 pm
My favorite so far of Audie Murphy’s 1960’s films:
Gunfight at Comanche Creek (Frank McDonald, 1963).
Another B-Western of charm:
The Ride to Hangman’s Tree (Alan Rafkin, 1967)
On TV, The Virginian and The Big Valley had lots of good episodes.
None of these should be compared to Leone or Peckinpah, who were much darker filmmakers.
May 22nd, 2015 at 11:24 pm
There were good big westerns in the 60’s, but the basic “B” seemed lost in a time zone and even attempts to add harder violence didn’t seem to help.
I’m not even comparing them to the A westerns of the earlier period but to the type films stars like Murphy, Rory Calhoun, Dale Robertson, and George Montgomery appeared in, and even those were getting lost by the late fifties.
They weren’t bad films, but the magic was lost.
Television was the last stand for the genre, and certainly there were good series, but they became harder and harder to make with any sincerity.
May 23rd, 2015 at 2:38 am
I like GUNFIGHT AT COMANCHE CREEK. Saw it about 8 months ago and appreciated DeForest Kelley in that
August 12th, 2021 at 1:09 pm
Murphy’s “Posse From Hell” I would call a 1961 B+ movie…at worst.