Wed 26 Nov 2014
Two Western Movie Reviews by Jonathan Lewis: APACHE (1954) and CONQUEST OF COCHISE (1953).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[7] Comments
APACHE. United Artists, 1954. Burt Lancaster, Jean Peters, John McIntire, Charles Bronson, John Dehner, Morris Ankrum, Monte Blue. Based on the novel Broncho Apache by Paul Wellman. Director: Robert Aldrich.
You’d think that a movie starring Burt Lancaster with strong supporting roles by John McIntire and Charles Bronson (billed as Charles Buchinsky) would be more captivating and engaging than Apache, a mid-1950s film about the life and times of Massai, one of the last Apache warriors. The film is based on Paul I. Wellman’s novel, Broncho Apache and on fact as well as fiction.
The story follows Massai (Lancaster) as he escapes a prison train meant to deliver him and other Apache prisoners, including Geronimo (Monte Blue) to confinement in Florida. Massai makes his way through the Midwest, encountering Whites in St. Louis and a Cherokee Indian man who teaches him about the Cherokees’ decision to grow corn and to adopt a non-warrior lifestyle. Initially, Massai, who really isn’t all that personable a fellow, thinks little of this approach to living, but eventually decides to crow his own corn when he arrives back in Arizona.
There is, of course, a love interest. Massai falls for Nalinle (Jean Peters), daughter of an Apache man who betrays him to the White authorities. He is a fugitive, after all. On his trail are two men, Al Sieber (McIntire) and the Apache Calvary officer Hondo (Bronson). Both of them are excellent in this otherwise average Western.
Apache often feels labored, almost soporific. It’s not that there isn’t any action. There’s actually action a plenty, but much of it seems so forced and downright tedious. There is, however, one notable exception. In a tense, beautifully filmed sequence, Massai and Al Sieber (McIntire) play cat and mouse in Massai’s small cornfield. For a moment or two, it’s not quite clear who is going to best whom and with what weapon.
Unfortunately, too many of the other chase sequences just aren’t all that thrilling. And then there’s the unavoidable question of whether the casting of the blue-eyed Lancaster as an Apache warrior was a good choice. I’ll leave that to future viewers to decide.
CONQUEST OF COCHISE. Columbia Pictures, 1953. John Hodiak, Robert Stack, Joy Page, Rico Alaniz. Director: William Castle.
On the other hand, for a Western/historical drama that isn’t all that, you know, historically accurate, Conquest of Cochise is nevertheless a fairly entertaining action packed little film. Like Masterson of Kansas, which I reviewed here, Conquest of Cochise is a William Castle/Sam Katzman collaboration that holds up to the test of time far better than many other similarly situated lower budget 1950s Westerns.
Why is this the case? First of all is the strong cast. Although they may not have been the biggest box office stars of their time, both John Hodiak, who portrays Apache chief Cochise, and Robert Stack, who portrays U.S. Calvary Major Tom Burke, are both solid actors more than capable of delivering above average performances. The two men’s attempt to bring peace between the United States and the Apache Nation is repeatedly thwarted by events both in, and out of, their direct control.
The film also benefits greatly from the presence of Joy Page in her portrayal of Consuelo de Cordova, a Mexican woman caught between her family, the Apaches, and Major Burke’s romantic advances. Rico Alaniz, who may be familiar to fans of 1950s TV Westerns, portrays Felipe, a hotheaded Tucson man seething at the Apaches for the murder of his wife.
The film’s story line, if not true to history, is both fairly straightforward and (thankfully) without a lot of the forced, well meaning, anti-racist platitudes that ironically only served to categorize Indians as a people almost irrevocably culturally apart from broader American society. In Conquest of Cochise, the Apaches are neither presented as fundamentally misunderstood “noble savages,†nor as mindless brutes. They are a people caught between the Americans and the Mexicans, with their leader Cochise trying to make good decisions under difficult geopolitical constraints.
Indeed, Conquest of Cochise is a surprisingly thoughtful Western with some breathtaking scenery to boot. Although it doesn’t have the cinematography and sentimentalism of John Ford’s cavalry trilogy or the star power of James Stewart (Broken Arrow), William Castle’s Conquest of Cochise, with a running time of around seventy minutes, nevertheless remains a worthwhile investment of one’s time.
True, it’s no classic. But there’s action, moderately well developed characters, internal and external conflict, and romance. Perhaps more importantly, it doesn’t try to be a heavy-handed horse opera.
One final thing to consider: although it can be said about nearly every film ever made, I do think that this movie in particular has to be far more enjoyable when watched as it was meant to be seen on the big screen. Maybe it has something to do with Castle’s unique, if not easily categorized, vision of how a film should be directed so as to captivate the viewer’s attention.
November 26th, 2014 at 7:54 pm
APACHE worked far better as one of Wellman’s impeccably researched novels than as a film. I don’t know whether the real Massai had white blood or not, but blue eyed Native Americans have been around since the first Thanksgving, and while this probably has nothing to do with it was not unknown. Half the Native Americans in this state have blonde hair and blue eyes. I have at least two dozen Native American friends and only three of them look like traditional Native Americans — and one of those is Apache — the others are all fair and at least one pale, freckled, blonde, and blue eyed. If my great grandfather had chosen to be Native American in 1913 I would be a member of the Cherokee tribe.
Just a historical note, Al Sieber, played by McIntyre was a Colonel of Scouts and winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor — quite a few actors have played the part including Richard Widmark, Charlton Heston (highly fictionalized in ARROWHEAD based on W.R. Burnett’s novel), and Robert Duvall. He was the man who convinced Geronimo to surrender in the first place.
The character played here by Charles Bronson is a good reminder that many Apache scouts of different branches of the tribe worked with the army against other Apaches (especially Geronimo who many Native Americans still despise as a troublemaker who set back their cause by decades). Mescalero and Chicarilla or phonetically Chiracaua particularly disliked each other.
The problem is it is an ‘important’ statement western and not just a good movie, and you always have to watch Aldrich when he has something to say.
The Cochise movie is a good example of a superior generic western with capable cast.
Come to think of it Jeff Chandler’s Geronimo was another famously blue eyed (and Jewish) indian.
November 26th, 2014 at 8:55 pm
I have nothing much to offer other than approval for Burt Lancaster’s old time charisma. Apache is convoluted and much to self consciously political, but Burt is watchable in spades.
November 26th, 2014 at 10:22 pm
Barry
I should have commented on Lancaster’s physicality here, he always brought an energy to the screen that was hard not to appreciate. The problem is that Wellman’s novel presents Massai as a human being who grows and changes while the movie presents him as a symbol and never lets Lancaster play him as anything else.
November 27th, 2014 at 1:10 am
David
Don’t know the novel but Lancaster makes the film worth watching and remembering. I am obviously star driven — and he was one of the greatest. Many films unworthy, but he did something with what was on the table. Among these weak and derivative projects, Rope of Sand, South Sea Woman, and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, a true missed opportunity to lovingly depict Ned Buntline and Bill Cody. Too busy being antagonistic to our, their and even Robert Altman’s own mythology.
November 27th, 2014 at 9:08 am
“You’d think that a movie starring Burt Lancaster with strong supporting roles by John McIntire and Charles Bronson (billed as Charles Buchinsky) would be more captivating and engaging than Apache.” Not to mention a movie directed by Robert Aldrich. But this was his first credited movie, I think, and he’d go three for three with his next ones: VERA CRUZ, KISS ME DEADLY, and THE BIG KNIFE. Twenty years later, Aldrich and Lancaster bookended APACHE with ULZANA’S RAID, with Lancaster playing the role analogous to McIntire’s in APACHE.
Chuck Connors was another blue-eyed Geronimo in the 1962 movie of the same name. I suppose casting Wes Studi as the Apache chief in Walter Hill’s 1992 movie was a step in the right direction, although that movie might more accurately have been titled GATEWOOD AND DAVIS, since the movie focused mainly on the two cavalry officers played by Jason Patric and Matt Damon.
November 27th, 2014 at 1:20 pm
Their have been some strange Native American casting choices down the years including Jeffrey Hunter, Hugh O’Brien, Cameron Mitchell, J. Carroll Naish (at least three times), Edward Everett Horton (comedic and priceless), Robert Blake, Eduardo Cianelli, Frank Puglia, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Robert Wagner, Henry Wilcoxin, Charles Bronson, Victor Mature, Woody Strode, Rock Hudson, Debra Paget(a number of times, after BROKEN ARROW she was virtually everyone’s first choice), Audrey Hepburn, Candace Bergen (she may have been a captive raised Indian in that one), Marc Lawrence — Italian and Mexican born actors (at least most Mexican born actors have some Indian heritage)seem especially prone to be cast in the roles.
Lancaster may have got this one because he played another famous Native American, Jim Thorpe, in a much better film for him and the audience.
Barry
Like you I’m a bit star driven and a big fan of Lancaster who had much more range than given credit for early on, though not always used to his best advantage in that early period. Aside from being a great dramatic actor and a good comic one when given the chance he has the physical presence of a Fairbanks or Keaton.
BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS was originally to have starred Cary Grant as Cody and Lancaster as Buntline which would have been a really interesting movie. Other than Altman, who I am not a fan of, I thought Newman, despite his talents, seriously miscast as the flamboyant Cody. Frankly, Louis Calhern was better in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. Cody is not really a method actor role.
Fred
I like Aldrich work, but he has to be watched when he has a message. Lancaster is much better in VERA CRUZ though. But APACHE is proof even the best actor needs a script and a human being to play.
The problem with depicting Geronimo in films is that basically they want to be politically correct and factually Geronimo was a terrorist and not fighting for Apache freedoms. He was widely despised by most of the other Apache tribes and remains controversial among Native Americans today despite Hollywood’s attempts to rewrite history.
I knew a number of Native American activists, and while they admired Crazy Horse (despite the long range damage done by Little Big Horn to the cause), Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Tecumseh, Cochise, Mangas Colorado, and even Quanah Parker both Geronimo and the Modoc Captain Jack were viewed by many as destructive forces that set the cause back half a century with their treachery and violence.
I’m not sure anyone ever has or will make an accurate film about Geronimo, since an accurate film would not be politically correct. One reason they had to move Geronimo from the Southwest was fear a fellow Indian would kill him seeking revenge.
The best thing about the Wes Studi GERONIMO was Robert Duvall as Al Sieber.
November 27th, 2014 at 1:23 pm
Re casting we can’t forget televisions famous environmental crying Native American Iron Eyes Cody, who, much to everyone’s embarrassment, turned out to be Italian.