The Apache are on the warpath, and Audie Murphy is cavalry officer Capt. Coburn, assigned with rounding up the homesteaders and taking them back to Apache Pass for cavalry protection. That includes that Malone family, which includes his lady love (Laraine Stephens as Ellen).
When Ellen’s father is killed in the attack that follows, her two brothers — Doug (Michael Burns) and Mike (Michael Blodgett) — decide to enlist. And they wind up on Coburn’s next mission, picking up a shipment of 40 repeating rifles the cavalry desperately needs to fight off the Indians.
The mission goes badly. Mike is captured while shouting for help from his brother, who is too afraid to help. Worse, a bad-to-the-bone cavalryman named Bodine with a grudge against Coburn decides mutiny is in order and steals the shipment of rifles, figuring they’ll make him and any other deserters rich. And so Doug becomes a deserter, too.
Coburn returns to Apache Pass where he’s threatened with court martial and rejected by Ellen for failing to fulfill his promise to watch over her brothers. Feeling he has no other option, he sets out on his own to recover the rifles.
Review:
A mediocre Western most notable for being Murphy’s last starring role. He would appear in just one more film, “A Time for Dying” before losing his life in a plane crash in 1971 at age 46.
This film is a mix of two common Western themes. It represents a coming of age for Ellen’s brother Doug, who blames himself for his brother’s death, brands himself a coward, then falls in with Bodine’s mutineers before redeeming himself in the end.
And it’s the old tale of repeating rifles saving the day, as long as they don’t fall in the wrong hands. The most spirited performance in the film is delivered by Kenneth Tobey as Bodine, a man so self-centered he’d sell the guns to the Cochise and his Apaches to be used against his former colleagues if it means a life of leisure in Mexico for himself.
Directed by:
William Whitney
Cast:
Audie Murphy … Capt. Coburn
Michael Burns … Doug
Kenneth Tobey … Cpl. Bodine
Laraine Stephens … Ellen
Robert Brubaker … Sgt. Walker
Michael Blodgett … Mike
Michael Keep … Cochise
Byron Morrow … Col. Reed
Kay Stewart … Kate Malone
Kenneth MacDonald … Harry Malone
Willard Willingham … Fuller
Ted Gehring … Barrett
James Beck … Higgins
Runtime: 95 min.
Memorable lines:
Col. Reed to Coburn: Captain, there are two ways to get men through a door. You can kick them through or you can lead them through.”
Coburn: “That’s right, sir, but they wind up the same place anyway.”
Coburn to Sgt. Walker: “Now look dead, will you?”
Walker, badly wounded: “You couldn’t have found a better decoy.”
Capt. Coburn to Col. Reed: “Give me four men. I’ll get those rifles back.
Col. Reed: “You had 11 when you lost them.”
Cochise: “Man who turns on his friends, cannot be trusted by his enemies.”
Sgt. Walker: “You got more guts than any man I know. Must have been bred in ya.”
Capt. Coburn: “Not exactly. Actually, I come from a long line of losers, sergeant. Matter of fact, my family motto was: If at first you don’t succeed, give up.”
Sgt. Walker: “You sure switched that around somewhere.”
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