The Stalking Moon (1968)

Gregory Peck is Sam Varner, a retiring cavalry scout who agrees to transport rescued Apache captive Sarah Carver (Eva Marie Saint) and her half-breed son to a stage station.

The boy runs off in the middle of the night. Sam and Sarah set out in pursuit.

They find the boy, but by the time they return to the stage station, all the other horses are missing and everyone there is dead.

It’s then that Sarah tells Sam what’s happening: Her Apache husband is the feared Salvaje, who kills from hiding with the help of his buffalo gun. And he wants his son back.

Regardless, Sam winds up taking Sarah and the young boy to a ranch he and a partner are building in New Mexico. Slowly, he grows closer to the woman and her son.

But, sure enough, Salvaje follows, leaving a track of bodies on his way there. Sam, Sarah, the boy, Sam’s partner Ned and his old scouting partner Nick Tana take refuge in the cabin.

But as a former Indian scout, Sam also knows the best way to deal with Salvaje isn’t by hiding inside a cabin.

Review:

Gritty, suspenseful and well done Western. The plot is wisely uncomplicated. And the one-Apache siege on Varner’s ranch runs for the final 40 minutes of the film.

The script slowly establishments Varner as a man to respect without being heavy handed in casting him as a hero.

On the verge of abandoning Sarah and her son at a train depot, tickets to Topeka in hand, you can see what’s running through Varner’s mind: What future would a former Indian captive and her half-breed son have as they head East with no clear destination in mind?

And when it’s clear Salvaje has found Varner’s ranch, Sarah suggests leaving with the boy. Varner will have none of it. Salvaje is a brutal killer. If he doesn’t kill at the ranch, he’ll kill somewhere. If Varner can stop him, he says he has a duty to do so.

This film marked a reunion of Peck and director Robert Mulligan, their first film together since Peck’s Ocar-winning performance in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” (1962).

Directed by:
Robert Mulligan

Cast:
Gregory Peck … Sam Varner
Eva Marie Saint … Sarah Carver
Robert Forster … Nick Tana
Noland Clay … Sarah’s son
Russell Thorson … Ned
Nathaniel Narcisco … Salvaje
Frank Silvera … Major
Lonny Chapman … Purdue
Lou Frizzell … Stationmaster
Henry Beckman … Sgt. Rudabaugh
Charles Tyner … Dace
Richard Bull … Doctor
Sandy Brown Wyeth … Rachel
Joaquin Martinez … Julio
Boyd “Red” Morgan … Stage driver Shelby

Runtime: 109 min.

Music: Fred Karlin

Memorable lines:

Sarah Carver, after a massacre at the stage station: “He’ll come back.”
Sam Varner: “Not here.”
Sarah: “We should go now. He’ll come.”
Varner: “We’re not goin’ anywhere. He’s finished here. He did what he came to do.”
Sarah: “He is not finished. He came for his son. He’ll come back for his son.”

Sam Varner: “From now on, we’ll be taking our meals together. And I got nothing against talking. I don’t mind a little talking now and then. Anybody feels like saying anything, just ought to say it.”

Sam Varner, upon word of Salvaje’s approach: “It has nothing to do with you.”
Sarah Carver: “It has to do with me. I didn’t have the courage to die. I knew what I had to do to stay alive. I chose to be with him.”

Sarah Carver of her Apache husband: “You won’t hear him.”
Sam Varner: “I’ll hear him.”
Sarah: “It doesn’t happen that way. He just comes.”