Apache Blood

I came into possession of this film with the purchase of a 5 disk/20 movie set called "Spaghetti Westerns" Apache Blood does not belong in this collection but that is not my greatest disappointment with the film.

The story and its ending is the only value this film has and we will give 4 stars for that alone. No other effort in the making of this film deserves any stars at all. The directing is awful and the only thing worse is the editing which was probably done by the director. At first I thought that the film was a student project done by a student that flunked out of film school. It is a sin what was done to a provocative story about the treatment of the so called "Indians" (native Americans) because of the prejudice, bigotry and hate of the invaders of their land.

We make no comment on the acting. It is difficult to critique the actors performances with the obvious sub-amateurish directing. The director just did not know when to say "cut"; did not understand screen direction; did not know that one does not have to play the whole journey or day to communicate distance or time.

Extremely protracted scenes of being on the run or on the chase made this movie too long by 30-40 minutes. We can not blame the editor too much since the director probably provided minimal options. Then, to add even more, the end has a recap that is totally unnecessary and presumes the viewer won't understand the ending without it. Instead, if you do watch this movie, stop it when the recap begins as it only confuses what is the best part of the movie.

One reviewer here states that if you make it half way through then stick around for the end, its worth it.

This is basically the story of mountain man Hugh Glass worked over and placed later in the later Old West with him becoming a Cavalry scout and the other mountain men becoming cavalry troopers. Watch "Man In The Wilderness" and see the resemblance. Mr. Danton was the only actor in the whole movie while the rest were more than likely hired off the streets. Pass this one by! Low Budget? Yeah. This one must of been made with $1.98! I feel sorry for Mr. Danton as he was a terrific actor and this film was below his standards. The two scriptwriters were actors in this film. One played the scout and the other was the Agarn-looking trooper in the fort at the end of the flick who shot at the scout and Mr. Danton.

Another Indian treaty is broken and the angry Apaches, led by Hollywood/exploitation veteran Ray Danton, are massacring any blue-coat they come across. Meanwhile, a civilian Army scout is mauled by a bear and left for dead by his troop, much like Richard Harris in Man In The Wilderness. (a much better film)

The enjoyment (or non-enjoyment) of Apache Blood is entirely dependent on one's tolerance for no-budget drive-in schlock.

The film is told with minimal dialog and almost entirely in pictures with familiar library music blaring away, keeping it from being totally boring but also hampering the story a bit as well.

After a lousy ending, the final eight or so minutes is a complete waste of time with a long slow-motion sequence recounting all the movie's violent moments, as well as an artist's rendering of Danton as the Apache explored at length by the camera!

Apache Blood is a low-budget western exploitation flick aimed at the audience that appreciated some of the less realistic Native American-oriented films of the early 70s, such as Billy Jack.

What Apache Blood does effectively is to establish a life or death adversarial relationship between two sympathetic characters who are pitted against each other mainly because of prejudice and circumstance. However, once this is established, the film deteriorates into a badly directed, poorly filmed, seemingly unedited series of lengthy desert pans and weird apparently unplanned and unscripted scenes of Chief Yellow Shirt (Ray Danton) chasing down Sam Glass (Dewitt Lee), with orchestral music inappropriately wandering about in the background. Some of the scenes are actually laughable, not because of execution, but because of content.

The two big problems here are editing and directing. The story line is a cliché, but it is compelling enough to carry the film and the script because it is so minimal, works. What kills Apache Blood is the 40 or so minutes of unnecessary pans, zooms, and lengthy, uninteresting and unconvincing chase scenes. The story had about an hour's worth of interesting material, and this would have been a fine 1970s desert western had it been cut to about 45 minutes.

Thankfully, Danton and Lee dominate most of the film. The rest of the cast is pretty awful, and the poor editing does not enhance anybody's talent.

Two last remarks... If you enjoy surrealist 1970s westerns, you may want to see this... and if you make it half-way through the film, the end is definitely worth sticking around for.

When "Apache Blood" begins, Danton himself provides some narration over some credits which seemed cheap and hastily added to the movie. It seems that a treaty has been broken and Yellow Shirt (Danton) is determined to fight the American government. What follows are some cavalry folks being stalked by Yellow Shirt and being picked off one by one.

Technically, the movie is a mess. In addition to the narration, the actors throughout the film sound as if they were recorded in a phone booth...a weirdly bad sound track! And, it doesn't get any better when it comes to the cinematography and editing. In particular, the edits are jumpy and illogically made...as if the editor simply had no idea what they were doing in many cases. The acting, at times, is amateurish. In many ways, the film looks as if many of the people making it had no experience in the business and they were simply learning by doing....much like some of the Ed Wood films...though not nearly as fun to watch. It's not surprising that this film sat on the shelf for several years before it was finally released...a sure sign that a picture is a dud.

Overall, a dull and horridly made film...one that features little to endear it to anyone except for the staunchest Ray Danton fans...both of them.Suave, sophisticated Ray Danton as a Mescalero Apache warrior??