Gee whiz, It Can Be Hard to Keep the Peace!

 

Apache Rifles (1964) is a very entertaining Western, well worth your time to watch it. As is typical with Audie Murphy, watching him project authority (despite his perpetually youthful face) as a military men is awesome. 

Murphy is Captain Stanton, an army officer who is known for his clever tactics in the Indian wars, which comes with a reputation for having killed many Indians. 

We see that right away. He's leading a cavalry troop in search of Apaches who have left the reservation, led by their chief Victorio. Stanton is to fight when necessary, but he has a message to pass on to Victorio if the opportunity presents itself.

Stanton soon makes that opportunity. Using a clever trick, he manages to get the drop on some Apaches. Most are killed in the fight, but Victorio's son Red Wing is captured alive. Stanton then ties Red Wing to a rock, exposed to the blazing Arizona sun, with a white flag tied to his arm. Rather than watch his son die from exposure, Victorio agrees to meet with Stanton.

From there, we learn that the situation does not allow for clear-cut good guys and bad guys. The movie does not hide how brutal the tactics of the Apaches can be, but it also overtly sides with them in how they've been mistreated. It was a combination of a dishonest Indian Agent and hordes of gold miners pouring into the reservation that forced them to go to war.

Stanton, also, is a great character, brought effectively to life by Murphy's performance. His father was also an army officer, who once trusted an Indian and thus got 350 of his men killed. Stanton, therefore, does not like nor trust Indians.

But, despite his prejudice, he still does his job. An honest Indian Agent is brought in and Stanton uses his troops to clear out the gold miners and keep them out. But the local whites don't like this and soon political pressure is being brought on the Army to let the gold miners back onto their "rightful claims."

L.Q. Jones and Ken Lynch give strong performances as two miners who are willing to commit torture and murder to get back to their rich strike. This included them, at one point, leading an attack on an Apache encampment, gunning down women and children before Stanton orders his troops to fire on them. 

The situation gets even worse when a higher-ranking but far less competent officer arrives to take command of Stanton's troop.

While all this is going on, Stanton is falling for a local lady missionary without knowing she's half-Comanche. This part of the movie is a little forced (though a scene in which Stanton is unable to force himself to say "I love you" because of her heritage is powerful) and both the romance and the main plot are tied up a little too neatly. Despite this, Apache Rifles has a strong plot, some great action and some great performances by skilled character actors. I especially enjoyed a fist fight between Stanton and L.Q. Jones' character in which circumstances force them to continually interrupt their fight to hide from nearby Apaches.

As much as I enjoy and recommend the film, though, I do have an objection to the ending. This is a story that required a more bittersweet resolution than the traditional happy ending we get. Sometimes, wrapping up every plot point so neatly is simply not the route to go. Apache Rifles would have benefited from a little bit of messiness at the end.