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By VARIETY STAFF

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Paramount. Director Charles Marquis Warren; Producer Nat Holt; Writer Charles Marquis Warren; Camera Ray Rennahan Editor Frank Bracht; Music Paul Sawtell Art Hal Pereira, Al Roelofs
 
Charlton Heston
Jack Palance
Katy Jurado
Brian Keith
Mary Sinclair
Milburn Stone
 

The southwest frontier is the setting for this good outdoor actioner. Plot is laid in Texas during 1878 in and around Fort Clark, historical old cavalry post, and Nat Holt films his production on the actual sites described in W.R. Burnett's novel, Adobe Walls.

Principals involved are Charlton Heston, army scout and bitter enemy of the Apaches, particularly Jack Palance, a chief's son who has aroused the braves and is leading them on the warpath. Katy Jurado, as a Mexican-Apache attracted to Heston but spying on him, gives the story s.a. touches, while Mary Sinclair furnishes a more ladylike part as an army widow also interested in the scout.

Conflict gets underway early as Heston, raised among the Apaches as a child, warns a stubborn cavalry officer that only treachery can result from his efforts to make peace with the Indians. Heston's point is made when the cavalry is ambushed and the officer slain. The new commander also refuses to believe the scout, by now fired for his views, and it's not until he saves them from further treachery that he is allowed to lead the soldiers in the kind of combat that can whip the redskins.

Charles Marquis Warren's direction and screenplay are forthright in dealing with the masculine action and lift the plentiful mass clash sequences.

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1953. Running time: 105 MIN.