Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

*** This review may contain spoilers *** *Plot and ending analyzed*Apache Drums (1951) is a tedious Western. Take an interesting theme like the Apache Indians, throw in enough filler to completely denude that, and then stage an absurd defensive sequence in a church, whereby the inept White townsfolk defeat the Apache Indians, who, for some reason, don't just go away, and that is what you have.Most of the time of the film involves the constant bickering between two men (Stephen McNally as Sam Leeds and Willard Parker as Mayor Joe Madden). A lot of talk as well is stuffed into the film, as the townsfolk sit in their houses doing nothing. Why the Apaches don't attack is unknown.There's also a highly annoying character, Arthur Shields as Rev. Griffin, whose bigotry and asinine comments minimizing the Apaches begins to wear thin. Stephen McNally as Sam Leeds and Arthur Shields as Rev. Griffin hold off an Apache attack in an unbelievable sequence.The Apache attack sequence in the church, although exceedingly ludicrous, is well lighted with Apache raiders colored in bright red or orange, which lends the scene to the unusual.None of the actors are particularly likable, since they both hate each other and really, I didn't care much. I just wanted to see a decent Western, but it's not here.

I saw this film years ago on television when I was a kid. I remembered it vividly and I've not written any review of it as I wanted to see it fresh before doing so. Now thanks to YouTube I have seen it and it is as good as I remember it.Stephen McNally stars as a roguish gambler who kills someone accusing him of cheating. That's all mayor, veterinarian, and blacksmith Willard Parker needs to throw McNally out of town. In fact an attack of Puritanism has swept the town of Spanish Boot and the saloon has closed down and the girls ordered to leave. But when McNally goes after them he finds them massacred by the Apaches.Two hundred strong under Vittorio and they've crossed the Mexican border and wreaking general mayhem in Arizona. The town bands together and takes refuge in a church which does have good walls, but also windows to high up to shoot from, but great for the Apache to scale.Though both McNally and Parker act real juvenile at the beginning both are goofy over Coleen Gray in the end they both step to the plate.Apache Drums was the last film of Val Lewton, his only western, but it has its moments of horror and suspense so associated with Lewton. It's not a film for the faint of heart, but I recommend it highly for western fans and Lewton fans.

This is an enjoyable Western that moves along well enough, with three "suspenseful" sequences: Sam's unarmed ride through the desert, the townsmen's mission for water, and the church siege.Stephen McNally does fine in the lead, but another underrated actor, James Griffith, seemed miscast as the army officer - he was more suited to enigmatic or semi-sinister roles. Armando Silvestre makes an impressive and dignified Indian scout.The version I saw on British TV seemed to have been edited, because the "Variety" review mentions Sam distracting the frightened children with sleight-of-hand, and the kids singing "Oranges and Lemons"; had these scenes been included in the version I saw, I suspect I might have winced at their sentimentality but they would have added depth to Sam's character.The saloon girls evicted from Spanish Boot were the usual highly- glamourised girls that Hollywood used to depict in preference to the drabs they must have been to have worked in what looked quite a dump of a town.And there was a new take on my usual query about what happens to the bodies of felled Indians that mysteriously disappear between charges that follow closely on one another in attacks on forts and wagon trains. The defenders must have killed a dozen Indians jumping through the church windows (conveniently announcing their presence by screaming), and if the siege had gone on much longer their out-of-sight corpses would have begun to smell.Another commentator has referred to the concluding "cutesy shot of a little donkey trotting up to its mother. It's so weirdly sudden after all the long drawn out, moody, tense, heightened tension that preceded it that it completely whips the metaphorical carpet out from underneath you." In fact I saw this as a symbol of regeneration, that the town would be rebuilt and grow up, as Mayor Maddden indicated it would when the Apaches were burning the buildings.

There are moments of genius in this movie, though, as the other reviewer says, it is let down by a talky script - and the lamest "the cavalry arrives and that's the end of the movie" in B western history - because that's what happens; after a long drawn out, interestingly shot siege in the church, the cavalry arrives and the movie ends. Just like that. No denouement. The movie just ends. Everyone leaves the church without a backward glance for all the dead and dying loved ones within and there's a cutesy shot of a little donkey trotting up to its mother. It's so weirdly sudden after all the long drawn out, moody, tense, heightened tension that preceded it that it completely whips the metaphorical carpet out from underneath you.The moments of genius though, make what is, after all, a pretty short film worth watching. And a textbook example, like all Lewton's movies, on how less is more, and how to make a small budget go a long way. The scene in the desert where the gun-less anti-hero is riding on to (as he thinks) safety after promising to warn the town is nicely edgy and unsettling. And the low angle shot in the church where the town is burnt casting beams of brilliant red light across the ceiling was great. That one shot was worth the admission price for me.The lighting is terrific, the direction, art direction, and cinematography great - but it's a pity about the script. With a better script - there are no sub-plots or parallel action in the movie - this would have been a classic up there with the likes of Shane, High Noon, and 3:10 to Yuma.Interesting.