40 Guns To Apache Pass involves Captain Audie Murphy's commanding officer Byron Morrow sending him on two missions for the cavalry. The first is to bring in the white settlers in their part of the Arizona Territory. The second is as the title says to bring 40 repeating rifles to the army stockade at Apache Pass, the better to fend off an attack from Cochise with.
It's sad that Audie Murphy who made such a good string for the most part of really competent B westerns even long after that genre had moved to television petered out that string with this film with an improbable almost laughable plot. On that second mission he takes some of the prizes in the garrison, two green recruits in Michael Blodgett and Michael Burns and some of the worst disciplined including Kenneth Tobey, a corporal with a mean and larcenous streak in him that Murphy had to bludgeon into submission on the first mission. Why he would take him again on a more dangerous assignment is beyond me.
Given the idiocy in picking this particular patrol certain things that one with half a brain could have foreseen, do happen.
Watching the film I believe Murphy was supposed to die, but the producers tacked on a ridiculous happy ending with Murphy going back to Laraine Stephens whose brothers were Blodgett and Burns. It's really rather obvious.
Best in the film and I'm sure he knew it was a turkey was Kenneth Tobey. He pulls out all stops in making his villain a memorable one.
I wouldn't waste my time with this one.
It's sad that Audie Murphy who made such a good string for the most part of really competent B westerns even long after that genre had moved to television petered out that string with this film with an improbable almost laughable plot. On that second mission he takes some of the prizes in the garrison, two green recruits in Michael Blodgett and Michael Burns and some of the worst disciplined including Kenneth Tobey, a corporal with a mean and larcenous streak in him that Murphy had to bludgeon into submission on the first mission. Why he would take him again on a more dangerous assignment is beyond me.
Given the idiocy in picking this particular patrol certain things that one with half a brain could have foreseen, do happen.
Watching the film I believe Murphy was supposed to die, but the producers tacked on a ridiculous happy ending with Murphy going back to Laraine Stephens whose brothers were Blodgett and Burns. It's really rather obvious.
Best in the film and I'm sure he knew it was a turkey was Kenneth Tobey. He pulls out all stops in making his villain a memorable one.
I wouldn't waste my time with this one.