Complete credited cast: | |||
Audie Murphy | ... | Captain Coburn | |
Michael Burns | ... | Doug | |
Kenneth Tobey | ... | Corporal Bodine | |
Laraine Stephens | ... | Ellen | |
Robert Brubaker | ... | Sergeant Walker | |
Michael Blodgett | ... | Mike | |
Michael Keep | ... | Cochise | |
Kay Stewart | ... | Kate Malone | |
Kenneth MacDonald | ... | Harry Malone | |
Byron Morrow | ... | Colonel Reed | |
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Willard W. Willingham | ... | Fuller (as Willard Willingham) |
Ted Gehring | ... | Barrett | |
James Beck | ... | Higgins | |
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Maurice Hart | ... | Narrated by (voice) |
In 1868 Arizona the Apaches led by Cochise are on a warpath and U.S. Army Captain Bruce Coburn is tasked with protecting settlers on their way to Apache Wells. A group of undisciplined soldiers, led by corporal Bodine, make Coburn's task more difficult. When they're sent after a shipment of repeating rifles Bodine and four others steal the weapons and desert. Captain Coburn manages to return to Apache Wells where he vows to capture Bodine and his fellow deserters. Meanwhile, Bodine mets Cochise to negotiate the sale of the stolen repeating rifles without knowing that Captain Coburn has recovered the stolen weapons and has killed the other deserters. Cochise and Bodine chase after Captain Coburn in an attempt to recuperate the rifles which both the Apaches and the settlers need in order to prevail. A race against time ensues. Written by nufs68
40 Guns to Apache Pass is directed by William Witney and written by Willard and Mary Willingham. It stars Audie Murphy and Kenneth Tobey. Music is by Richard LaShelle and Jaques R. Marquette photographs it in Pathe Color with location work coming at Lovejoy Buttes, Red Rock Canyon and North Ranch in California.
The Apaches, led by Cochise (Michael Keep), are on the warpath and vowing to kill all whites they come across. Captain Bruce Coburn (Murphy) is in charge of leading homesteaders out of harms way. But there is unrest in the band of men under his charge and mutiny is afoot.
This was the last but one film Murphy made before retiring, you feel that he hoped this would be a fitting swan song to his career. It wasn't. Saddled with a weak script and surrounded by wooden supporting actors, Murphy alone can't make this lacklustre, cliché riddled, Western work. There's some nice scenery shot by Witney and Marquette, but with LaShelle scoring it like an episode of Scooby Doo the impact is lost. It would be easy to blame director Witney, a man more than capable of stringing together an action based movie, but asking him to try and make this particular screenplay stretch to over an hour and half was asking for the impossible.
3/10 for Murphy's manful efforts to carry such a low-budget, routine and forgettable piece.