Five Bloody Graves (1969)

A former Civil War soldier returns to take revenge from a Yaqui chief who killed his wife in the marriage night. Death plays with both men, plus gun-runners and gold-runners, as her emissaries on Earth, to do a large harvest of souls.

Director:

Al Adamson

Writers:

Robert Dix (story), Robert Dix (screenplay)

Stars:

Robert Dix, Scott Brady, Jim Davis

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert Dix	...	Ben Thompson
Scott Brady	...	Jim Wade
Jim Davis	...	Clay Bates
John Carradine	...	Boone Hawkins
Paula Raymond	...	Kansas Kelly
John 'Bud' Cardos	...	Joe Lightfoot (as John Cardos)
Darlene Lucht	...	Althea Richards (as Tara Ashton)
Gene Raymond	...	The Voice of Death (voice)
Julie Edwards	...	Lavinia Wade
Ken Osborne	...	Dave Miller (as Kent Osborne)
Vicki Volante	...	Nora Miller
Ray Young	...	Horace Wiggins
Victor Adamson	...	Rawhide (as Denver Dixon)
Fred Meyers	...	Driver
Keith Durphy

Storyline

Wandering across the desert landscape of Goblin Valley, Utah. Ben Thompson, a former lawman has been hunting down Yaqui Indians, after his wife was killed by the savage Yaqui Indian chieftain Santago. After saving a woman from two Yaqui Indians, Robert reunites with former girlfriend Nora Miller and saves her from a attack by Santago and his band of Yaqui Indians. But Nora's husband Dave Miller asks Ben to leave thinking Ben and Nora were having a affair while he was been away. After both Nora and Dave are slaughtered by Santago, Ben is joined by group of people from a wagon train who are stranded in the middle of nowhere and a group of gunrunners who sold their weapons to Santago and his band, Ben and his companions tries to get along with each other, if they are to survive Santago and his band's murderous rampage and Ben intends to get his vengeance on Santago.

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Plot Keywords:

yaqui | graves | grave | arizona territory | arizona | 

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Taglines:

Lust-Mad Men and Lawless Women in a Vicious and Sensuous Orgy of Slaughter!

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Romance | Western

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 February 1970 (USA)

Also Known As:

Five Bloody Days to Tombstone

Filming Locations:

Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Independent-International Pictures,Dix International Pictures Inc.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Filmed in 1966, not released until 1969.

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Goofs

One character tells another that Yaqui Indians and Apache Indians are the same tribe, the only difference being that Mexicans call them "Yaquis" and Americans call them "Apaches". That is not true. Yaquis and Apaches are two entirely different tribes and have little in common. The Apaches were fierce, brutal and warlike, regularly attacking American whites, Mexicans and other Indian tribes (including the Yaquis), often simultaneously, and regularly stole horses, rustled herds and kidnapped women and children from other tribes, Mexican villages and US settlements. The Yaquis were a much less aggressive and warlike tribe, existing mainly by subsistence farming and keeping to themselves in the mountains.

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Quotes

[first lines]
The Voice of Death: Ben Thompson, peace officer, who remains alive only because of his deadliness, rides on the trail of the Yaquis' chief called Satago - means Hot Overhate - as I rightly decided, as I do with all men, on my pale horse. I am Ben Thompson's close friend: Death - the physician who cures all pain. For the next five bloody days, I ride with my mortal messenger Ben Thompson collecting the debt all men must pay.

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Alternate Versions

The film was cut for TV (in 1970), eliminating some nudity and violence, and that was used for a wider theatrical release (namely in New York City, in 1971) and a VHS release in the USA and abroad (1982). The DVD version is based on the cut VHS version, which did not respect the widescreen original format.

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Connections

Referenced in A Stranger in My Home: Death's Final Cut (2014)

User Reviews

Ed Wood put to shame

Al Adamson! Truly one of the Princes of schlock filming and a true heir to Edward D. Wood Jr.s Throne of cheese! Adamsons films have everything that makes the true crap movie so frightening: Illucid scripts, continuity errors of epic proportions, acting somewhere between barely OK to truly awful, former movie greats fallen into rough times, no budget whatsoever, cameos by the director himself (not in the Hitchcock manner, more in the Ed "Glenn or Glennda" Wood way)... you name it.

Said that, this is one of his less crappy movies (we are talking about Adamson standards here though), mainly because of a really good director of photography (newly immigrated Vilmos Zsigmound, who later would shoot movies like Maverick and Assassins) and a gorgeous background scenery.

But be not fooled! There is still plenty of badness provided, starting with the mind numbing narration by Death himself, reaction shots that don't match either the scene before or after (most often then not not even the time of day!), gratuitous violence of the disturbing kind etc. etc. etc.

Watch out for appearances of B-movie legend John Carradine, the movies own screenwriter Robert Dix, 50s Western staple Victor Adamson and ubiquitous Scott Brady.

To see Adamson at the peak (or rather bottom ) of his art, be sure not to miss the unbelievable "Dracula vs. Frankenstein", a movie that puts Plan 9 to shame! Highly recommended for fans of Adamson is also David Konow's great biography: Schlock-O-Rama: The Films of Al Adamson