Movie Review: 40 Guns to Apache Pass (1967)

This is an Audie Murphy Indian War movie.  Murphy portrays Captain Coburn, who is a stickler for rules, and his men don't like him.  They end in a scrape, and many are killed, including his girlfriend's brother.  What is worse he later is taking guns, Winchester repeating rifles to an outpost when a couple of his men turn on him and leave him for dead.  His sergeant is wounded, and the guns stolen.  He escapes his ropes, but has to get the Sargeant back to help.  He does this by stealing an Apache pony.  However he is in big trouble with the Colonel, and his girlfriend, whose younger brother was convinced to go with the soldiers fleeing with the guns has become a deserter.

He is ordered to stay on the post, but tricks a man holding the horses to let him go, his orders were not generally known.  He must find the rifles before they are sold to Cochise, as then the outpost would be easily overrun.  The brother rejoins his side, and together they over take the men holding the guns and head for the outpost with the guns with Cochise in pursuit.  Coburn keeps five repeating rifles (each give the possessor quite an advantage) and sends the brother to the post with the others.  He makes good use of the weapons, but still is almost overwhelmed by the Indians.

This show is the kind I loved growing up, with canned military pride of Audie Murphy type.  His type of patriotism seems to have been lost.  I always look for racism in old Westerns, and I imagine you could find some here.  Many Native Americans fall to those guns.  But movies are more enjoyable if you don't worry about such things.