Roger Corman made a few Westerns in his early days - actually he even tried to go back to them in the sixties. This is an unpretentious low budget effort with the director clearly trying to do something different. He wasn't involved in developing the script but Lou Rusoff, whose work varied in quality, does a decent job. There's a solid central dramatic situation - Joan Taylor is apache but she was raised in a white world, along with her brother Lance Fuller.
The film gets off to a slam start with Taylor in the middle of the fight. You can feel Corman wanting to give her more screen time, more power (maybe I'm projecting here but considering his career I don't think so) but because it was 1955 being unable to. Taylor doesn't quite have the pizzaz of later Corman favourite Beverly Garland but is fine. She takes the obligatory swim in a lagoon being perved on.
Lloyd Bridges is uncomfortably cast as a leading man - there was something shifty and untrustworthy about him which made him so ideal in support/character roles. Lance Fuller is good in a strong part as a man drawn to Apache life.
The low budget is covered most of the time. Dick Miller pops up as an Indian!
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