Lovely colour photography and decent set up - four outlaws leave prison, one (John Hodiak) gets dumped so the other three go looking for some money. The story moves at a solid pace. It maybe could've done with a little more character differentiation, although there is some: big baddie, baddie kind of in love with Derek, Derek as young kid baddie, tormented Hodiak, some trusty old prospector with a Walter Brennan type voice. And the complications work - there's a government agent, a Navajo woman (Derek love interest), rampaging Apaches. High death toll - most of the cast die, including (genuine surprise) Hodiak... allowing Derek and the Navajo to live. It's quite a brutal tale full of cynical characters - kind of like a Western noir, including an ending where they don't wind up with money. The Navajo woman was a prisoner of the Apache.
Intense. Interesting. Low budget.
2 comments:
Title should be "Ambush at Tomahawk Gap" and the "trusty old prosecutor" is a ... prospector?
Good review, as always. Interesting film; thanks for calling it to our attention.
THank you!
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