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Our
film opens innocently enough at a small
Indian village,
where the friendly natives whoop it up
with several, for the moment, friendly
non-natives: Two fur-trapping/scalphunting
brothers, Benji (Don Henley)
and the brutish Billy (Rick Nervic);
Deacon (Jack Starret) a less
than devout missionary; Two-Card Jones (Robert
Tessier) a less than honest
gambler; and Pitcalin (Jody McCrea),
mountain man and the hero of our piece.
While
the others drink and make merry, Billy
dances with Jemme (Marie
Gahva), a young Indian girl. Billy
isn't much of a dancer and they
accidentally break some adobe pots. An old
squaw quickly gathers up several gold
nuggets that had been secreted inside them,
but she
wasn't fast enough as things quickly turn
sinister. Seeing what she grabbed, Jones
demands the gold. When the old chief tries
to stop him Jones stabs him the gut.
Things quickly degenerate from there as
the rest of the Indians are massacred in
the blink of an eye, including a woman and
her baby who was shot in the back while
trying to flee. Things get even uglier as
the men -- well, pull a train on Jemme;
except for Pitcalin. He didn't take part
in the massacre, but didn't really do
anything to stop it either. The men aren't
done with Jemme yet. They've contracted a
bad case of gold fever and assume she
knows where they can find more.
Pitcalin,
who was going to leave, decides to stick
with them. (I
assume to protect the girl since he did
nothing to stop the slaughter of her
family.) Jemme tells them the gold
is far away in the desert. Concerns for
water are quickly pushed aside over the
desire of more gold, and the party sets
off.
After
they're long gone, Vittorio (Don
Kemp), a lone Indian brave, returns
to the camp and views the carnage. I think
we're supposed to assume that the dead
mother and child were his wife and son.
His grief is short lived, replaced by a
grim resolve to make those who killed them
pay. Following their tracks, he begins a
blood hunt to extract some bloody
vengeance. And he won't stop until all of
them are dead.
*
* * *
Actor/Director
Jack Starret has had an odd film career.
Starting out as an actor in a couple of Al
Adamson biker flicks before expanding his
horizons and moving behind the camera as
director, the man didn't limit himself and
had a hand in many a '70s vintage genres,
including offbeat westerns like this one,
blaxploitation (Cleopatra
Jones)
and "Satan is everywhere" with Race
With the Devil
--
where
everyone in the state of Texas is a member
of a satanic cult and menaces Warren
Oates, Peter Fonda, Loretta Swit and their
RV until the biggest cheesedick ending
ever blindsides us when we weren't
looking. (We should probably review
that someday.) He wasn't done
acting yet, either, as he turns up in a
hilarious performance as Gabby Johnson --
the guy speaking prairie gibberish and
gets drowned out by the bell when he tries
to warn that the new sheriff is a
nig-BOOOOONG! in Blazing
Saddles.
Now,
I bought this DVD because it was part of a
Westerns 4-Pak, but what I was really
after were a couple of Lee Van Cleef
vehicles: Beyond
the Law,
Death
Rides a Horse
and God's
Gun.
I think this oddball was tacked on
because, according to the sleeve, it
featured The Eagles drummer Don
Henley. Well, even though the IMDB
backs up that claim, I hate to break it to
them but that's a Don Henley and
not thee Don Henley. Take a look at
the screen-capture I got of Benji below
the AMAZON links over to the left. What do
you think? Yup. That ain't him. Somebody
seriously got their wires crossed on that
one. There is one more familiar face
amongst the crowd, too, but you might not
recognize him with that hairdo.
 
Well,
not the hairdo, per see, just the fact
that there's hair on that normally bald
noggin at all. That familiar looking mug
is Robert Tessier. Tessier was a decorated
war hero (he was a paratrooper
during the Korean War and received the
Silver Star and a Purple Heart)
before he got into the movies; first as a
stuntman, and then a prosperous career
playing thugs and henchmen. Tessier was
the stunt coordinator on this film, and
together with fellow stunt guru Hal
Needham, formed Stunts Unlimited.
Jody
McCrea, while trying to break out of his
goofball image that he established playing
Deadhead in all those AIP Beach
Party Movies, started producing films
like this and the outlaw biker staple The
Glory Stompers.
His dad, Joel McCrea, a famous western
star himself (the
epitome being Ride
the High Country
with Randolph Scott), appears, book-ending
the film as the elderly Pitcalin. The
entire film is his flashback -- so I guess
we already know that Pitcalin is going to
survive. But this isn't his
father's kind of western. Nor his
mother's, brother's, sister's or second
cousin twice removed...
As
Jemme leads our troop deeper into the
desert, water is growing scarce. The
inevitable romance between good guy
Pitcalin and Jemme is cemented when he
winds up brawling with Deacon and Billy
after they spy on the naked Indian girl
while she bathes and have some unclean
urges. Benji,
Jones and Deacon feel Pitcalin and Jemme
are planning a double cross, conspiring to
ditch them and take the gold for
themselves. Pitcalin denies it, but Jemme
won't, encouraging dissension in the ranks,
feeling it will only help her escape.
Further
into the desert they go. You get the sense
that Jemme is leading them on a wild goose
chase, tiring the men out, running them
out of water, meaning they will probably
all die -- but these scurves deserve it. As
the water supply dwindles, Deacon starts
to go a little light happy. Night falls,
and Jemme promises them that by noon,
tomorrow, they will not only find more
water, but the gold as well.
The
next morning, the others wake up to find
their canteens dumped and Pitcalin and
Jemme gone. They didn't run off together,
though. Jemme dumped the water during the
night and tried to sneak away. Pitcalin
hears this, and goes after her. Catching
her, he brings the prisoner
back to camp where the others aren't real
happy with the latest development. While
they argue, Vittorio, who finally catches
up (about *&#% time),
manages to sneak in and steal their horses
away. The surly Billy goes berserk and
attacks Jemme. But he doesn't get very far
before an arrow stabs him in the back,
severing his spine.
Even
with this new added danger, survival
instincts are still secondary to gold
fever. Without the horses they can't carry
the paralyzed Billy, so they decide to
leave him behind with his pistol and what
little water they have left. With the
promise to come back for him, the others
head off for the alleged waterhole -- and
the gold, of course.
After
they're gone, Billy weighs his options:
Die of thirst, get scalped or suicide?
Suicide it is. He turns the pistol on
himself but Vittorio has other ideas. He
knocks the pistol away and tauntingly
dumps out what's left of the water. Meanwhile,
the rest of the group is starting to
splinter. Deacon starts getting religious
-- deliriously religious, if you know what
I mean, and wanders off alone into the
desert to have an epiphany (or
something). When Benji finds
Billy's pistol (that I'm assuming
is bait for a trap), his conscience
gets the better of him. He decides to turn
back and check on his brother, but when he
gets back to the campsite, Billy is gone.
Following a trail of Billy's discarded
possessions leads him to a waterhole,
where Vittorio left the paralyzed Billy
mere inches away from the water (that
he'll never reach.) The apache
pounces on Billy and soon has him hogtied
and suspended upside down over the
waterhole. As Benji's weight slowly bends
the branch he's tethered to down, lowering
his head into the water, he curses the
Indian and then apologizes to his brother
and their dead mother for dragging him out
to the west. Vittorio watches until his
cries are drowned out. Then all is
quiet at the waterhole.
Pitcalin
and Jemme want to move on, but Jones
refuses to budge. So they leave him behind
to be Vittorio's next victim. He, too,
gets trussed up, but instead of drowning
him, he gets a sack full of rattlesnakes
tied over his head. This is topped off by
being kicked down the mountain to stir the
snakes up. Still
searching for that epiphany, Deacon finds
Jones' body. He then mistakes Vittorio for
his epiphany and gladly lets himself get
lassoed and drug off to his doom. (Which
is what? Hello? Movie?)
So
with all the rats out of the way, what's
in store for our noble hero and protector
of the fair Indian maid? Well, after a
climatic knife and antler duel (don't
ask), Jemme winds up with
Pitcalin's musket and must decide which
brawler to shoot.
Who
does she shoot? I ain't telling. I had to
sit through all this and so will you,
dammit. (What? I already gave it
away several paragraphs ago.)
And
that's that, then.
The
End
Well,
I will tell you to stick through the
credits to see what happened to Deacon. A
nice morbid twist that this film probably
didn't deserve.
Having
a slapped together over a weekend feel to
it, which it probably was, the film sets
up the premise in the first five minutes,
quick and dirty, but then we have to sit
through fifty-odd minutes of anti-action
as we wait for Vittorio to catch up with
them. And it's here in the last ten to
fifteen minutes when Cry
Blood, Apache
almost redeems itself with its gruesome
climax as the Apache takes his revenge in
some -- well, really uncomforting and
disturbing ways. But believe me brother,
until then, this film is one plodding
hemorrhage to sit through.
Admittedly,
this film is not easy to endure but it
does manage to get under your skin on
several occasions. These men are
despicable, and we wallow around in the
dirt with them, but you can't help but
feel a little sorry for them the way
they're dispatched; especially Benji when
he's crying for his mother. All sympathy
for Vittorio is lost in these protracted
death schemes. Which is why this film
falls neatly into a category that I like
to call:
"Noble Savages MY ASS!", including
jungle movies, certain westerns and the
later cannibal atrocity movies. Putting
political correctness and Kevin Costner
movies aside, you have to realize, people,
that sometimes the natives just weren't
all that nice. (Yes, I realize
they've been totally screwed over by the
man. On that debate I'm already on your
side.) There are tales of murder
and torture committed by Native Americans
against each other, not just the
invading palefaces, that will make you're
skin crawl.
These
types of films bug me. I don't know.
There's just something about seeing a
person tortured to death, watching someone
else's sadistic pleasures, and then
stringing it out for as long as possible
while committing it to film -- no matter
how justified -- that goes against every
fiber of my being. And I have a helluva
time shaking these images after I've seen
them: When the poor native-bearer is
cooked alive in The
Naked Prey,
or that poor gal who gets skewered on the
pole in Cannibal
Holocaust,
and yes, even while Benji is being strung
over the water there's a little part of my
psyche shrieking "That just ain't
right."
I
hope this kind of crap disturbs you, too.
Sure, a lot of these people might have
deserved their fate, but if you derive any
kind of enjoyment or pleasure watching
these people done in in such a sadistic
and brutal fashion, then what the hell is
wrong with you?
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