Starring Burt Lancaster and no one else really notable except Richard Farnsworth (Alf, FernWood Tonight...) as one of the cavalry troopers... Another INDIAN WAR movie. Cavalry fighting the Apaches. Ulzana is a Bad-Ass Apache who has escaped (?) a reservation, here called the "Indian Agency". Ulzana is looking for white Homesteaders to rape and pillage to seek revenge. This is a later Western very much about the Indians, as Burt Lancaster (MacIntosh) is hired by Cavalry because he is a good scout and knows the Indians. The 'escaped' Indians are called "hostiles" here, and there are cited regulations for their 'capture' and return. Featured on the side of the Cavalry is an Apache who knows of course, intimately of the Apache and Ulzana. He has his own mercenary motives. There is considerable discussion and strategy concerning the Apache and their ways. E.G.: they kill in cruel ways to "take the power of the man they kill...", etc. And, from Burt: "Apaches got lots of whims..." Burt is rather sympathetic and respectful of the Apaches, and the movie has a more balanced view of the Indian situation than older films, but still not quite out-and-out Revisionist or Politically Correct (?) such as Dances With Wolves. It definitely does not flinch at displaying Apache cruelty. The moral themes are not black-and-white: "Apache not soldier -- Apache not sign paper to fight. Apache only fight when good..." Animal rights supporters would find the movie problematic as it contains much horse killing

This is a good movie. A later Western with a real contemporary edge. Lancaster is good and credible as the wily Indian fighter. Probably not a Classic, but Definitely a Must See.

--Jed

Cast:

• Burt Lancaster....McIntosh
• Bruce Davison....Lt. Garnett DeBuin
• Jorge Luke....Ke-Ni-Tay
• Richard Jaeckel....Sergeant
• Joaquín Martínez....Ulzana
• Lloyd Bochner....Captain Gates
• Karl Swenson.... Rukeyser
• Douglass Watson....Maj. Cartwright
• Dran Hamilton....Mrs. Riordan
• John Pearce....Corporal
• Gladys Holland....Mrs. Rukeyser
• Margaret Fairchild....Mrs. Ginsford
• Aimée Eccles....McIntosh's Indian Woman
• Richard Bull....Ginsford
• Otto Reichow....Steegmeyer