Captain Apache * (1971, Lee Van Cleef, Carroll Baker, Stuart Whitman) – Classic Movie Review 10,492

Lee Van Cleef, Carroll Baker and Stuart Whitman get to do some serious violence way out West in director Alexander Singer’s awkward and clunky 1971 UK Spain Western film Captain Apache, filmed in Spain. It is another in the short and eccentric list of British Westerns that includes Shalako, Carry on Cowboy and A Town Called Bastard.

In a stale Western action yarn, Van Cleef plays Native American-born US Army officer Captain Apache, serving with US Army intelligence, who tracks down a tough gunrunner called Griffin (Whitman), who wants to send the Indians on the warpath. Captain Apache also encounters Griffin’s fiancée Maude (Baker), Rosita (Elisa Montés) and thugs Moon (Percy Herbert) and Snake (Tony Vogel).

Captain Apache uncovers a presidential assassination conspiracy as he investigates a murder of his old friend the Indian Commissioner Harry Collier, trying to solve the mystery of his last words: ‘April morning’.

Philip Yordan and Milton Sperling’s screenplay, based on the novel by S E Whitman, is full of old situations and stereotyped characters, though the handling attempts to bring it into the Vietnam era, which has dated it even worse. The attempts at humour do not work at all.

Van Cleef’s parents were both of Dutch ancestry.

The main cast are Lee Van Cleef as Captain Apache, Carroll Baker as Maude, Stuart Whitman as Griffin, Percy Herbert as Moon, Elisa Montés as Rosita, Charly Bravo as Sanchez, Charles Stal Maker as O’Rourke, Tony Vogel as Snake, Faith Clift as Abigail, Dee Pollock as Ben, Dan van Husen as Al, Hugh McDermott as General Ryland and Elsa Zabala as Witch.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,492

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