The Stalking Moon **** (1968, Gregory Peck, Eva Marie Saint, Robert Forster) – Classic Movie Review 8372

Director Robert Mulligan’s 1968 Western The Stalking Moon stars Gregory Peck as US Army scout Sam Varner, who retires to a secluded mountain home with Sarah Carver (Eva Marie Saint) and her half-Indian son (Noland Clay), who have escaped from the Apaches. But the boy’s father, renegade Apache chief Salvaje (Nathaniel Narcisco), wants him back and is ready to kill.

Peck makes a noble hero and there is enough suspense and interest in the long build-up to the exciting climactic clash.

Mulligan’s handsome, mature, very decent and underrated Western boasts an intelligent, highly literate screenplay by Alvin Sargent and Wendell Mayes, based on the novel by Theodore V Olsen, attractive cinematography by Charles Lang, a fine score by Fred Karlin and meticulously careful direction.

Also in the cast are Robert Forster, Frank Silvera, Russell Thorson, Lou Frizzell, Lonny Chapman, Henry Beckman, Charles Tyner, Richard Bull and Sandy Brown Wyeth, Joaquín Martínez and Boyd ‘Red’ Morgan.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8372

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