War Drums

When I think of portrayals of Native Americans in westerns, I think of two different ways.  One, like the John Ford movies where they are a menacing, murdering opponent, usually cold-blooded and savage.  They are the bad guy. Two, there is the complete opposite end of the spectrum. The Indians are angelic, faultless people who must fight off the white invaders as they spread across their land. The truth of the matter is that both were true...to a point. Indians were a savage people (generalization, I know) who had to live a brutal lifestyle to survive, especially when their lands started to be scooped up.

So movie portrayals are one thing because stereotypes are an easy way to get a message across.  But what about westerns -- and movies in general -- that try to be an end-all, be-all depiction of the Native Americans?  That was what I took away from 1957's War Drums. By the 1950s, westerns were leaning toward a more favorable (at least a little more balanced) portrayal of Indians, movies like Broken Arrow starring Jimmy Stewart. 'Drums' certainly tries to go down that route, presenting the Apaches in a positive light, but that portrayal is so ripe with stereotypes and misconceptions -- not to mention some really bad casting -- that the effort is lost.

Living as a slave following a raid on her family ranch, a young Mexican woman, Riva (Joan Taylor), is rescued in a way by an Apache war party, led by chief Mangas (Lex Barker). The chief's first thought is to sell her to a white settler and make some money off her or at least make a worthwhile trade. A friend of Mangas', Luke Fargo (Ben Johnson), is a trader and horse wrangler and sees Riva's plight, instantly falling head over heels for her. Mangas has started to feel the same way and decides to take her as a wife. She is not your typical Apache wife though, learning to hunt and fight at her husband's side.  Fargo worries about her and where she will end up, but can't go against his friend's wants and wishes. The problem comes to fruition though as more and more white settlers move into the area, including many who couldn't care less they're on Apache land.

I give any western (and on a bigger level, any movie) that tries to be unique, to tell a story from a different perspective than most viewers are used to.  At its most basic -- stripping away reliance on stereotypes and a generally odd portrayal of Apaches -- War Drums tries to do that. Early on, it portrays the Apaches as...wait for it....human beings just trying to survive and live their lives. The story is set in the late 1850s and early 1860s as the United States steers toward the Civil War, providing an interesting counter to that situation in the Southwest. Another positive, an honesty about the life and the times. Apaches warred with Mexicans, whites fought with Apaches. No one was exempt, and no one group was all bad. There's always a couple rotten apples.

Who should I rip first? Well, because the movie focuses more on the Apache tribe, let's start with them.  In an effort to humanize this warring, brutal tribe, director Reginald Le Borg (<---cool name, huh?) makes an odd choice. He makes a legitimate attempt to show the Apaches weren't stereotypically evil by using...stereotypes? All of the Apaches -- warrior, wives, medicine man -- speak in a stilted, halting fashion, talking in lines full of odd animal imagery and existential thoughts. Lex Barker -- formerly Tarzan and later Old Shatterhand -- is a very white Apache chief, supposedly playing the real-life Mangas Colorado. His Mexican wife, Riva, is badly miscast, Taylor apparently around for eye candy. She goes for a stereotypically over the top and fiery Mexican woman who becomes a feared warrior after shooting a few arrows into a tree.  Mostly, she wears short dresses or tight buckskin pants.

That's not all though, just a good start. Apparently the Apache warrior as an individual had a weird war cry that the Ewoks from Return of the Jedi or 10th Century Viking warriors would have been proud of.  At every possible moment, they yell 'Ayee!' We're talking happy, sad, defeating an enemy, getting married, having a good breakfast. They yell that nonsensical war cry. Enough with the Indian ripping, let's get to the white men, either angelically faultless like Johnson's Luke Fargo or mind-blowingly evil like the bloodthirsty miners who almost start a war. In an effort to demonize them even more, the story calls for outright pandering. When Mangas is caught and whipped, one miner yells 'Carve your name into his back!' to the "whipee."  The man with the whip replies "I would if I knew how to write!" Oh, that's just too much. Is he evil because he's stupid, or stupid because he's evil?

For all the groan-inducing, roll your eyes at the badness moments, the movie isn't as bad as I've made it out to be.  To be fair, it's not that great either, but I enjoyed it for what it is. It is a 75-minute B-western with a different story and some exciting action. A classic it is not, but even if the execution didn't work out in trying to tell a balanced story about whites and Indians, the attempt (however heavy handed) was made. In the supporting cast, look for an unrecognizable John Colicos as Chino, an Apache medicine man, and an uncredited Stuart Whitman playing a worrying husband.

War Drums <---TCM trailer (1957): ** 1/2 /****