On a routine patrol out of Fort Bowie in the southwestern desert, Lt. Davenport (George N. Neise) is putting his cavalry company in grave danger. A veteran of the Civil War and fighting for five years with the Sioux, Davenport has experience, but not fighting Mescalero Apaches. His patrol's horses have been driven off, leaving his 16-man patrol stranded and walking out out of the desert as well as losing their supply and ammo packs. With Apache war parties on the trail, the patrol is in serious trouble, forcing veteran Apache fighter Sergeant Wade McCoy (Connors) to take over, risking a court martial in hopes of getting his men to safety. The situation gets worse when the patrol accidentally stumbles upon an Apache chief's daughter (Lisa Montell). Now it's a race against time to see if the patrol can get to Fort Bowie before the Apaches close in.
The cavalry vs. the Indians, is there anything more familiar in a western? Okay, maybe cowboys and Indians instead. From director Lesley Selander, 'Trail' is about as meat and potatoes as a western can get, and I mean that in a positive way. There's no concept of a bigger picture of what's going on with the Apaches or why they're on the warpath, no worry about what the patrol was actually looking for. It's laid out and let free. Patrol....Apaches....run. Fairly simple, right? It can't be much else, clocking in at just 60 minutes (don't pay attention to the 96-minute running time listed at Wikipedia). It plays like a TV episode with anything even remotely superfluous stripped away. In other words, it's about as barebones as possible.
The story is told exclusively from the perspective of the cavalry. While the Apaches are mentioned, including their chief, Vittorio, we never really see more than 10 or 15 at a time. Even the chief is shown in a long, long shot on the horizon without even a close-up. Instead, we never leave the cavalry. We don't see much of the opening attack on the patrol and its supply wagons, Connors' hard-boiled narration playing over the action. There's some good build-up with some decent action scenes as the Apaches close in -- including a pretty cool showdown at an abandoned outpost -- but the ending is rather abrupt. Maybe the already rather small budget simply ran out.
What will draw most western fans is the casting of Connors in the lead. As the tough as nails Sgt. Wade McCoy, Connors is the prototypical western star. He's young, but he's got plenty of experience in fighting the Mescaleros over his time with the cavalry. Neise is a preening, obnoxious and generally clueless Lt. Davenport, an experienced officer who refuses to admit when he's wrong. When he puts his patrol at risk, McCoy finally steps in. Some other good supporting parts go to John Smith as Pvt. Tim Reynolds, a deadshot with a rifle and experienced trailsman who's close with McCoy, Robert Knapp as Pvt. Barrow, a troublemaker who ruffles feathers with McCoy, Eddie Little Sky as Johnny Dogwood, the Apache scout working with the cavalry, and Harry Dean Stanton as Pvt. Miller, Davenport's loyal adjutant. The rest of the patrol is kept in the background, nameless soldiers destined to take Apache arrows, spears, tomahawks and bullets as necessary.
Even in a movie that barely breaks the 60-minute mark, 'Trail' manages to insert a love interest into the already barebones story. That comes courtesy of Susan Cummings as Ellen Carter, a white woman taken captive by the Apaches who bonds with Montell's Tula during her captivity. As one IMDB reviewer says, Cummings is there so Connors can have someone to kiss -- other than an eager cavalry trooper -- as the story fades out. Nothing flashy or memorable here, and probably only worthwhile for diehard fans or any fans of Chuck Connors.
Tomahawk Trail (1957): ** 1/2 /****
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