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Dragoon Wells Massacre (1957)
Director: Harold Schuster
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A motley group - it includes a cavalry officer, a sheriff, two convicts, two women (one haughtily respectable, one not), a renegade gun-and-whisky runner - fight a desperate rearguard battle as they trek across the Arizona desert with Apaches on their tail. It's a stock Western situation but a highly enjoyable film, magnificently shot by William Clothier and with a surprisingly tight, inventive script by Warren Douglas (the Apaches need the renegade alive for future use, for example, so they merely pick off the horses as the first stage in a war of attrition) which is particularly strong on characterisation (with the good/bad balances subtly shifting under pressure). Excellent performances, too, with Elam especially memorable as a man so accustomed to being pigeonholed as an ugly desperado that he is doggily abashed by an orphaned child's unhesitating acceptance of him as a trustworthy protector.Author: TM
Cast & crew
Director: Harold Schuster
Producer: Lindsley Parsons Sr
Cast: Barry Sullivan, Dennis O'Keefe, Mona Freeman, Katy Jurado, Sebastian Cabot, Jack Elam full cast
Genre(s): Westerns
Duration: 97 mins
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