While crossing the desert, a frontier scout, Jess Remsberg, rescues Ellen Grange from a pursuing band of Apaches, and returns her to her husband, Willard Grange. He is contracted to act as a scout for an Army cavalry unit. Willard, Ellen, and her infant son are along for the ride, as is horse trader Toller, a veteran of the 10th Cavalry. The party is trapped in a canyon by Chata, an Apache chief and grandfather of Ellen's baby. Willard is captured and tortured. Jess sneaks away and brings reinforcements just in time to save the day. Jess learns that the man he has been hunting is none other than Willard Grange.
22 Nov Duel at Diablo (1966)
Old Paint
It is absolutely amazing to me how badly a movie can age. I saw this one in the theatres when new.
I remember thinking it was acceptable at the time.
There was an actress that I knew from Bergman. There was the surprise of the Indian baby, which I saw in the segregated South. It had what seemed to be explicit torture scenes. But most of all I actually thought the setups made sense: the mirroring of the miscegenation, the mirrored revenge, the dual showdown.
Seeing it again now, I have no idea how I could have been that person.
This time around I noticed the amazing shot at the beginning, of some Utah landscape. But everything else was flat. The acting and script are worthy of Ed Wod. Even the Swedish actress was lost. The score is from the studio library. The dialog is dubbed. The narrative devices seem artificially constructed.
The interesting thing though, was how engaged I got in my own narrative about the horse cruelty. There are many Indian fights, and most of the effects depend on tripped horses among the dubbed whoops. It is a parade of horror that got more and more disturbing: the fake deaths and torture fading, the blond woman bringing back the “Seventh Seal”.
Posted in 2009
Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
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