Western, USA, 1951, 75 min.



In 1880, in the desert mining town of Spanish Boot, New Mexico, gambler Sam Leeds shoots and kills another man, claiming that he acted in self-defense. Mayor Joe Madden, who is also the town's blacksmith, orders the gambler to leave because he no longer wants men like Sam in his growing town. Reverend Griffen, a Welsh minister, convinces Madden that the dance hall should also be closed down. Happy to leave Spanish Boot, Betty Careless, the dance hall's earthy proprietor, sells her property and prepares her black assistant Jehu and her various female employees to catch the noon stagecoach to Silver Springs. Before he leaves town, Sam asks his sweetheart, Sally Barr, to go with him. Torn between her love for Sam and her desire for an honest and upright husband, Sally reluctantly decides to remain in Spanish Boot. Sam suspects that Madden plans to win Sally for himself. Along the trail to the next town, Sam discovers that the stagecoach has been attacked and the dance hall employees brutally killed. Just before he dies, Jehu tells Sam that hundreds of Mescalero Apaches have reappeared from across the border and begs him to warn the town. Frightened, Sam returns to Spanish Boot, but realizes to his horror that because of their distrust of him, neither Madden nor any of the other citizens believe his story. However, when a stagecoach full of arrows arrives, the citizens begin to worry and send a young man to the nearest fort for help. The next morning, a local resident named Chacho discovers the young man's mutilated body in the well, and the citizens, afraid to drink the tainted well water, wonder if they will all die of thirst. Their concern does not extend, however, to Pedro-Peter, a cavalry scout who, because he is an Apache, is forbidden by law to drink liquor. As the townspeople quaff beers in the local tavern, Sam enters and buys Pedro-Peter a beer. When Griffen reminds Sam of the law, Sam decides that because Madden refuses to act, he himself will lead a party of men to fetch water from the river. On the way home, the party is attacked, and Sam and the minister try to hold off the Indians while the others escape. When Sam's bullet strikes a chief, the Apaches withdraw, their voices joined in a keening that echoes across the desert. Trudging back to town, Sam and Reverend Griffen see horses approaching. Believing they are about to die, Sam confesses that he risked the lives of the other men in the party merely to shame Madden. The horsemen are actually cavalrymen, but after Lt. Glidden congratulates Sam on having shot Chief Victorio, an Apache "prophet, priest, and war chief all in one," Madden arrests him for having given liquor to an Indian. Back in town, Sam bids Sally farewell one more time, but just then, a large party of Apaches attacks Spanish Boot. The townspeople take refuge inside the church, but Glidden points out that the Indians can easily complete their attack by scaling the church's many elevated windows. After a long wait, the terrified settlers hear the Apaches approaching with drums, flutes and song. Glidden explains that the Mescaleros are preparing to kill by drinking a potent whiskey, and that when the song changes, braves will jump through the windows and attack. Griffen maintains that the Indians are heathens, but Glidden argues that the Apaches are a dying people and that Chief Victorio gave them hope. The Mescaleros continue a cycle of attacking and singing, while the miners inside counter with their own Welsh fighting song. Sam fights heroically and is reconciled with Sally. To buy time, Madden claims he is a doctor and attempts to treat Chief Victorio, but when Victorio finally dies of Sam's gunshot wound, Madden is killed, and the Indians set fire to the church's wooden door. As the Apaches are about to enter the church, the cavalry arrives, and the townspeople are saved.
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Režie: Hugo Fregonese
Herci: Stephen McNally, Coleen Grayová, Willard Parker, Arthur Shields, James Griffith, více...

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