Arrowhead (1953)

Raised by Apaches but despising them, an Indian scout (Charlton Heston) warns the Army that the Apaches and their leader (Jack Palance) will not honor their peace treaty but will ambush them. Based on the novel ADOBE WALLS by W.R. Burnett (THE ASPHALT JUNGLE) and directed by western veteran Charles Marquis Warren. This routine western has a not very subtle unpleasant racist undercurrent. Heston's Apache hating Indian scout makes Ethan Edwards in THE SEARCHERS look like a UN.N. diplomat. Every Apache in the movie is duplicitous, even the so called good ones. When we see a white man killed by the Apaches, we are shown the graphic brutality of the "savage". But when the Apaches are killed by the white man, it's glossed over. Unlike Ford's THE SEARCHERS, this is a one sided affair and a rather pointless one. With Katy Jurado, Brian Keith, Frank DeKova and Mary Sinclair, who as a cavalry widow wears beautiful low cut Edith Head gowns that seem out of place in a dusty rundown fort.