Massacre (1956)

An officer (Dane Clark) in the Mexican Federales leads his troop into Yaqui Indian country looking for a man (Miguel Torruco) suspected of selling guns to the Yaquis. They don't find him at his home but they take the man's wife (Martha Roth) with them to help them in their search. Unfortunately, she's deadlier than a rattlesnake! Filmed in Mexico, this low budget and I mean very low budget (when Dane Clark sits on a "rock" it gives way under his weight) western has a few surprises up its sleeve. It's a fairly conventional horse opera but its "bad guy" is a woman, Roth's character is a real rotten to the core bitch with no redeeming qualities and boy does she cause a lot of trouble. Mercedes McCambridge in JOHNNY GUITAR has nothing on her and part of one's pleasure is waiting to see her get her comeuppance. And I have to hand it to the film makers, I wasn't expecting the totally downbeat ending but it was a welcome relief from the normally false heroics one often sees in the genre. It's a second tier (maybe even a third tier) western but if you're a western film buff, you could do worse than seeking it out. With James Craig and Jamie Fernandez (Friday in Bunuel's ROBINSON CRUSOE).