Duel at Diablo (1966)

Directed by Ralph Nelson. Starring James Garner, Sidney Poitier, Bill Travers, Dennis Weaver, Bibi Andersson, Ralph Nelson, John Hubbard, John Hoyt, John Crawford.

Garner is a long ways from Bret Maverick in his first return to the genre since leaving the show that made him a star; here he plays a frontier scout in Apache territory hunting for the man who killed and scalped his Comanche wife. He joins an expedition to resupply a distant fort that includes a Buffalo Soldier veteran (Poitier), a motivated army lieutenant (Travers), an outcast woman (Andersson) who had abandoned her husband for her Apache kidnappers, and others; on the way, they’re besieged by the Apaches and it turns into a fight to the finish in this rough and tough cavalry vs. Indians Western. Nelson’s workmanlike direction and the struggles to interweave the characters’ plights (and fates) onto the same vector diminishes the potential, as does a lack of development for the mostly faceless antagonistic force, but it’s nevertheless a reasonable product representing the transition from the “classic” Western style to the revisionism angle that was on the verge of falling into favor. Neal Hefti provides the unorthodox music. Story and co-scripting credits went to Marvin H. Albert, who also wrote the book upon which the film is based (“Apache Rising”). Andersson’s first American film.

61/100