Rio Conchos

FXM Retro has brought the western Rio Conchos out of the vault. It's on DVD too, so I watched it to do a review on it.

The movie starts off with a bunch of Apache Indians having a ceremony, only to be approached from behind by a guy on horseback, who shoots a bunch of them! The cavalry is sent to investigate in the form of Capt. Haven (Stuart Whitman), and they come upon what looks like the partially burnt-out ranch house of Major Lassiter (Richard Boone). Haven finds a repeating rifle on Lassiter's porch, and realizes that it's one that had been stolen from the army. So Haven naturally wants to know where Lassiter got it. Even if Lassiter didn't steal it, perhaps they can trace the chain back to the actual thieves.

Lassiter doesn't want to tell, which you can understand since he's full of vindictiveness. He was a Confederate Army major, so he doesn't particularly care for the US Army. More than that, the Apaches didn't just kill his wife and son, they tortured the two, which would explain why he's going off and hunting down any Apache he can find. Still, that does present a problem that the Army doesn't want to deal with. But since Lassiter has no plans to divulge where he got the rifle, Haven has him put in jail.

Eventually, Lassiter does open up about the provenance of the rifles: Confederate Col. Pardee Edmond O'Brien, who is operating from a hideout in Mexico and who is pining for the lost cause, which is why he's doing gunrunning, to try to get the arms necessary to conquer the US army. At any rate, Lassiter has a chance to gain his freedom if he goes on a mission with Haven find Pardee and get the weapons back.

Lassiter accepts the terms, and the two men set off along with Haven's junior officer Sgt. Benjamin Franklyn (Jim Brown), and another prisoner, Mexican-American Rodriguez (Tony Franciosa). The plan is to bring along a wagon load of gunpowder for Pardee to use in the guns, cargo which will lead them to Pardee. But it's not going to be an easy mission, since they can't go dressed as Army officers what with their having to go into Mexico. Plus, Haven sems to be a bit to hot-tempered to deal effectively with the locals. Since it's only two years after the end of the Civil War, there's still a lot of animosity between northerners and southerners.

Rio Conchos was a good enough movie, but I didn't find it anything special. That's mostly because it's treading over material that's been done quite often. There's nothing particularly wrong with the movie, but there's also nothing that to me made it stand out as particularly memorable. That doesn't mean I had problems with it. If you want to sit back with a bowl of popcorn and be entertained, and you're also a fan of westerns, then Rio Conchos is a great movie to do that with. And on that grounds I certainly have no qualms recommending it.