Apache Drums

The gambler Sam Leeds is thrown out of a small town. The town does not want him and he goes. But on the road he sees Apache fighters preparing to attack and turns back. Nobody wants to believe him; then the town comes under fire from outside. Everyone gathers in the church and listens all night to the drums beyond the walls. Hugo Fregonese's western was the last film produced by Val Lewton. Lewton was the man who changed horror cinema in the 1940s, and that method shows here: the threat is mostly not shown, it is built out of sound and darkness. The last stretch of the film takes place inside a single building. Drawing Native people only as the danger outside was the habit of the period.