Rio Conchos

Tough grizzled Oater worthy of re-evaluation. Rio Conchos is directed by Gordon Douglas and adapted to screenplay by Joseph Landon from the Clair Huffaker novel. It stars Richard Boone, Stuart Whitman, Jim Brown, Tony Franciosa, Wende Wagner and Edmond O'Brien. Music is scored by Jerry Goldsmith and Joseph MacDonald is the cinematographer. Out of 20th Century Fox it's a CinemaScope production filmed in De Luxe Color, and primary location used for filming was Moab, Utah. One ex-Confederate officer out for revenge against the Apache, one Army Captain driven by a sense of duty, one Buffalo…

***Entertaining reimagining of “The Comancheros” with Boone, Whitman, Franciosa and Brown*** Two years after the Civil War, an unlikely team of four men go on a mission to find a missing cache of Federal rifles; the trail leads to a private army of ex-Rebels and Apaches, as well as a surreal antebellum mansion built in the middle of the desert along the Rio Conchos River in Mexico. The scouting unit consists of an alcoholic ex-Confederate major and Indian-hater (Richard Boone), a gallant but formidable Army captain (Stuart Whitman), a Buffalo Soldier sergeant (Jim Brown), a likable Mexican…

I don’t suppose that you could ever describe Richard Boone as a versatile actor, but he usually made for a good character in a Western and he holds this together quite well. His “Lassiter” is a man with a past who has hooked up with “Capt. Haven” (Stuart Whitman) and the not entirely trustworthy, tequila-swilling, “Rodriguez” (Anthony Franciosa) on a quest to thwart/benefit from some gun-running to the Apache. After only just surviving an ambush, they capture the feisty “Sally” (Wende Wagner) and that spells danger for this gang of disparate travellers as they head to the partially completed…