Above: Two men reunite with Robert Horton and Gilbert Roland being observed by Hank Worden in Apache War Smoke. GR is wearing a jacket that he wore beginning in Thunder Trail back in the late '30s and in several of his Cisco Kid flicks in the '4os. The man must have known he looked raffishly stylish wearing it. I bet he never threw anything away either.
Apache War Smoke (1952) asks us to accept that GR and Robert Horton are father and son. Gilberto is a well-known outlaw, Horton is a straight arrow. They meet again at a stagecoach station in the Southwest. This place is teeming with a great supporting cast playing the passengers. Among them are Glenda Farrell, Gene Lockhart, Barbara Ruick (who? how'd she get in there?), Douglas Dumbrille and Henry Morgan, all of whom are in mortal danger from a pending Indian attack. There is also the additional welcome sight of Hank Worden and a very young Robert Blake. It's not perfect by any means, but Gilbert Roland pulls out all the stops in his patented likable scalawag routine. He acts and looks indecently cool and happily corrupt. I am smiling just thinking of him in this role.
If this premise sounds familiar it may be because this was also a B movie made at MGM called Apache Trail (1942) with Lloyd Nolan having great fun as the charming rascal and Robert Sterling as his respectable bro. I know my appetite for entertainment is more easily satisfied than most people, but I liked this older movie too when it was shown on TCM.
The source of both movies is a story by the highly influential Western writer Ernest Haycox, who sure knew his stuff.
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