‘I’ve never trusted Apaches,’ growls Lt Ben Keegan (Peter Graves). It is the sort of bigoted assessment that one expects to see challenged by film’s end, and while Keegan does develop a grudging respect for Apache scout Sgt Jonas (John Hudson) by-and-large his prejudices are born out. Lesley Selander’s Fort Yuma opens on a peace agreement gone wrong, as the Apache chief negotiates a peace with colonial settlers only to be shot dead by one of those very settlers. The chief’s son Mangas (Abel Fernandez) swears revenge, and Lt Keegan leads a mission to deliver reinforcements before the US military fort is overrun.

Fort Yuma is a somewhat peculiar film. In a rare move for a mid-50s western, it actually casts Native Americans in key Apache roles. Abel Fernandez is a native South American, while the uncredited actor playing Mangas’ father is clearly of First Peoples’ descent. At the same time it broadly represents the Apache tribe as untrustworthy and violent, and the two expressly decent Native Americans are played by white actors in brown make-up. For the modern-day viewer it is sending mixed signals all over the place, which is typical of its time: its creative team seem to be following a rather old-fashioned ‘cowboys and Indians’ set-up, but seem self-aware enough to know such set-ups were becoming increasingly uncomfortable. It does collectively feel like a step up from Lesley Selander’s Shotgun, also released in 1955, but representation-wise still has a very long way to go.

The bulk of the film comprises an unusual mixture of romance – both Keegan and Jonas have inter-cultural love affairs, Keegan with Jonas’ sister (Joan Taylor) and Jonas with a white missionary (Joan Vohs) – and blunt violence. Persistent claims allege that Fort Yuma was heavily censored before release; if true, then the original edit must have remarkably bloody given the large, comparatively blunt body count that remains. The western genre does get bloodier as the decades roll on, and to an extent one could Fort Yuma is slightly ahead of the curve. The inter-racial romances feel rather provocative as well: such relationships were still illegal in Nevada, for example, when Fort Yuma was released.

Peter Graves brings a lot of additional depth to Keegan that was not entirely present in Danny Arnold’s screenplay. The brother of regular western star James Arness, Graves would reach his pinnacle of fame some years later in the cast of Mission: Impossible. Abel Fernandez makes for a strong villain. John Hudson, however, feels comparatively lifeless as Jonas. The two Joans – Vohs and Taylor – are much better by comparison.

Fort Yuma is a somewhat odd film, that manages to be a more complex representation of the American West and an interesting mix of genres – but at the same time feels slightly repellent in its specific portrayal of Native Americans. That combination perhaps marks it as a key example of the western in 1955: a genre at a crossroads, with old and new archtypes competing for space.

1955 West is a review project to watch as many western features from 1955 as possible, in order to gain a ‘snapshot’ view of the genre at its height. According to Letterboxd, there were 72 westerns released that year; this is the 33rd film reviewed. You can see all of FictionMachine’s reviews to date by clicking here.