Truly Dreadful Film

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

"Tumbleweed" is one of several little 80 minute westerns that star Audie Murphy turned out for Universal in the 1950s and early 1960s. Most were in color and were enjoyable to watch and contained plenty of action.In this one, Murphy plays Jim Harvey a guide who hires on with a small wagon train headed by Seth Blanden (Ross Elliott). On his way to the job, Harvey saves the life of Tigre (Eugene Iglesias) the son of Chief Aguila (Ralph Moody). Harvey meets Laura Saunders (Lori Nelson) who is travelling with the train along with Blanden's wife Sarah (Madge Meredith). The two become attracted to each other.The wagon train is attacked by Aguila and his braves. Harvey under a white flag, goes to Agulia to negotiate the train's release. Unfortunately, Tigre is away and cannot back up Harvey's claim of having saved him. Harvey is taken prisoner and the train is massacred except for the two ladies and the Blandon's baby who were hidden away by Harvey before he went to Aguila.Later when Harvey returns to town he is attacked by the towns folk for having abandoned the wagons. Sheriff Murchoree (Chill Wills) intercedes and though he agrees with the town, takes Harvey into custody for his protection. Tigre hearing of Harvey's plight breaks into the jail and helps him to escape. Tigre takes a fatal bullet but gives Harvey a personal item to help him out with Agulia.Harvey, wounded, comes upon the ranch of Nick Buckley (Roy Roberts). Harvey intends to steal a horse but is stopped by Buckley's foreman (King Donovan) who brings him to his boss. Buckley and his wife (K.T. Stevens) tend to Harvey's wounds and aid in his escape on what he thinks is a broken down horse named (you guessed it), Tumbleweed.The horse proves valuable in Harvey's flight from the law even finding a water hole along the way. Finally the sheriff's posse catches up to Harvey. Harvey has learned in the meantime that the raid on the wagon train was orchestrated by an unknown white man. Aguila attacks the group and................................................................Also in the cast are Russell Johnson as Laura's other suitor and Lee Van Cleef and I.Stanford Jolley as deputies.

In "The Man From the Alamo", Glen Ford plays a man who is elected to try to ride through the Mexican lines surrounding The Alamo to try to warn a community that they should evacuate before the Mexicans overran them. He was too late to save these people, but he missed being one of the victims of the attack on the Alamo. The community he next landed in clearly thought of him as a coward for abandoning the Alamo. In the present film, Audie Murphy finds himself in a similar situation. When the little wagon train he was leading through Yaqui territory was threatened with attack, he galloped in search of the chief Aguila, whose son, Tigre, had been saved from death by Audie a short time ago. Audie hoped this would be his ticket to convincing the chief to call off an attack. Unfortunately, the chief was not impressed. Instead, he had Audie staked out in the sun, with the prospect of cutting off his eyelids in the next morning , so that the sun would blind him. Unfortunately, while he was so occupied, the wagon train was attacked, and all killed except for the 2 women, whom Audie had hidden in a cave. When he reached the nearby town of Borax, the people wanted to lynch him, because they had heard of the massacre, and blamed him for deserting his post. This sets that stage for the rest of the film, in which both the town people and Aguila want to kill Audie. Although Aguila refused to believe that a white man would save the life of his son, Tigre's mother believed it. After the braves left their camp, she cut the ropes tying him to the stakes. Audie's good deed toward Tigre would save his life again, when Sheriff Murchoree(Chill Wills) locked him in the town jail for safety against the lynch mob. Tigre recognized that this wasn't going to stop the mob for long. Thus, he descended from the skylight, and freed Audie, they escaping out the back door. But the mob wasn't far behind. They had a shooting match, in which Tigre was mortally wounded, and Audie barely escaped. His horse was shot in the leg, causing it to limp, so when he saw a bunch of horses on a ranch, he asked to borrow one. He was loaned an all-white one named Tumbleweed, which didn't look too promising on initial inspection. But, he would prove his worth several times in Audie's further attempts to escape the posse and an attack by Aguila. I will leave you to see the rest of the story. See it in color at YouTube. Filming took place at Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon, and Vasquez Rocks, all in southern CA.

Tumbleweed is directed by Nathan Juran and adapted to screenplay by John Meredyth Lucas from the novel "Three Were Renegades" written by Kenneth Perkins. It stars Audie Murphy, Chill Wills, Lori Nelson, Roy Roberts, Russell Johnson, Lee Van Cleef, K.T. Stevens and Madge Meredith. Music is by Joseph Gershenson and cinematography by Russell Metty. It's atypical Audie Murphy fare, which for his fans (of which I'm firmly one) is enough for a rollicking good time. Plot has Murphy as Jim Harvey, a Wagon Train leader who mistakenly gets called out for being a coward when the train he is leading is attacked by the Yaqui Indians, leaving all the men folk dead. Forced to evade lynch mobs and the law, he goes on the lam, armed with only his wits and an aging horse called Tumbleweed. What follows for the 80 minute run time is plenty of action and near scrapes, some barely concealed romantic yearnings, and of course heroics from both man and beast. The locations used for the story are gorgeous, as Death Valley and Vasquez Rocks form a mightily impressive back drop to the unfolding drama. While stunts and machismo are up to the requisite standard. Cast are fine, with Audie being Audie, Wills a gruff lawman and Cleef in loose cannon side-kick mode. The girls are mere tokens, but the beauty of Nelson and Meredith is breath taking. While costuming (Bill Thomas) is high end as well. A Technicolor treat for Murphy and B Western fans. 7/10

I'm pretty sure this is the movie I saw when I was six years old,with my three sisters that caused my baby heart to go pittypat for Audie Murphy. For years the four of us argued about who would grow up first and marry him. I recall an interesting bondage scene where he has been tied up by the Indians; an old woman takes pity on him and releases him. Why I didn't get warped for life by my keen interest in this, I don't know. All of us eventually grew taller than Murphy and outgrew the crushes too. Murphy's movies are surprisingly suitable for children. He was a fine natural actor and I notice he generally takes a high moral tone. Notice how often there is a message of racial tolerance, with Indians being portrayed as rounded characters with genuine grievances, oppressed by an uncaring or racist white government.