The Fury of the Apaches / El hombre de la diligencia (José María Elorrieta, 1964)

Database page: Hombre de la diligencia, El - The Spaghetti Western Database

A stagecoach is attacked by indians but the stagecoach manages to make it to safety to a nearby inn. Internal conflict among the passengers on the stagecoach and the people already at the inn makes things more difficult while the inn is subjected to attacks by the indians.

A few familar faces like George Martin and Aldo Sambrell pop up in this early cowboys and indians film. There is a mixture of characters from a bent judge to a scotsman who likes playing cards. Some of the indians had very posh sounding voices on the english dub to the fan dvd of the French disc I viewed.

I remember reading someone was not to fond of this one, any more thoughts…

I have only hazy memories of this one. I seem to remember the squabbles between the besieged defenders engendered more drama than the attacks by the Indians. Perhaps that can be explained by a limited budget or action scenes, effects and extras.

Narrow in scope and old-fashioned in terms of narrative and characterisations, but not a bad movie overall.

I need to rewatch to give it a fair assessment though.

One of the better early sw’s I’ve seen. Not really original plot, just the basic few cowboys defending fort against impossible odds we have seen in countless westerns but variety of characters and the tension between them makes it work.

Narration in the beginning is pretty corny though.

My rating: 3/5

The film begins with an incredibly cheesy narration that hasn’t much to do with the rest of the movie. The narrator almost chuckles at some point. Then there’s a stagecoach that ends up in a station in the middle of nowhere and all people there, heroes, villains, evil laywers, mexicans etc have to join their forces to fight against two tribes of indians who attack the station alternatively about 6-7 times during the film with almost pathetic results each time. The movie features also some horrible lines in the vein of “From the moment I saw you I knew you were what I was waiting for”. Of course in the end the hero gets the lady and they live a dreamy life.

Just boring. The dub was below average. Felt and looked cheap all the way. Therefore, not recommended at all. 1.5/5 stars

A friend of mine mentioned this to me the other day and I have to confess I hadn’t heard of it. I’d quite like to give it a go, even if it’s a bit dull.

Go for it :slight_smile: .

A pretty decent story spoiled by some awful dialogue and a below par dub.
As mentioned above, the opening narration was the worst and a good lesson to all film makers as to why an opening narration is rarely a good idea.

It is old fashioned and tries to be American in style but I don’t mind that at all. It was the script which killed it for me. A pity, as I think there is a pretty good film in there somewhere trying to get out. Would have liked to see it made a few years later on in the cycle and probably by a different director. Someone who could have made more of the claustrophobic nature of being confined in the way station under siege as well as the rising tension between those trapped inside. Could have been a lot better.

Australian release

A film from '64 is called a 70’s spaghetti western classic

And we were discussing films from '69 …

Yeah thats stretching it a bit, didn’t notice, lol… the other release Law of Violence is '69.

Rather nice covers on these

Australian SW releases are also pretty scarce aren’t they?

Both of those are available in not bad widescreen fandub versions already.

They shouldn’t have been released, is that what you’re saying? ;D

See no need to purchase them myself :wink: .

This and Law of Violence are in widescreen

Heres the screenshots of this DVD

Does anyone know good place to order these australian dvd’s?

There’s no way I’m watching those two again in this lifetime, so there’s really no need to purchase any other version no matter how good it looks. I have the greek tape of Fury… and a greek dvd of Law… and they cost me both around 2 euros and truth is that I would have felt cheated if I had given more for these films.

You can get most of them from here:

[url]http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/819230[/url]

I have been pleased with the service so far.

Law of Violence is not available through Ezy DVD.

I just re-watched Fury of the Apaches. I hadn’t watched it in over four years but I think it’s highly enjoyable.