Wagon Train (TV Series) The Indian Girl Story (1965) User Reviews

One grim tale

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 3 July 2020]

This story is one of the grimmest in the Wagon Train series. It has to do with Terry Wilson being in charge of a section of wagons he's taking to meet the main body of the Wagon Train. They get visited by Bruce Dern a renegade taking a prisoner to Apache chief Michael Pate. Dern's prisoner is a woman who Pate says killed his son. She's going to get Apache justice.

Dern rubs Wilson the wrong way and Wilson takes his prisoner away to give to an Indian agent. But Pate puts the wagons under attack.

I won't say more other than a lot of western cliches are nt followed in this story. One of the grimmest tales of the series.

Grim Beyond Belief

[collings500 · 2/10 · 7 April 2021]

I'm still shaking my head over this one, wondering how the script ever got approved in the first place. In the opening shot, a filthy bounty hunter type (Bruce Dern, natch) is shown leading a bedraggled Apache girl by a rope around her neck. He apparently wants to lead her to the local Apache chief who intends to torture her to death because she allegedly murdered his son. The Wagon Train boys intercede and send the bounty hunter on his way, and then the fun begins. Circle the wagons folks, and start shooting the savages as they come for the girl! The young Wagon Train kid is sent out at night to scout for help, whereupon he is captured and his hands are burned and/or mutilated (only temporary!) so he can't shoot a gun. (All at the suggestion of the scumbag bounty hunter, who gets more loathsome with each scene.) In the end, the doomed Wagon Train folk have a "vote" (a really dopey scene that goes on forever) and they surrender the girl to the Apaches, who murder her on the spot and then ride off. The Wagon Train guy then cradles her body in his arms and has a glassy, faraway look, as if the actor has forgotten his lines. Somewhere in all of this is a subplot featuring a sweaty, foul-mouthed criminal in a "jail" with wheels, and this guy makes the Bruce Dern character look like Mother Teresa! Don't watch this one if you're depressed.