Taza, Son of Cochise

In the first of four films he made with Sirk over a two year span, Hudson is cast as a somewhat unlikely Native American leader, struggling to hold on to the mantle of peace with the white man bequeathed by his father (an uncredited Jeff Chandler). Given it's the director's lone Western, it's tempting to view the film refracted through the later melodramas, discovering the very same theme of a man trapped by social circumstances, as Hudson finds even his marriage plans to squaw Rush compromised by his prospective father-in-law's adherence to warlike aggression. Elsewhere, the demands of 3-D notwithstanding, the action is beautifully composed, hampered mostly by the thudding cadences of Hollywood 'injun-speak'. And you know you're watching a Sirkian Western when Hudson's progressive Apache band rides in to save the day for the US Cavalry.