Review of Tumbleweed

Tumbleweed (1953)
8/10
When Your Horse Is Smarter Than You
7 November 2019
Audie Murphy is a scout on his way to meet a party he's guiding when he stops to help a wounded Yaqui. Later, when the party is attacked by Yaquis, he makes sure the women are safe, then goes to talk to them. They don't believe his story. After he escapes, he makes his way back to town. The women got away, but saw their men butchered. They think he's a turncoat. There'd be a necktie party, but sheriff Chill Wills sticks Murphy in protective custody. Things are getting ugly, when the Yaqui Murphy saved shows up and frees him from jail (getting killed in the process). Murphy heads off, but his horse is done for. Roy Roberts lets him have a horse, and he's on the run, hoping to get to the Yaquis to corroborate his story, with Wills and the posse trailing him.

Audie Murphy has a great co-star in this movie, the white horse he's on in the second half of the movie. Murphy thinks he a crazy horse, but he turns out to be smarter than Murphy, taking him over a pass that no one else can make, finding water when there is none. Amidst the conventional story and a great role for Wills, that horse makes this a fine picture -- that and the final slugfest between Murphy and the real villain, with Murphy doing some of his own stunts.
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