Robert Aldrich’s first western Apache from Eureka in December

Eureka Entertainment has announced that Robert Aldrich’s first western, the 1954 Apache, starring Burt Lancaster, Jean Peters and Charles Bronson, is coming to Blu-ray in December as part of the Masters of Cinema series.

Perhaps best known for his iconic film noir effort Kiss Me Deadly, his unsettling psychological horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and his action-packed war movie The Dirty Dozen, the celebrated American auteur Robert Aldrich was also an accomplished director of Westerns. Amongst his best are Vera Cruz, The Last Sunset and his very first foray into the genre: the Burt Lancaster vehicle Apache.

Following the surrender of Geronimo (Monte Blue) to the United States Cavalry, Massai (Lancaster) becomes the last remaining Apache warrior. After he is captured by the American military and put on a prison train to be forcibly resettled on a reservation in Florida, all seems lost. But Massai manages to escape his captors and sets out to return home, where he hopes to settle down with Nalinle (Jean Peters) and farm the land. But as the frontier shrinks rapidly by the day, returning to his homeland will not be so easy.

One of the earliest Westerns to feature a sympathetic Native American protagonist fighting back against the white settlers who swept across the United States throughout the nineteenth century, Aldrich’s first Western is a landmark film in the history of the genre. The Masters of Cinema series presents Apache for the first time on Limited Edition Blu-ray in the UK.