Apache Woman

Apache Woman (1955)

Naked violence... with a gun or a knife she was a match for any man!

A government agent ventures west to look into reports that Apaches are behind a recent wave of frontier attacks. Begins to suspect a set-up.

Date of release
1955-09-15
TMDB
5.0 / 10 (13)
Runtime
1h 19m
Genres
Western
Director
Roger Corman

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $150K
  • Filmed in: California

Apache Woman is a 1955 American Western directed by Roger Corman and starring Lloyd Bridges. It was Corman's second film as director, following Five Guns West. It was one of four Westerns he made for American International Pictures, the other being Five Guns West, The Oklahoma Woman (1955) and Gunslinger (1956). Corman says Apache Woman and Oklahoma Woman were from ideas by AIP whereas the others were his ideas. This was the first film from Golden State Productions, a company headed by Alex Gordon.

Production

The film was one of the first releases of the American Releasing Corporation which became AIP. They had previously distributed two films made by Roger Corman's company, Paolo Alto, The Fast and the Furious and Five Guns West, but Apache Woman was the first film from the production company, Golden State, which was set up by ARC, and run by Alex Gordon. (Golden State's second movie would be Day the World Ended, also directed by Corman.)

Golden State's first movie was to be King Robot. However exhibitors told Nicholson that robots were a poor commercial bet. Gordon says Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson, who ran ARC, decided a Western would be a safe commercial bet. The script was the first written by Lou Rusoff, Sam Arkoff's brother in law, who became AIP's most regular screenwriter.

Filming started May 1955. Tamra Cooper was cast in June 1955. Male star Lloyd Bridges was best known for Sea Hunt and Joan Taylor had been in a number of Howard Koch-Aubrey Schenck pictures.

Corman later said he found the experience interesting because it was one of the few films he directed where he had not developed the script himself. Nonetheless, he enjoyed the film, particularly working with Lloyd Bridges and Joan Taylor. It was shot in two weeks, mostly at the Iverson Ranch in the San Fernando Valley, where Corman had previously made Five Guns West. Alex Gordon later recalled:

After the fiasco with The Lawless Rider, I was ab-so-lute-ly just thrilled and amazed and grateful when I came on The Apache Woman set. Corman's set was quiet... everything was efficient... nobody was shouting...everybody seemed to know what they were doing... he had the right people there... and he was directing very quietly, giving his instructions and so on.

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