Rod Cameron and the then married team of Joanne Dru and John Ireland star in Southwest Passage about an expedition to test the feasibility of using camels in the American Southwest. Purportedly after the experiment was eventually dropped and the camels turned loose on the Arizona desert descendants of them even now can be spotted to this day every now and then.
Rod Cameron plays the real life character of western explorer Edward Beale who in his life also had naval service and eventually got to be Ambassador to the Hapsburg Empire. I think his life would make one fascinating movie myself, the real story.
But here he's on a surveying party with camels, mules, and horse and the human participants are soldier, muleskinners and a few Arabs. Add to them a fugitive John Ireland posing as a doctor and his girlfriend Joanne Dru as someone they rescue in the desert you've got quite a mix facing the Apaches who eventually turn hostile.
Ireland has just robbed a bank and bottom feeding muleskinner John Dehner recognizes him. He also recognizes he's got needs when he sees Joanne Dru. She takes a liking to Cameron. The real Beale was a married man so there's no hint of reciprocation. But Ireland is not a happy camper.
There's a nice desert shootout with the Apaches which must have been something in the original 3-D this was shot in.
Southwest Passage is a nice action packed most adult western where the camel experiment is just a side note. Nothing whatever to do with the really fascinating career of Edward Fitzgerald Beale.
Rod Cameron plays the real life character of western explorer Edward Beale who in his life also had naval service and eventually got to be Ambassador to the Hapsburg Empire. I think his life would make one fascinating movie myself, the real story.
But here he's on a surveying party with camels, mules, and horse and the human participants are soldier, muleskinners and a few Arabs. Add to them a fugitive John Ireland posing as a doctor and his girlfriend Joanne Dru as someone they rescue in the desert you've got quite a mix facing the Apaches who eventually turn hostile.
Ireland has just robbed a bank and bottom feeding muleskinner John Dehner recognizes him. He also recognizes he's got needs when he sees Joanne Dru. She takes a liking to Cameron. The real Beale was a married man so there's no hint of reciprocation. But Ireland is not a happy camper.
There's a nice desert shootout with the Apaches which must have been something in the original 3-D this was shot in.
Southwest Passage is a nice action packed most adult western where the camel experiment is just a side note. Nothing whatever to do with the really fascinating career of Edward Fitzgerald Beale.