Immediately following the Civil War, a group of U.S. soldiers and a group of former Confederates have to work together to survive an Apache ambush.  The leader of the soldiers is Sgt. Matt Blake (Scott Brady) and he’s escorting a gunrunner (Baynes Barron) to a nearby fort.  Leading the former Confederates is Sam Prescott (Frank Gerstle).  The two groups are, at first, suspicious of each other.  Confederate Judge Stanfield (Irving Bacon) thinks that Blake should just give the gunrunner and his guns to the Apaches, since that’s what they want.  When Blake disagrees, Prescott tries to encourage a young and angry former Confederate named Keith (Clint Eastwood) to challenge Blake’s command.  In the end, the former enemies have to learn how to set aside their differences to survive and to make it to the fort.

This was one of Eastwood’s earliest performances and only the fourth time that his name actually appeared in the opening credits.  (Eastwood had appeared, uncredited, in several films before this one.)  Eastwood later called Ambush at Cimarron Pass “the lousiest western ever made” and claimed that he hated the film so much that he almost gave up on acting after seeing it.  I think he’s being too hard on the movie.  It’s a low-budget B-movie that pretty much takes place in one location and it has an tending that feels tacked-on but, when it concentrates on the action and the hostility between the two groups, it’s not that bad.  It feels more like an episode of Death Valley Days than an actual movie but Scott Brady is a convincing hero and his brawl with Eastwood is one of the movie’s highlights.  As for Eastwood’s performance, he’s stiff but convincing when he’s angry.  It’s obvious that, in 1958, Clint Eastwood still had a long way to go an actor but his physical presence makes him stand out whenever he’s in a scene.  Ambush at Cimarron Pass is nothing special but it’s good enough to work for fans of the genre who might be looking for a brief diversion that features a handful of familiar faces.

After appearing in this film, Eastwood would land the role of Rowdy Yates on Rawhide and spend the next six years on television.  His next film would be A Fistful of Dollars, a western that made a much deeper impression on audiences than Ambush At Cimarron Pass.