Tumbleweed (1953 film)

Tumbleweed is a 1953 American western film about a horse of the same name, directed by Nathan Juran and starring Audie Murphy, Lori Nelson, Chill Wills, Roy Roberts, Russell Johnson, K.T. Stevens, Madge Meredith, and Lee Van Cleef. It was also known by the alternative title of Three Were Renegades; the title of the 1937 novel Three Were Thoroughbreds by Kenneth Taylor Perkins^[1] the film was based on which had been previously filmed as the 1948 film Relentless.^[2]

Plot

Jim Harvey (Audie Murphy) is a guide and guard on a wagon train. After he saves the life of a Yaqui Indian warrior, Tigre, the wagon train is attacked and Harvey realises their only chance of survival is if he can negotiate a truce with Tigre's father, the chief Aguila (Ralph Moody). Aguila orders Harvey to be knocked out, and tortured later, but he is set free by Tigre's mother. He goes to town and discovers the people on the wagon train were massacred, except for two sisters who Harvey insisted hide in the caves. Harvey is falsely accused of cowardice and the townsfolk threaten to lynch him.^[3] Harvey escapes on a borrowed horse named Tumbleweed, and tries to prove his innocence, discovering that a white man was responsible for the attack. It is the horse's intelligence and instinct that save Harvey, and Murphy's interaction with the horse, that drive much of the storyline. ^[4]

Cast

• Audie Murphy as Jim Harvey
• Lori Nelson as Laura
• Chill Wills as Sheriff Murchoree
• Roy Roberts as Nick Buckley
• Russell Johnson AS Lam Blandon
• K. T. Stevens as Louella Buckley
• Madge Meredith as Sarah Blandon
• Lee Van Cleef as Marv
• I. Stanford Jolley as Ted
• Ralph Moody as Aguila
• Ross Elliott as Seth Blandon
• Eugene Iglesias as Tigre
• Phil Chambers as Trapper Ross
• Lyle Talbot as Weber
• King Donovan as Wrangler
• Harry Harvey as Prospector

References

External links

• Tumbleweed at the Internet Movie Database
• Tumbleweed at AllMovie
• Tumbleweed at TCMDB