Backtrack! (1969) DVD-R

Starring Neville Brand, James Drury, Doug McClure, Peter Brown, William
Smith, Philip Carey, Ida Lupino, Rhonda Fleming, Fernando Lamas
Directed by Earl Bellamy

Print: color
Runtime: 95 min.
Genre: western
Print quality: A

Trampas, a cowhand from Medicine Bow, Wyoming, is sent to Mexico to
buy a bull for his employer. The ranch foreman warns him to watch out for
himself in Laredo, a tough town on the Texas/Mexican border. Despite the
warning, in a western version of the Dumas classic, "The Three
Musketeers", Trampas manages to get himself engaged to fight three
separate Texas Rangers within an hour of his arrival. Unlike D'Artagnan,
he has no notion of actually fighting the Rangers: all he wants is out of
Laredo. He's on his way out of town when he runs into the three
Rangers--who turn out to be partners--on their way to track down a
missing train carrying a payroll. The Rangers, learning Trampas is headed
in the same direction they are, suggest they all ride together--that way,
they can fight him after they have fulfilled their mission. Without much
choice, Trampas wryly agrees. When they find the train, however, they
quickly forget their quarrels--the train was robbed and everyone aboard
killed, except for one infant covered by his mother's body. Concerned the
baby won't survive long without care, they proceed across the Rio
Grande to the nearest town, where they know of a cantina owner with
innumerable children. They get the baby to Mama Dolores, but not without
run-ins with Mexican Urales and marauding Yaquis. Somewhere along the
way, the Rangers begin to suspect it was the Yaquis who robbed the
train--but Yaquis don't rob trains and they have no use for money...and
where did they get those fancy new rifles?