Ulzana's Raid
1972 film by Robert Aldrich
Ulzana's Raid is a 1972 American revisionist Western film directed by Robert Aldrich from a screenplay by Alan Sharp, and starring Burt Lancaster, Bruce Davison, Richard Jaeckel and Joaquin Martinez. It portrays a brutal raid by Chiricahua Apaches against American settlers in 1880s Arizona.
The film was released by Universal Pictures on October 27, 1972, and was well-received by critics. The bleak and nihilistic tone of U.S. troops chasing an elusive, merciless enemy has been seen as allegory to the United States' participation in the Vietnam War.
Plot
1885, Arizona. Following mistreatment by Indian agency authorities, Ulzana breaks out of the San Carlos Indian Reservation with a small Chiricahua war party. When news reaches Fort Lowell, the commanding officer sends riders out to alert the local settlers, but both troopers are ambushed separately; one is dragged away, while the other kills the woman he is escorting and then himself. The Apaches then extract and play catch with his liver. The woman's husband, who stayed behind to protect his farm, is captured and tortured to death. McIntosh, an aging U.S. Army scout, is ordered to bring in Ulzana.
“Ulzana's Raid” enters the record as 1972 film by Robert Aldrich. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ulzana's, Raid and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q841920. VIAF identifies the subject as 305894073. 18 of 19 selected statements include explicit references; 18 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972 and 1885.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ulzana's Raid” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.