The Deserter

The Deserter is a 1970 Italian-Yugoslav American international co-production Western film produced by Dino De Laurentiis. It was directed by Burt Kennedy and written by Clair Huffaker. Scripted during the Vietnam War in the style of The Dirty Dozen (1967) with a party of professional or misfit soldiers going into an enemy sanctuary, it was designed as a vehicle for Yugoslavian theater and film matinee idol Bekim Fehmiu. The film featured an ensemble cast of well-known American actors. Noted as the boy in Shane (1953), actor Brandon deWilde appears in his last Western film before his death in 1972. Plot A US Army cavalry unit returns from a two week patrol to find the inhabitants of a Christian mission near its home fort have been killed by Apache Indians. Among the victims is the savagely tortured wife of the patrol's leader, Capt. Victor Kaleb (Bekim Fehmiu). Still alive after she was skinned alive, Kaleb has to execute his wife to take her out of her terminal pain. Kaleb believes part of the fault lies with the passive fort commander, Major Wade Brown (Richard Crenna) and loudly criticizes him in front of his command. Major Brown responds to Captain Kaleb by asking whether it was the Apaches or him who shot his wife. Captain Kaleb responds by shooting Major Brown in his leg and arm, then deserts the army. He disappears into the southwestern frontier to wage a private one man war of revenge against the Apache.