Drums of the Desert

Drums of the Desert

Drums of the Desert

Share

Drums of the Desert

"A big-scale outdoor melodrama-lavishly filmed to depict the mighty human drama of a dying race. 'Twill stir your blood to the quick if you like this kind of a show."

1927

1h 5m

7.0(1 votes)

Western

Overview

John Curry is a friend of the Navajos who fails in his attempts to keep the white man from exploiting the tribe's secret altars. Realizing that there is oil to be found on the reservation, evil Will Newton gains entry to the area by posing as a trail guide for Elias Manton, an archeologist, and his daughter Mary.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

Paramount Pictures

The people behind it

Cast & crew

8 featured cast members

Starring

Warner Baxter

Warner Baxter

John Curry

Marietta Millner

Marietta Millner

Mary Manton

Ford Sterling

Ford Sterling

Perkins

Wallace MacDonald

Wallace MacDonald

Will Newton

Heinie Conklin

Heinie Conklin

Hi-Lo

George Irving

George Irving

Prof. Elias Manton

Bernard Siegel

Bernard Siegel

Chief Brave Bear

Guy Oliver

Guy Oliver

Indian Agent

Creative team

Directed by: John Waters
Written by: John Stone

Similar Movies

Desert Kickboxer

Desert Kickboxer

A kickboxing cop abandons the violent life after he accidentally kills his opponent during a match. After quitting, he heads for the Arizona desert to live alone and occasionally work tracking drug runners for the area sheriff. One particularly wily Mexican drug lord, Santos, has been a real thorn in tracker Joe Highhawk's side, so when he encounters the beautiful Claudia and her simpleton brother Anthony running for their lives because she, an accountant, embezzled $20 million from Santos, he decides to help them. This actioner follows what happens next. Along the way, they encounter all sorts of danger, and double cross until the exciting final standoff between the kickboxer and the villain.

Daughter of the West

Daughter of the West

A convent-raised woman learns of her American Indian heritage through romance with an educated Navajo (Philip Reed) during the 1880s.

Navajo Kid

Navajo Kid

The Navajo Kid goes in search of the villains who murdered his foster-father and stole both ring and watch. The trail leads straight to Canyon City, Texas, and smooth cardsharp Honest John Grogan, who is in possession of both the stolen items. But Grogan has an ironclad alibi for the time of the murder, an alibi confirmed by none other than Sheriff Roy Landon.

Redskin

Redskin

Wing Foot is a Navajo educated in an otherwise all-white school. He experiences prejudice from both the whites (because of his race) and the Navajos (who disown him because of his upbringing). Thus, Wing Foot is looked upon as neither Indian nor white, but simply a "redskin".

Column South

Column South

In the weeks prior to the start of the Civil War, Confederate sympathizers hope to help their cause by inciting a Navajo war in the New Mexico Territory. Director Frederick de Cordova's 1953 western stars Audie Murphy, Robert Sterling, Joan Evans, Ray Collins, Dennis Weaver, Palmer Lee, Jack Kelly, James Best, Bob Steele and Ralph Moody.

Laughing Boy

Laughing Boy

A young Navajo defies tribal custom to marry an outcast.

The Sunchaser

The Sunchaser

A young half-Navajo convict dying of cancer forces a yuppie doctor to drive him to a magic healing lake.

The Navajos: Children of the Gods

The Navajos: Children of the Gods

The story of the Navajo, at work and play, in the Southwestern United States, and in particular, in scenic Monument Valley. The film focuses on a typical Indian family, its daily life, struggles, and folkways, as every aspect of living is governed by Navajo gods and legends.

Hacking at Leaves

Hacking at Leaves

Hacking at Leaves documents artist and hazmat-suit aficionado Johannes Grenzfurthner as he attempts to come to terms with the United States' colonial past, Navajo tribal history, and the hacker movement. The story hones in on a small tinker space in Durango, Colorado, that made significant contributions to worldwide COVID relief efforts. But things go awry when Uncle Sam interferes with the film's production.

Legends from the Sky

Legends from the Sky

A Native American Veteran, burdened by survivor's guilt after a disastrous military tour, is forced to search for his missing grandfather after his ancestral land is mysteriously taken over by an unknown federal organization.

Turquoise Rose

Turquoise Rose

Raised in the suburbs of Phoenix, a Navajo college student must choose between a vacation in Rome or moving to the reservation to care for her ailing grandmother.

Metal From The Dirt

Metal From The Dirt

A document of the originators of the DIY Rez Metal scene, and the bands that are now carrying the torch, including I Dont Konform, Mutilated Tyrant and Born of Winter. From a generator-powered show in the Arizona desert to a band practicing in a traditional Navajo dwelling called a Hogan, this story — told by Navajo ("Diné") bands and individuals involved in the scene — explores the creation of Rez Metal in the Eighties, the juxtaposition of old and new Navajo traditions and the link between heavy metal and native pride.

Broken Rainbow

Broken Rainbow

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.

Navajo Blues

Navajo Blues

After police detective Nick Epps witnesses his partner's murder by the Mafia, he's forced enter the witness protection program and is placed on the Navajo Indian Reservation. He tries to settle into his new life, but danger seems to follow him as he becomes involved in a serial killer investigation. Before long, the Mafia tracks him down, and Nick is suddenly trapped between two violent worlds with little hope of escaping alive.

Twilight Park (Bell Tower)

Twilight Park (Bell Tower)

Seraphim Cloud grows up near a desert retirement community in the Dinétah (Navajo Nation) There Seraphim meets Howie Heehaw; a wandering rodeo show clown from Tibet seeking a flowering blue cactus seen in a powerful vision. This is a prequel feature to upcoming feature film Twilight Park.

Red Fever

Red Fever

Red Fever is a witty and entertaining feature documentary about the profound -- yet hidden -- Indigenous influence on Western culture and identity. The film follows Cree co-director Neil Diamond as he asks, “Why do they love us so much?!” and sets out on a journey to find out why the world is so fascinated with the stereotypical imagery of Native people that is all over pop culture. Why have Indigenous cultures been revered, romanticized, and appropriated for so long, and to this day? Red Fever uncovers the surprising truths behind the imagery -- so buried in history that even most Native people don't know about them.

The Long Walk

Mr. Greene recollects Navajo history through interviews with ancient tribesmen and reports on contemporary conditions, with emphasis on the progress being made at Rough Rock School in contrast with a BIA boarding school in Utah. Rough Rock is the "experimental" institution set up to give the Native Americans direct control of the process by which their children can be educated to function, productively and with a sense of identification, in two totally different worlds.

Listen

Listen

Director Malakye Tsosie explores his identity through the Navajo language. A language that is spoken less frequently over the generations. However, the resilience of the language breathes through his journey with a small Navajo radio station, his family relatives, and the people of the Navajo Nation.

Frybread Face and Me

Frybread Face and Me

Two adolescent Navajo cousins from different worlds bond during a summer herding sheep on their grandmother's ranch in Arizona while learning more about their family's past and themselves.

Windtalkers

Windtalkers

Joe Enders is a gung-ho Marine assigned to protect a "windtalker" - one of several Navajo Indians who were used to relay messages during World War II because their spoken language was indecipherable to Japanese code breakers.

Recommended Movies

The Stalking Moon

The Stalking Moon

While moving a group of Apaches to a Native American reservation in Arizona, an American scout named Sam Varner is surprised to find a white woman, Sarah Carver, living with the tribe. When Sam learns that she was taken captive by an Indian named Salvaje ten years ago, he attempts to escort Sarah and her half-Native American son to his home in New Mexico. However, it soon becomes clear that Salvaje is hot on their trail.

Nevada Smith

Nevada Smith

Nevada Smith is the young son of an Indian American mother and European-American father. When his father is killed by three men over gold, Nevada sets out to find them and kill them. The boy is taken in by a gun merchant. The gun merchant shows him how to shoot, on time and correctly.

Comanche Station

Comanche Station

A white man trades with the Comanche for the release of a female stranger and the pair cross paths with three outlaws who have their eyes on the handsome reward for bringing her home and Comanche on the warpath.

Flaming Star

Pacer Burton, a young man of mixed Kiowa and white heritage, is caught between two worlds as conflict erupts between Native Americans and white settlers in Texas.

The Comancheros

The Comancheros

Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.

The Five

The Five

A scorned woman enlists the help of five strangers to execute a bank robbery. Tensions rise as the men anxiously await her arrival with the money, leaving the crew to wonder if they have been betrayed.

Scooby-Doo! Shaggy's Showdown

Scooby-Doo! Shaggy's Showdown

When the Scooby gang visits a dude ranch, they discover that it and the nearby town have been haunted by a ghostly cowboy, Dapper Jack, who fires real fire from his fire irons. The mystery only deepens when it’s discovered that the ghost is also the long lost relative of Shaggy Rogers!

El Dorado

El Dorado

Cole Thornton, a gunfighter for hire, joins forces with an old friend, Sheriff J.P. Harrah. Together with a fighter and a gambler, they help a rancher and his family fight a rival rancher that is trying to steal their water.

True Grit

True Grit

The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.

The Last Wagon

The Last Wagon

When a handful of settlers survive an Apache attack on their wagon train they must put their lives into the hands of Comanche Todd, a white man who has lived with the Comanches most of his life and is wanted for the murder of three men.

Go West

Go West

A con man heading west to search for gold teams up with a pair of scheming brothers along the way. The trio soon find themselves in the middle of a feud between two rival families and two underhanded land developers.

Hud

Hud

Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains, "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."

Return of the Gunfighter

Return of the Gunfighter

A gunfighter and a cowboy help a Mexican girl avenge the land-related murder of her parents.

The Bravados

The Bravados

Jim Douglass arrives in the small town of Rio Arriba in order to witness the hanging of the four men he believes murdered his wife. When the convicts escape, Jim tracks them into Mexico, determined to see that justice is done. But the farther Jim goes in his quest for vengeance, the more merciless he becomes, losing himself in an unrelenting spiral of hatred and violence.

The Man from the Alamo

The Man from the Alamo

During the war for Texas independence, one man leaves the Alamo before the end (chosen by lot to help others' families) but is too late to accomplish his mission, and is branded a coward. Since he cannot now expose a gang of turncoats, he infiltrates them instead. Can he save a wagon train of refugees from Wade's Guerillas?

Support Your Local Gunfighter

Support Your Local Gunfighter

A con artist arrives in a mining town controlled by two competing companies. Both companies think he's a famous gunfighter and try to hire him to drive the other out of town.

Rango

Rango

When Rango, a lost family pet, accidentally winds up in the gritty, gun-slinging Western town of Dirt, the theater-loving lizard suddenly finds himself the newly appointed sheriff. Welcomed as the last hope the town has been waiting for, Rango is forced to play his new role to the hilt and uncover the truth behind a looming water crisis—before his act catches up with him.

Cat Ballou

Cat Ballou

A woman seeking revenge for her murdered father hires a famous gunman, but he's very different from what she expects.

3:10 to Yuma

3:10 to Yuma

Dan Evans, a small time farmer, is hired to escort Ben Wade, a dangerous outlaw, to Yuma. As Evans and Wade wait for the 3:10 train to Yuma, Wade's gang is racing to free him.

Davy Crockett and the River Pirates

Davy Crockett and the River Pirates

Davy Crockett and his sidekick Georgie compete against boastful Mike Fink ("King of the River") in a boat race to New Orleans. Later, Davy and Georgie, allied with Fink, battle a group of river pirates trying to pass themselves off as Native Americans.