As it was my turn to choose the movie for this latest gathering, I brought THE COMANCHEROS (1961), a big old fashioned action adventure.
It’s the darndest plot. In 1843, Paul Regret (Stuart Whitman), a womanizing gambler wanted for murder after killing the son of a magistrate in a duel, gets captured by Captain Jake Cutter (John Wayne), a tough Texas Ranger. Regret escapes after whacking Jake over the head with a shovel. Jake goes on to impersonate a gunrunner and he and Regret run into each other during a poker game with a nasty-tempered half-scalped Comanchero middleman named Crow (Lee Marvin). Now Jake and Regret must team up to find the renegade Comanchero traders who are selling stolen rifles to Comanche Indians. There’s also Graile (Nehemiah Persoff), the surprisingly cultured yet viscous leader of the Comancheros, and a comely young woman named Pilar (Ina Balin) with forward-thinking ideas about love and desire who fancies Regret.
The fast-moving and witty screenplay by Clair Huffaker and James Edward Grant, who had written THE ALAMO for Wayne and was brought in by him to beef up his character, features lines like a quick-thinking judge saying, “I have come to the positive conclusion that there ain’t no way to do this legal and honest, but being good sensible Texans, we’ll do it illegal and dishonest.” There are also some wince-inducing moments, like the drunken dinner at the Comanchero hideout thrown for the inebriated Comanche chief.
This was director Michael Curtiz’s final film. Curtiz, (CASABLANCA, DODGE CITY) was suffering from cancer and when he became too ill to work, Wayne took over, directing about half the picture. He refused a co-directing credit.
Shot on locations in Utah and Arizona by William H. Clothier (THE ALAMO, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE), the film features scenes of sweeping vistas as well as shadowy noir-like card games. Also, composer Elmer Bernstein’s score is one of his most rousing, ranking alongside his music for THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and THE GREAT ESCAPE.
With a running time of 1 hour and 47 minutes, THE COMANCHEOS is available on Blu-ray, DVD and Amazon Prime.
Our group includes Johnny D. Boggs, record nine-time Spur Award-winning and Owen Wister winner whose work includes BLOODY NEWTON, Kirk Ellis, Emmy-winning screenwriter and producer and also author of the book RIDE LONESOME about the production, themes and historical relevance of that classic film, Kirk’s wife Sheila, David Morrell, award-winning author and New York Times best-selling author of FIRST BLOOD, the novel that introduced the character Rambo, and Robert Nott, author of several books on Western films, including his most recent RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY that examines the production, themes and legacy of the picture that launched Sam Peckinpah’s career.
