The Comancheros (1961)

Just like your first rattler. One look and you'll know.

After winning a duel with a prominent and connected New Orleans man, gambler Paul Regret (Stuart Whitman) has to flee on account of impending arrest for murder. But he is soon captured by Texas Ranger, Jake Cutter (John Wayne), who sets about returning him to Louisiana to be hanged. However, in spite of their obvious professional differences, the men are forced to come together to fight The Comancheros, renegade white men who smuggle guns and whiskey to the Comanche Indians.

The credentials for The Comancheros are out of the top draw. Directed by Michael Curtiz, starring John Wayne, with support from the likes of Lee Marvin, Henry Daniel, Edgar Buchanan, Ina Balin, Jack Elam & Bruce Cabot. While the score is provided by Elmer Bernstein and cinematography is courtesy of William H. Clothier. It's based on a story by Paul Wellman and although far from being a top tier Duke Wayne Oater, it's an amiable action packed movie that has an old fashioned feel to it.

This was to be Curtiz's last film as he was to pass away shortly afterwards, he was helped on the direction by Wayne who requested to be uncredited for his work, while Cliff Lyons was on hand for some of the action sequences. The acting is solid and the cast seem to be having fun, though a romantic strand between Whitman's Regret & Balin's Pilar is badly developed, but around them all is the Utah & Arizona locale which is beautifully utilised by the talented Clothier.

An entertaining Oater to pass away a Sunday afternoon with. 6/10

This movie was directed by both Michael Curtiz and John Wayne himself although the latter was never credited as a director. I so enjoyed myself when watching this movie. It is indeed a classical John Wayne western very far from todays special effects loaded action movies. I guess you must have a bit of a nostalgic attachment to old classics, characters like John Wayne and western movies in order to enjoy this movie.

John Wayne plays his classical slightly grumpy, all honest, tough guy that I really like. I remember one of my greatest disappointments as a kid was when John Wayne played a character that actually turned out to be the bad guy at the end. On top of everything he died at the end! I was so pissed off, almost traumatized.

The story is pretty much what the book blurb says. Nothing fancy. There is a pretty lady thrown in of course although it is not John Wayne who gets her at the end, or even aspires to get her, but the gambler, Paul Regret, who, not surprisingly, turns out to be one of the good guys. The story holds together pretty well and there are of course plenty of opportunities for both fist-fights and gun-fights.

The gun-fight are where it turns a bit silly though. The big fights are mostly a whole bunch of Indians mixed up with some white crooks attacking on horseback riding around shooting wildly until the directors decides that it is time for the next scene and they ride away. A handful of people, sometimes barely that, repeatedly stand against 50 or more bad guys on horseback yet they always come out on top. That is pretty silly to me. It makes for some nice old-fashioned gun-fights but it is still rather silly. More the kind of stuff that would be put in a children's movie today.

Still the movie was really fun for me to watch. The good guys are really good guys and the bad guys are well done. I especially appreciated Lee Marwin's performance as Tully Crow in the bad guy department. Also, as is usual in these oldie movies, the opponents can have a fight (verbal as well as physical) and still communicate fairly intelligently without swearing their heads off.

I would recommend this movie when you are in a nostalgic Western mood looking for some light entertainment.

A Western Divine Comedy.
This Duke Western is a modern day Dante's Inferno, as two protagonists enter a Hell on Earth.
This "Hell" is created by an evil sadist played by Nehemiah Persoff. The two protagonists are Jake, played by John Wayne, and Regret, played by Stuart Whitman.
Jake is a no nonsense Texas ranger with a weakness. He's honest. Regret is a likable lady's man who never looks for trouble, but trouble always finds him.
Ina Balin plays the love interest for Regret. She becomes the "guide" into Hell late into the film. She has two helpers, played by Michael Ansara and Richard Devon. At the time this was made, Ansara was playing honorable characters and Devon less honorable characters, so a "switch" was made on their roles in this film. Ansara plays a sadist even worse than Persoff's devil.
Lee Marvin gets a high billing, but has a role that would normally be about 12th billing.
The wit and charm of this Western really makes it a semi classic. It has the greatest of the famous Duke lines: "Don't make a habit of saying that too often, and once more will be too often". That lines sticks out among the great lines of his films as the coolest.
The protagonists begin with Jake arresting Regret, but Jake has to take Regret through an outskirt of Hell, and Regret finds an opportunity to escape.
Later, he accidentally finds Regret while working undercover to investigate Crow, played by Lee Marvin.
The "Divine Comedy" of the West sees different supporting characters in this man made Hell, and how they react. There's McBain, Crow, Esteban, Gordo, and others. Who will reject Hell and who will fight to keep Hell intact?

This was always one of my favourite John Wayne films from childhood and the “Friday Western” on BBC2. Here he’s a Texas ranger who finds himself working with the suave, debonair and entirely untrustworthy duellist “Regret” (Stuart Whitman) against some very heavily armed renegades. Someone is running guns to the Comanches who are in turn marauding with some unsavoury folks based somewhere deep in the desert. “Jake” (Wayne) and his reluctant friend manage to capture a recognition banner from the Indians and so armed with a wagon load of rifles - without firing pins, of course - head off in search of their secret headquarters. When they arrive at a large hacienda in a well protected valley, they encounter the wheelchair bound mastermind of the operation “Gralle” (Nehemiah Persoff), his daughter “Pilar” (Ina Balin) and their chief henchman “Amelung” (Michael Ankara) and hope they can pass as potential suppliers. Unfortunately for the pair, she recognised “Jake” from a previous meeting when he was wearing his star - but she also quite likes “Regret” so is she going to turn them in to her ruthless father or might she be ruled by her heart instead? I thought the unlikely partnership between the Duke and Whitman worked quite well here, with the latter man delivering quite an effective foil to a star who was really just being John Wayne. There is plenty of action, especially towards the conclusion, and of course the settings are panoramically photographed to give us a grand scale view of the Utah locations for these death pedlars and their pursuing lawmen. Lee Marvin adds a bit of character for a while with his scheming “Crow”, Patrick Wayne provides some family eye-candy and there’s Jack Elam, though not really enough of him, as the unfortunately monikered “Horseface” delivering his usual blend of maniacal, semi-comedic, menace. It’s a proficiently crafted piece of adventure cinema that I quite enjoyed.