Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

ianlouisiana ....but that has no more relevance to its merit than the fact that human beings share 30% of their DNA with the humble earthworm. Released 6 months before John Ford's magnum opus,"Comanche" also features the same actor as the renegade Indian - Mr H.Brandon - and several scenes that are strangely similar.Whether this was happenstance,coincidence or enemy action is a matter known only to God now presumably. Standing on its own it is a passable post - bellum Western with a bored - looking Mr D.Andrews as a Scout (kissing - cousin of a Comanche chief who is trying to wind in the more independently minded young men of his tribe led by the aforesaid Mr Brandon)and make a treaty with the U.S.Government. Made in the days when it never occurred to most people that the Indians had every right to defend their lands against the White Eyes,the film makes a creditable attempt to present Native Americans with some dignity and humanity rather than portray them merely as howling savages as had been Hollywood's wont for the previous 40 years. Having said that,it is packed with clichéd characters and situations that director Mr G.Sherman lacks the will or the imagination to invest with a fresh eye. Mr Andrews and his comic sidekick ("Puffer" by name,poltroon by nature) with the help of the Cavalry eventually win through against the renegades and a Pax Americana is imposed on the Indians who will meekly buckle under to the forces of democracy thus proving once again to 1950s movie audiences that Might is Right. Mr M.Mazurki is particularly embarrassing as an Indian brave. Watching this in the cinema then going home to watch "The Lone Ranger" on TV made me wonder if the Trusty Indian Companion of the Mysterious Masked Stranger didn't need a kick up the backside.

classicsoncall The film offers two unique features I haven't seen in a Western before. For starters, it utilizes Americans as intermediaries between the warring Mexicans and Comanches, involved in a years long series of revenge massacres by both sides. The other would have to be the finale where Chief Quanah Parker (Kent Smith) doesn't interfere in the battle between the Cavalry and Black Cloud's (Henry Brandon) renegade band of Comanches. As an aside, I would also go so far as to suggest that I've never seen as many Indians in one place at one time on the movie screen.Dana Andrews portrays cavalry scout Jim Read, by now relegated to films of lesser quality than those in which he gained his stature as a genuine Hollywood star (1944's "Laura" and 1946's "The Best Years Of Our Lives"). Producers considered him an actor of limited range and it didn't help his reputation that he drank too much. Andrews appeared competent here, although the role didn't call for a lot more than your typical cavalry Western. The story matched him up with partner Nestor Paiva as an old salt frontiersman named Puffer. Apparently it was someone's idea to have Paiva resurrect the character of Gabby Hayes, but doing a Walter Brennan impersonation. That kept me off balance for a while, but I did get a chuckle out of Mike Mazurki calling black jack on Puffer in one scene.The other casting decision of note was the American film debut of Linda Cristal, who I would not have recognized apart from her starring role in 'The High Chapparal'. The pace of her relationship with Read seemed a bit forced, particularly given the circumstances of her capture by the Comanches.Catching the film the other day on Turner Classics, I was impressed by the color cinematography given the era. Offered in wide screen letterbox format, the film makers took full advantage of the natural beauty in the Durango area of Old Mexico. Where they could have improved though was the selection of a theme song; the bouncy beat of "A man is as good as his word" kept me making an unintentional comparison to the "Bonanza" TV series, quite expecting to see the Cartwrights round the corner at any moment. Which would have been some trick, since they were still a few years off.

Michael O'Keefe COMANCHE is filmed in Durango, Mexico for a sense of authenticity. It is also one of the first Hollywood films to be sympathetic toward the Native American Indian. A Comanche attack on a Mexican village nets the capture of several woman and children including the lovely Margarita(Linda Cristal). Black Cloud(Henry Brandon)is a hotheaded brave that have no use for the white man, let alone Mexicans, whom he can also get the pleasure of scalping. Jim Read(Dana Andrews)is a strong willed frontier scout, who hopes to shield his Native American friends from a bigoted genocidal Gen. Miles(John Litel). It is Read and his friendship with Chief Quanah Parker(Kent Smith)that restores trust and peace between the Indians and the white man. This is Cristal's movie debut. Andrews, not out of the norm, is wooden. Others in the cast: Nestor Paiva, Tony Carbajal, Lowell Gilmore and Iron Eyes Cody.

westerner357 Dana Andrews is called in to negotiate a peace treaty with the Comanches raiding across the border into Mexico. There are elements on both sides who don't want peace including the Indian-hating scalphunters on the one hand, and the breakaway Comanches (led by Black Cloud) on the other.I hate to say it but Kent Smith isn't convincing as Quanah Parker. If they were going to have this kind of robotic dialog, then they should have at least gotten Charles Bronson or Steven McNally to do it since they look more Indian-like than the blue-eyed, fair-haired Smith does. Yeah, I know Parker was half-white and all that, but still...Plus you have Dana Andrews and the rest of the cast looking like they are sleepwalking through the whole thing. It's as if everyone is just going through the motions with little or no effort. Were they bored with it, or was it only what the script demanded?The only character who was remotely interesting was Andrews' sidekick Puffer, played by Nestor Paiva. He looked sufficiently grizzled for the part without resorting to too much of the silliness that say, Gabby Hayes would have done if he had played the role. It's too bad his part wasn't bigger.The battle scenes look lame even by 50s standards with the whole thing having a rushed look to it, despite the widescreen technicolor cinematography by George Stahl. This use of color was a rarity on United Artists part since they mostly shot their westerns in b/w.And with the title music sung by The Lancers sounding all hokey and Disney-like, all it does is bring it down a couple of more notches for me. 3 out of 10