Comanche (1956)

User Rating:

5.3/10   

Director:

George Sherman

Writer:

Carl Krueger (written by)

Release Date:

March 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

The Never-Before-Told Epic of the Last Great Indian Battle...Filmed in the All-The-Earth-Spanning Power of CinemaScope

Plot Keywords:

Dead Children | Native American | Child Murder | Comanche Indian

Cast

Dana Andrews	...	Jim Read
Kent Smith	...	Quanah Parker
Nestor Paiva	...	Puffer
Henry Brandon	...	Black Cloud
Stacy Harris	...	Downey (as Stacey Harris)
John Litel	...	Gen. Nelson A. Miles
Lowell Gilmore	...	Commissioner Ward
Mike Mazurki	...	Flat Mouth
Tony Carbajal	...	Little Snake
Linda Cristal	...	Margarita (as Miss Linda Cristal)
Reed Sherman	...	Lt. French

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Durango, Mexico

Company:

Carl Krueger Productions

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When the Comanches ride down the main street of the Mexican village, a crewmember wearing a white shirt, dark pants, and a hat can be seen at the lower-right-hand side of the screen turning around and walking off to screen right.

Quotes:

Jim Read: Let's head for Medicine Mound. You can see it for miles. The Comanche don't go there except to die.

Soundtrack:

A Man Is As Good As His Word

Hokey, Hackneyed, Hammy Western Yarn - A Must to Avoid!

There are so many aspects of this film that are bad, it is difficult to decide where to begin. Filmed in Technicolor, this was NOT a B-grade movie. Yet I have seen many B-grade westerns that are superior to this utterly pedestrian effort at film-making. In fact, the color film is the only thing about this movie that is decent. The cinematography, itself, is unremarkable. The scenery, shown once would have been unremarkable, too. The same location shown repeatedly, however, is laughable.

Worst of all is the soundtrack. The Lancers' upbeat, ersatz-folk sound is hopelessly out of sync with the story, giving the film a kind of schizophrenic quality. The songs, with a change of lyrics, would be better suited to a Frankie and Annette film of the same era - or an upbeat Disney movie.

Then there's the acting - or better stated as a question - where's the acting? In particular, I have never been able to understand how Dana Andrews ever had a career in film. He is absolutely the most wooden actor ever seen in Hollywood. His delivery is the same whether he is portraying a film noir tough guy or an Indian scout. His face always has the exact same expression - utterly impassive. Whether his character is experiencing joy or sorrow, his face looks exactly the same. Who told this guy he could act? He must have had the dope on a lot of Hollywood big-wigs to have been cast in films - even as an extra! The rest of the cast is apparently mimicking other actors - the Gabby Hayes wannabe, the Stewart Granger wannabe, the Dolores Del Rio wannabe. They are all pretty much on autopilot - delivering caricatures rather than portraying characters.

The question I have whenever I subject myself to an abomination such as this is: Who is most to blame - the actors or the director? Did the director actually want these actors to act as they did, or was he simply incapable of getting anything else out of them? What would Ed Wood have accomplished with a budget such as this director had at his disposal?