Sur la piste des Comanches

Fugitive Gar Davis (Walker) flees from posse across hostile Comanche territory with woman and small boy (Mayo & Eyer), and encounters old foe, the gun-running Clett (Keith).

Fine eyeful of parched southwestern scenery—I counted only one interior (the "hospital" scene) for the entire movie. Sure, Big Clint (not Eastwood) has only one "Yes, ma'm, No, ma'm" demeanor for every scene, but that's okay, even if he didn't get to be the next Gary Cooper.

Putting old-pro Gordon Douglas in charge was a shrewd move. Note the stages the awakening Mayo goes through in discovering that, yes, Walker has stripped off her wet clothes. Note too how Douglas gets that infernal glint in Mayo's eyes when she first suspects Clint of murdering her husband—it's almost scary. I also like the way the Indians are credited with some military sense when overturning the wagons to make shooters' barricades. Most important, Douglas knows how to integrate the picturesque terrain into the storyline—catch that great framing of the Walker-Keith shoot-out.

Fortunately, Warners got Burt Kennedy to do the script— and on the eve of his outstanding work with the Boetticher-Scott ,(Ranown), cycle of Westerns. I suspect Bryan Keith's charming villain was Kennedy's inspiration since likable baddies was a standard Ranown feature. Yes indeed, Keith steals the show with his easy-going charm—a real contrast to the uptight Walker. At this early stage, Keith was an interesting actor, best at squinty-eyed cowpokes as Sam Peckinpah knew when casting him as lead in Peckinpah's brilliant but short-lived TV series The Westerner (1960).

The movie itself may have been a hurry-up job—probably that's why there's no Technicolor despite the great scenery, and probably why we get a recycled plot line from Hondo (1953). I guess the hurry-up was to take advantage of Walker's TV popularity. Still, the movie's a very watchable action-filled adventure. What's more, I don't care if the luscious Mayo was pushing 40, she could put her saddle on my horse any day.

This western follows a familiar genre theme of a loner who comes to the aid of a woman and her son and guides them to safety through Indian country. The plot is spare with a twist of mistaken identity thrown in as an innocent man on the run scrambles to escape a hanging posse hot on his trail. Clint Walker is the reformed gunfighter whose reputation places him on the sheriff's wanted poster as fate takes him to a woman's ranch in the midst of an Indian uprising. Virginia Mayo is the widow and reluctant trail companion of Walker along with her son as they make their way to Fort Dobbs. Brian Keith steals the film as an unsavory gun runner whose rifles play a large part in the Indian attack on the fort. The film is not a polished feature but is a straightforward, no-frills drama and is worth watching.

OK, up front, I'm a huge westerns fan & I've always loved Clint Walker. A lot of these reviews have focused on a comparison with John Wayne's "Hondo". Well, when "Hondo" was made, Wayne had been starring in films for almost 20yrs, so please - guys - cut Clint some slack, OK? He had been plucked from an everyday life only 3yrs before, with no previous acting experience, & this was his first starring role in films, in the lead no less. I think he carried it off pretty well. It's full of good action sequences, the scenes with Clint & child actor Richard Eyer are sweet & the tension between Clint & Brian Keith is pretty cool. The budding "romance" between Clint & Virginia Mayo doesn't come off so well, but I remember reading elsewhere that she wasn't too happy about being cast opposite a TV actor & that there was some resulting tension on the set. All in all, I found this to be a pretty good entry in the western pantheon; well worth watching. As usual, tho, it's too bad Warner skimped & didn't film in color. What a waste of gorgeous scenery, both landscape & their leading man!

In the late 1950's, Warner Brothers was the studio responsible for more westerns on television than any other production company in town (the town being Hollywood, of course!) They made stars out Clint Walker, Ty Hardin, James Garner, Jack Kelly and a host of others who appeared in their half hour and then one hour western dramas, which later became parodies of themselves, as the long running Maverick will prove.

Here, they rework the "Hondo" plot (lone gunman rescues a woman and her son after finding her husband dead) and spend two thirds of the movie getting themselves to Fort Dobbs. I'll stop there, because actually, under the considered hand of director Gordon Douglas, this is actually an okay film. Walker gives a very quiet performance but it's his character, so you buy it. Virginia Mayo and Richard Eyer give better performances, one scene with the kid especially cool-- and the standard cowboys vs. Indians plot is made a bit more edgy by the presence of Brian Keith as the bad guy. He doesn't show up until the 30 minute mark, but he steals the show and has a great time playing the bad guy.

The final scene is laughable ( not in a good way, sorry to say) but prior to that, the action is okay, inter cut with some out takes from "The Searchers", which don't match the Fort Dobbs footage at all.

Contains all the usual Warner Brothers sound effects, gun shots and bodies hitting the ground you've heard hundreds of times. Also, the music was by Max Steiner, which notched it up to a 7 for me.

If you get a chance, give it a look. VERY LITTLE studio work, a whole lot out OUT DOOR SHOOTING, another high point.

After being accused of shooting a man Gar Davis leaves the town of Largo with a posse in hot pursuit . His problems intensify when he comes across the body of a man which means the Comanche tribe are on the war path and with a return to Largo not an option he has to trek through hostile territory on foot . He spots a homestead and tries to steal a horse

As someone who is not a fan of the Western genre I only watched FORT DOBBS because there was nothing else on but found myself enjoying the movie much more than I could possibly have expected . One reason for this is because it resembles the type of story that would attract a director like Walter Hill who made a career out of reworking Anabasis by the ancient Greek writer Xenophon which involves protagonists trying to reach sanctuary through hostile territory and this film makes the best of the scenario and just when the protagonists think safety is in sight another obstacle appears

Perhaps even stranger as someone who isn't keen on Westerns I did notice the genre conventions which could be interpreted as clichés were are the fore such as a man's got to do what a man's got to do , men in white hats against men in black hats and the Injuns are portrayed as violent savages . We even have a kid in the mix but none of this harms the movie probably because it's an involving and exciting tale . One flaw to it is that it's filmed in black and white and one thinks if you're to set a film in a vast landscape which is to all intents and purposes a co-star then the film would have worked even better if it was shot in colour