Comanche Station

Comanche Station is the last of several films Randolph Scott made for Budd Boetticher with Columbia pictures. This would have been his last film, but for being lured to do just one more, the immortal Ride the High Country.

The film combines elements of The Naked Spur and Two Rode Together and blends them successfully. Scott is a man with one obsession, to get his wife back from the Comanches who kidnapped here ten years earlier. Whenever he hears of a white woman being put up for trade by the Indians he heads out with trade goods and buys her in the hopes of finding his beloved.

On this trip he ransoms Nancy Gates away from the Comanches. Later on he runs into an old enemy Claude Akins traveling with two young guns, Richard Rust and Skip Homeier. It seems as though Nancy's husband has put up a ten thousand dollar reward for her.

Akins is a truly malevolent figure, a scalphunter who kills Indians and sells their scalps for bounty. Unfortunately the two have need of each other in hostile Indian territory.

Randolph Scott's western heroes usually have an edge to them, they are not pure heroes as Joel McCrea's are. But in this film he's poaching on McCrea's territory in gallantry. His behavior towards Nancy Gates is at all times chivalrous. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a medieval origin to the plot of Comanche Territory.

Had Scott not come back to do Ride the High Country, Comanche Station would have been a good film to go out on.

Story details by other reviewers of Commanche Station are well written; I would like to look at details of this side-lined Western.

To fully understand the nature of Randolph Scott Westerns you have to think the 1950's; I can because I was there, watching every ' cowboy film ' that came out. Westerns then were part of a boys everyday life. I remember at the age of 8-10 riding around my home town on an imaginary horse; we even formed imaginary posses!.....and Westerns were being shown at local cinemas every week.

Randolph Scott played other parts in his long career but achieved a curious fame as a man-of-few-words cowboy. What was it that drew audiences to him despite his limited acting ability?

It is simply this. He was tall and lean, epitomising the rangy, half-starved loner who is doomed, like the Flying Dutchmen to roam the western badlands fruitlessly. He was stoic, thin- lipped, stern-looking, brooding, with sad eyes, forever looking to the next horizon, as he does in this film. If you look into Scott's face there's faint suggestion of longing, a faint wistfulness, hidden by a determined effort to hide any weakness. It's a face that no other western hero has, making Scott a magnet on screen......in the light of this,his acting ability was not in question.

Comanche Station also has a surprisingly good performance from Claude Akins; in fact, stealing a few scenes from Scott. He epitomized malevolency and cold cunning, but smiled easily, perversely emphasising points he made in the character. One long observation his character made concerning Nancy's return to her husband was loaded with cynicism and spite....perfect.In the action scenes he showed himself also to be a fine horseman.....if that really was him firing a rifle on horseback!

Nancy Gates cruised thru her role with little impact; but what western girl didn't?......in the hard, troubled world of the 1950's clearly defined male cowboy, there was little room for strong females.

Commanche Station is a great Western because of it's love affair with the very nature of the genre; tall enigmatic men, the outback, the wide open spaces, the tumbled rocks that threaten to hide hoards of Indians, and the ever-present but unloved horses, surely the most unsung animal of all time.

You'll remember this film because of these things; but mostly because here, encapsulated in 70 minutes, are all of the elements and nuances that all great westerns have or should have.

What more do you want?!

Saw this film again tonite via the DVD, mainly because it's Scott's penultimate film. Immediately thought of similarity to Scott's The Tall T, later to Ride Lonesome and Seven Men from Now. Difference is I'd give that Elmore Leonard story a few notches on this. Claude Akins is better than just Movin On but doesn't have the menace of Richard Boone or Lee Marvin. Scenery is favored over dialogue. Lots of cutting from scene to scene to indicate time has passed. Skip Hoemeier reprises his role as number 2 gun hand to the villain (Billy Jack to Boone ). Scott is great trading with the Comanche or getting the drop on the bad guys. Lots of good but familiar dialogue- "Seemed like a good idea". He is the archetype noble cowboy true to his values and keeping his dignity, yet always practical. I like this film very much and will watch it again; I'm sure.

The last of the seven Scott/Boetticher collaborations and although it's not one of my favorites {THE TALL T (1957) and RIDE LONESOME (1959) come out ahead}, it's still worth owning on DVD if Columbia/Tristar ever sees fit to release it.

Randolph Scott plays a rancher named Jefferson Cody who's wife was kidnapped by the Comanches a few years before. When he hears that the Comanches are holding a white woman, he goes to them for a trade and winds up with another man's wife named Mrs. Lowe (Nancy Gates).

As they head back, they stop at Comanche Station in order to water their horses and get fresh supplies. When they arrive there, they see three men being chased by a bunch of Comanches on the warpath. Cody recognizes one of them as Ben Lane (Claude Akins), a soldier he had drummed out of the army for an atrocity against the Indians, many years before. He also suspects Lane is trafficking in scalps and that's why the Indians are after them.

They manage to fight them off and when the coast is clear, Lane informs Mrs. Lowe that she has a $5,000 reward put up for her by her husband. Mrs. Lowe then suspects Cody of his intentions but it's apparent from the beginning that Cody isn't interested in any reward money. He just wants to find out what happened to his wife.

Also Lane has a habit of saying "Ha-lo.." every time he's being addressed. A nice script touch put in there by Burt Kennedy who wrote the script. It gives Lane something to distinguish him by.

It now becomes a battle of wills between Cody and Lane with Mrs. Lowe and Lane's two dimwitted sidemen (played by Skip Homeier and Richard Rust) looking on. When Frank (Homeier) is sent up the creek to see if the Comanches have cut off their trail, he comes floating back down, dead with an arrow in his back. And later when Dobie (Rust) has a change of heart and wants to throw in with Cody, he gets shot in the back by Lane for his efforts.

That shot warns Cody that Lane is nearby and the inevitable showdown takes place in the Lone Pine rocks. We all know who wins that one, right? Cody finally brings Mrs. Lowe back to her husband only to learn that he is blind and really doesn't care what's happened to her. He just wants her back.

Beautiful widescreen print that was remastered in the late 1990s, this one would be a welcome addition to any western library. It needs a DVD release.

7 out of 10

A magazine article recently cited this movie as an underrated western. I certainly agree. Randolph Scott made his best westerns in the latter part of his career, and this is one of those. The movie examines the old west moral code of right v. wrong and raps up with a surprising twist ending that gives cynicism a kick in the rear end. Not a big splashy western, but a solid little one.