It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This has all the hallmarks of being what later became known as a revisionary Western . By this I mean Hollywood woke up to the fact that the indigenous Native Americans had a raw deal from history and Hollywood movies featuring whooping injuns portrayed as violent savages weren't helping matters much hence in the late 1960s and early 70s you'd get movies like SOLDIER BLUE and LITTLE BIG MAN and later still we had DANCES WITH WOLVES that showed the wild west through the eyes of the Indians . This 1956 film called COMANCHE pre-dates these revisionary Westerns where the poor noble misunderstood savage is set upon by the white man Actually it doesn't because from the outset we're shown it's the Mexican/Hispanic community who are all to blame . We're given a short history lesson that when Spain conquered Mexico the Spanish held the Comanches at gunpoint and made them work down the mines gathering silver . Understandably the native population were a bit angry about this and revolted leading to the Spanish to stamp upon them . After Mexico gained its independence the slaughter continued with Mexicans putting a bounty on Indian scalps 100 dollars for a warrior , 50 dollars for a squaw and 25 dollars for a child" Wow Theo that is so cruel and if anyone did that today they'd be getting arrested and tried for crimes against humanity at The Hague " Undoubtedly and rightly but you have to ask yourself a rhetorical question that would the native population of the United States be getting a better deal ? No they wouldn't this film tends to ignore this and seems to portray the United States White Anglo-Saxon Protestant as being morally superior to that of their Hispanic neighbours who are portrayed as being as untrustworthy but are very good guitar players and it's left to an American WASP to save the day This cultural arrogance is not so much offensive but a great pity because COMANCHE did have some potential to be a good Western that would have appealed to people who don't like the Western genre . It does try to push the boat out against the Hays Code by having a slightly sadistic streak but then sabotages it by including a couple of songs over the soundtrack

The period is 1875. The War Between The States had ended. But South of the Rio Grande, another more ancient and cruel war continued. Peaceful Mexican villages were tragic victims...Comanche is directed by George Sherman and stars Dana Andrews as frontier scout Jim Read, who is sent to hopefully broker peace between Mexicans and the Comanche. As usual conflict exists within the tribe {Quanah Parker and Black Cloud}, as it does within the cavalry. Thus peace will be very hard to establish after years of mistreatment and mistrust.Filmed entirely in Durango, Old Mexico for authenticity and shot in deluxe colour for a Cinemascope production, Comanche is a very tidy B Western offering. The action scenes are well constructed, with the Blanco Canyon scenes particularly eye catching; as the cavalry and divided Comanche armies form. While the acting, although far from being great, is competent and never at any time hinders the movie. Some misplaced jauntiness and a shoe-horned in romantic arc {Linda Cristal} threaten to derail the piece, and no doubt about it the film has over familiarity issues with Delmer Daves' far better Broken Arrow from 1950. But it's an interesting story that offers up something different within the genre. And since we may never get a great film that deals with the Quanah Parker {played by Kent Smith here} story, Comanche at least made the effort, and made the effort to watch it worthwhile.Solid, interesting and enjoyable. 6.5/10

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.

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