Sadly Over-hyped

Admirable film.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Chuka is directed by Gordon Douglas and adapted to screenplay by Richard Jessup from his own novel. It stars Rod Taylor, John Mills, Ernest Borgnine, Luciana Paluzzi, James Whimore, Louis Hayward and Victoria Vetri. Music is by Leith Stevens and Pthe Color photography by Harold E. Stine.1876 and Fort Clendenon is host to a bunch of army misfits and a lovelorn gunslinger, hardly a group capable of defending the Fort against an impending Arapaho attack...A super cast and a rather gorgeous colour print can't avert this being a distinctly average Siege Oater. Prodution wise it's a hodgepodge, an uneasy blend of stuffy looking studio bound sequences, matte paintings and airy locales, while the acting, sparse characterisations and general reliance on non meaty chatty filler scenes, all make it an odd viewing experience.The chat angle is most frustrating, not so much because there is so much of it so as to make this a 90% talky piece, but in that there are moments of great dialogue, where interesting character arcs are dangled, but alas they are threads that are never pulled to the benefit of all. Action is sparse but what there is is competently staged, with the siege itself - while not worth the wait - has enough moments of excitement and intelligence so as to not annoy.A very good and intriguing ending further adds to the strange mix of poor and good of it all, but ultimately it's average and hardly essential for fans of Westerns and the stars involved. 5/10

Confronted with impending starvation and death "Chief Hanu" (Marco Lopez) of the Arapaho tribe mulls attacking a nearby United States Army outpost to acquire food and weapons. Although the commanding officer of the fort "Colonel Stuart Valois" (John Mills) fully understands the plight of the Arapaho, his superiors don't believe an attack is imminent and have forbidden him to help them out. Adding to his concern is the fact that the soldiers he has under his command are extremely undisciplined and a search party he has recently sent out has yet to return. Along with that a stagecoach carrying two female passengers and a gunslinger has arrived and with them the driver brings even more ominous news. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film turned out to be a solid, no frills western for the most part. Admittedly, some of the action scenes were a bit too far-fetched with the gunslinger "Chuka" (Rod Taylor) being much too fast and accurate with his pistol to be believed. Even so, I liked the way the story progressed and I thought that Luciana Paluzzi was perfectly cast as "Senora Veronica Kleitz". Be that as it may, I enjoyed this movie and because of that I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

This is a movie that constantly teeters on the brink of being awful, yet somehow continually proves itself to be interesting and entertaining. Here's what I liked:Rod Taylor pulls off the role of charismatic "pistolero" loner quite well.I don't know how plausible it is for a former British army officer to be commanding U.S. troops, but John Mills character adds a unique texture to the Western setting.The characters in the movie were very well developed in terms of complexity. Ernest Borgnine and James Whitmore provide excellent supporting acting.I liked the fact that a strong Mexican theme was introduced through the love interest. It was nice to see a Mexican aristocrat portrayed and not the usual ragged, barefoot street vendor/flunkie.Although the Indians were presented as stereotypical murderers threatening the heroes, they were given legitimate cause for their extreme actions.I enjoyed a couple of "super macho" scenes, one involving a extended fist fight between Taylor and Borgnine and the other involving an extended Tequila drinking bout by Taylor and Whitmore.A shout out to lovely Bond girl Luciana Paluzzi. She's very effective as a complex love interest for Taylor.Here's some things I didn't like:There's maybe too much time spent developing the back stories of the main characters. The movie needed more action oriented subplots, especially since it was told as a flashback i.e. We already knew the ending.I found the general pacing too slow, starting with Chuka's long pony ride through the snow at the beginning.Maybe the Arapahoes were starving, but Rod Taylor sure wasn't. Hard to imaging getting that pudgy wandering around the desert on a horse. You think the guy could have worked out a little for this part.I don't know how to shoot a pistol, but I'm sure Taylor's firing technique is extremely poor. Hard to believe he never misses.This was shot almost entirely on set. I like Westerns to have significant location shoots in the West, not in Burbank.The Burbank set itself was very cheap and the whole movie had a cartoonish feel. This was dissonant with its rather grim and violent plot.Was it necessary to reveal that Colonel Valois is no longer a "complete man" because he was sexually mutilated by natives in the Sudan? This was a bizarre non-sequitur introduced late in the movie.There is zero comic relief, at least intentional comic relief.

The story occurs in 1876 , Chuka (Rod Taylor) is a grizzled gunfighter who helps an unexperienced though honorable cavalry officer to roust renegade soldiers and a tribe of Arapahoe Indians . When the main characters arrive at the fort a soldier being flogged for desertion (though hipping or whipping had been prohibited by the U.S. Army as of 5 August 1861) . There Cavalry commandant (John Mills) is saddled not only problems with Native American but irritability among his own troops (Louis Hayward) . Chuka eventually puts the bridle on tight and protects a pair of damsels (gorgeous Luciana Paluzzi and Angela Dorian or Victoria Vetri , famous Miss Playboy) in distress . The Indians are out on a rampage of killing , vengeance against the white intruders and with the aim for getting food .This is an unusually brutal tale of a hard-bitten gunslinger assembling a detail of misfit cavalrymen to hold-off rampaging Indians . Rod Taylor and an expert all-star-cast shine in this gripping story about a surrounded garrison and director takes a fine penned screenplay creating a cavalry-Indians tale that is far from ordinary , exploring the anguish and desperation of soldiers . It's the habitual theme about an unit stranded by enemies and their grueling efforts to break the siege , issue imitated many other times . The picture contains nice moments but partially unsatisfying for the reason of the claustrophobic environment . Produced by Rod Taylor , this Western is predictable and conventional but entertaining . It displays a colorful and adequate cinematography by Harold E. Stine . In addition , atmospheric as well as evocative musical score by Leith Stevens . The motion picture was professionally directed by Gordon Douglas . He's an expert on adventures genre such as ¨Black arrow¨ , ¨Fortunes of Captain Blood¨ , both starred by Louis Hayward and Western , as he proved in the films starred by Clint Walker such as ¨Fort Dobbs¨, ¨Yellowstone Kelly¨ , ¨Gold of seven Saints¨ , Gregory Peck as ¨Only the valiant¨ in similar plot to ¨Chuka¨ , Richard Boone as ¨Rio Conchos¨ considered the best , and on legendary bandits as ¨Doolins of Oklahoma¨ , ¨Great Missouri raid¨ , among others .