Load of rubbish!!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Not the greatest Western,but a nice enough effort.How anyone could say it's awful must be looking for FX.Dana Andrews not at his best,but makes an honest effort.Henry Brandon is as wooden here as Black Cloud as he was as one of Maximilian's soldiers/officers in Vera Cruz.Linda Cristal and Dana show their having gotten quite close during Mexican filming.Loved the wig.Didn't realize Lowell Gilmore,one of my favorites was in this as an agent for the U.S. Government.Kent Smith again co-stars with Dana Andrews,as Indian Chief trying to keep his nemesis Black Cloud from gumming up the peace with Washington,DC.Just thought it was a decent enough film.

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

There's nothing like seeing close-ups of actors portraying Native Americas / American Indians, who have blue eyes. The huge "buck" who throws a man off a cliff (when he's actually at the top of a sloping hill) is somewhat familiar Austro-Hungarian actor Mike Mazurki. The movie is really lame, just another celebration of the story of European subjugation of a continent through complete lack of respect for other cultures. And we wonder why Muslims don't love us? Might be worth watching by film students who want to learn how NOT to make a movie. If you don't grasp my meaning by my summary, maybe you would like this film. Granted, the production values are high, but the overwhelming white-bias that the film typifies should not be lost on viewers. Quanah Parker in a headdress with bison horns is typical Hollywood fluff. The most ethnic of actors portraying characters of any significance in this film is Nestor Paiva, whose role include such distinguished native portrayals as a Po-Ho chief and a Native Guide, on the animated series, Jonny Quest. Comanche is worth watching if you are bored and have nothing else to do, but don't pay money to rent it! I will grant, for the sake of full disclosure, the following: (1) I am NOT an American Indian, and (2) I DO have a degree in American Indian Studies from the University of Wisconsin.

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?