Borgarkeri
A bit overrated, but still an amazing film
Brennan Camacho
Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
Isbel
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
TheLittleSongbird
While the western genre is not my favourite one of all film genres (not sure which one is my favourite due to trying to appreciate them all the same), there is a lot of appreciation for it by me. There are a lot of very good to great films, with the best work of John Ford being notable examples. 'Comanche Station' is the final collaboration of the seven films director Budd Boetticher and lead actor Randolph Scott did together in the late 50s. By all means 'Comanche Station' is not their best pairing (perhaps towards the lesser end, which is not a knock as this merely means it's only because the best of them are so great), but one can totally see the appeal of their collaborations and both Boetticher and Scott are well served, the film being a good representation of both. It is a very good note to go out on and of their films it is perhaps the most overlooked. Which is a shame because it's a very good film with many excellent elements.By all means not perfect. Nancy Gates is rather bland in a role that is rather underwritten. The film loses momentum on occasions.However, Scott is as stoic and charismatic as ever with an appealingly craggy edge, being both likeable and tough. Every bit as good is a truly menacing Claude Akins, relishing his quite meaty villainous character. The two work very effectively together and their final confrontation is one of 'Comanche Station's' high points. Boetticher's direction is efficient and lean.A big shout has to go to the production values. While there is grandeur and atmosphere to the settings it's the photography that's the star, especially in the unforgettable wordless opening sequence, one of my favourite openings of Boetticher's/Scott's films together. The music is rousing yet never intrusive and the more eventful parts blister.There is thankfully no fat or ramble to the thought-probing, tight and sharply focused script and the storytelling is brutally bleak and movingly elegiac, mostly nicely paced too. 'Comanche Station' may not have the same depth of characterisation as other Boetticher/Scott outings or character complexity, but the two lead characters are interesting and the character interaction is a major plus point numerous times. Notably with Scott and Akins in their final confrontation, which positively blisters.On the whole, very good. 8/10 Bethany Cox
bsmith5552
"Comanche Station" was the seventh and final collaboration between Producer/Director Budd Boetticher and star Randolph Scott.Again, Scott is a loner searching for something or somebody. As Jefferson Cody he riding to negotiate the freedom of a white woman from the Comanche. The woman turns out to be Nancy Lowe (Nancy Gates) who was taken during a stagecoach holdup. We learn much later that Cody has been searching for his wife who had been similarly taken ten years before.Cody plans to take the woman back to her husband in Lordsburg. They arrive at Comanche Station, a relay station and find it deserted. Just then three men are fleeing a hostile Comanche war party. They join Cody and manage to drive the Indians away.Ben Lane (Claude Akins) is the leader and he and Cody immediately recognize each other. It seems they have a past. The other two are simple uneducated drifters, Frank (Skip Homier) and Dobie (Richard Rust). The station agent (Rand Brooks) rides in with an arrow in his chest and warns of the warring Comanche bands all over the area before he dies.Cody decides that he better move on. Lane decides to go along since there is a $5,000 reward for the return of Mrs. Lowe to her husband. Both Cody and Lane wonder out loud why the husband did not come after his wife himself. Lane tells Cody that he is after the reward and will do anything necessary, including killing Cody, to get it.Lane sends Frank ahead to scout the Comanche only to find him floating down the stream dead. Cody is attacked by the Comanche while searching for a safe crossing across an open area. In a curious move, Lane rides to his rescue and saves Cody's life. In an earlier moving scene between Frank an Dobie, they discuss their lives and life choices. Frank is satisfied with his life as is, while Dobie longs for something better.Finally, Lane decides to make his move to kill Cody. Dobie tries to leave not wanting to be a part of the killing but is shot down by Lane. Cody then goes after Lane and......................................This being the last film in the series, one can look back and see many similarities in the plots of the various films. For example. Scott's characters are all loners for one reason or another searching for something. He and whomever he is "bringing in" always seemed to arrive at a relay station where the main characters hook up. They all ride out in a group to escape either the Indians or a pursuing gang across open country and the same bushed in areas. (I'm sure I spotted that hanging tree from "Ride Lonesome" (1958) in this film. Scott never actually gets to the town he is headed for, I suppose due to budget restrictions.Nevertheless It was a great series of beautifully photographed little westerns. Randolph Scott decided to "hang 'em up" after this film only to be lured out of retirement for one last film in 1962's "Ride the Hugh Country"
tomsview
"Comanche Station" rides into "The Searchers" territory, but also feels a little like the funky television westerns of the 1960's such as Steve McQueen's "Wanted Dead or Alive" or Nick Adams "The Rebel".When Jefferson Cody (Randolph Scott) rescues Nancy Lowe (Nancy Gates) from the Comanche their troubles are just starting when they meet up with a trio of outlaws led by Ben Lane (Claude Atkins). The journey back to civilisation is a tense one, as Cody now has to protect Nancy from their saddle companions as well as the Indians. There is the inevitable showdown, but the ending does have a surprise. Director Bud Boetticher's westerns with Randolph Scott have been reappraised over the last couple of decades, especially this one, the last they made together.The film looks terrific. Boetticher had an eye for country. He gets as much out of the rocky setting as Ford got out of Monument Valley.It's also a fascinating collision of acting styles. Randolph Scott by this stage of his career looked positively granite-hued, and represented the rugged individuals who had forged a place for themselves in the American West – a man of few words, but sure of himself. Scott played this sort of role throughout most of his career, but I always felt that he walked the walk, and talked the talk with a bit more authority than John Wayne. During WW1 Scott had enlisted in the U.S. Army and dodged sniper bullets and shellfire in France as an artillery observer, all detailed in Robert Nott's book "The Films of Randolph Scott".The opposite of Scott's stoicism comes from the input of Skip Homier and Richard Rust as Frank and Dobie, Ben Lane's two sidekicks. Both brought a touch of method to the saddle and their troubled teens could just as easily have been stalking the sidewalks of late 1950s New York – James Dean would have felt right at home riding with this party. Even the Indians with their identical hairdos look more like a gang than a tribe.Ford and others had probably given us enough of the way The West really was. Not so worried about authenticity, Boetticher gave this western a contemporary edge that still works today.
runamokprods
Solid, well done western, with an elegiac, muted, deliberately paced feel, despite the tense plot.A cowboy (Randolph Scott) 'buys back' a stolen white woman from the Comanche's. We quickly learn that other men are searching for her too – there's a reward of $5000 for her return. But Scott doesn't seem like a mercenary, unlike the three men he's forced into joining up with after an Native American ambush. Claude Akins plays Scott's opposite. A man with no heart, for whom money is everything. He has two young sidekicks, both little more than kids, who seem to have fallen in with Akins mostly for having little other choices in life. The film is always interesting, even if it feels pretty predictable about where it ends up. There are a couple of good, surprising twists however. This lacks the moral complexity of Boetticher's earlier 'Decision at Sundown', but it's better shot and acted
