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Powerful

One of my all time favorites.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

"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.

Upon hearing that a white woman has been captured by the Comanches, "Jefferson Cody" (Randolph Scott) rides to their camp with the hope of trading some goods for her release. As it turns out the woman, "Nancy Lowe" (Nancy Gates) has had a $5000 reward put out by her husband for her return. Dead or alive. And it's this provision that has bounty hunters scouring the territory looking for her. As luck would have it, after riding off with Mrs. Lowe they come upon 3 hombres who want to take Mrs. Lowe back themselves and in order to do that they are willing to kill both Jefferson Cody and Nancy Lowe if that is what it takes. At any rate, rather than going over the whole story and ruining the movie for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this is a good, old-fashioned western which fans of the genre will probably enjoy. A bit predictable perhaps, but still a good movie overall. Slightly above average.

Could have rightly been titled "Ride Lonesome, Again", as in the first and last scenes, Scott is leisurely riding alone through a rocky wilderness, in this last teaming with Bud Beotticher. As in the previous "Ride Lonesome", Randy eventually finds himself traveling with a young married woman and 3 other men of dubious character. Again, there are several dramatic hostile encounters with Native Americans(NAs) : Comanches with 'mohawks' in this case!! This time, it's the woman who has a reward($5000.) for her return(dead or alive!!), rather than a man, as in "Ride Lonesome". In both films, Scott's character is not interested in the bounty, but at least one of his traveling companions wants monetary or legal reward for the return of this person, and plans to kill Scott's character for that. I find the claimed 'dead or alive' condition for the reward payment totally bizarre, especially when we discover that her husband is blind!! As in the previous "Westbound", the member of the gang of villains who eventually refuses to toe the line with the arch villain winds up dead: a tragic component of the story. Thus, they differ from "Ride Lonesome" and the non-Boetticher Scott-starring "Ride the High Country" and "The Nevadan", where a young man with a dubious past is spared, with hope for reform.Based on historical information, the obsessive search by Cody(Scott) for his wife stolen long ago, is almost certainly futile. As dramatized in "The Searchers", the usual fate of older teen girls and women captured by plains NAs was rape, followed by death, often followed by dismemberment. Very occasionally, they might instead be kept for barter, serving as a slave(sex and otherwise) in the meanwhile. Both of the female captives in this yarn fall into this category, as do one of the female captives rescued by stealth or barter in two other westerns I am familiar with: the previous "The Charge at Feather River" and Ford's "Two Rode Together". In both these other films, the woman, unmarried when captured, expressed considerable anxiety in rejoining European society, as 'damaged goods', for their lengthy time as and consorting with NAs. In this film, the rescued woman(Mrs. Lowe) expresses similar anxiety with regard to her husband.Of course, some comparisons with "The Searchers" are in order. Cody comes across as much saner than Wayne's Ethan Edwards who, after spending all that time searching for Debbie, wants to shoot her when he learns she doesn't want to leave her adopting tribe and is married to a NA! Of course, Debbie eventually changes her mind somewhat. Historically, this changed attitude was very much the exception for captured children who spent any significant time living with NAs. This fact is well dramatized in the earlier "The Charge at Feather River" and the later "Two Rode Together". In contrast to Wayne's Ethan, Cody tells the woman that it wouldn't matter to him if she had consorted with NA men. This was also true of the main male characters in the other films mentioned. Unfortunately, historically, most long-held repatriated captives never felt comfortable as such, often retaining or wishing for important elements of their lost culture. In the present film, the woman has been with the Comanches for only one month, which makes a big difference!Once again, the action takes place in or near the spectacular Alabama Hills, with the High Sierras often in the background. Supposedly , this represents the country near Lordsburg, in the SW corner of NM: strangely well west of the historical western edge of Comanche territory!. Yes, they should have been Apaches, and not sporting 'mohawks'!("The Searchers" has a rather similar landscape problem).Claude Akins is excellent as Ben: Cody's opposite, who sees all NAs as inconsequential fair game, and who lacks heart, material profit being the only worthwhile goal, like Galt in "The Nevadan". He's talkative and folksy, concealing a sinister plan, contrasting with the taciturn loyal Cody and Mrs. Lowe. We might wonder why Ben rides to Cody's defense when he is attacked alone on a large plain by a small party of Comanches, when Ben is planning to kill Cody soon? I suspect Ben was worried that the Comanches would kill Cody, then turn on the others. Together with Cody, they stood a much better chance of beating them off.The film intersperses periods of rather boring leisurely riding with periods of exciting lethal confrontations and periods of heart-felt conversations. Ben's two young companions: Frank and Dobie, come across as 2 lost souls, who joined Ben only because they didn't think they had any other viable choices. Their periodic conversations tend to be boring, and neither survives to the final frame...There is minimal humor, with a resisted emergency bath in a horse watering trough by Mrs. Lowe near the top.... Cody's and Mrs. Lowes's big secrets aren't revealed until rather late in the film.As usual, the lead woman wants Scott's character to continue to show up periodically in her life, but he politely rides off into the sunset as a perpetual wandering soul, still tortured by the distant loss of his cherished wife.

Comanche Station is the last of the brilliant Boetticher-Scott-Kennedy (Ranown) collaboration, and it's probably just as well. Judging from the results here, the material is wearing a little thin. The familiar figure of a loner (Scott) rescues a married woman (Gates) from Indians, but must get past bounty hunter (Aikens), his two youthful gunmen, and the now hostile Comanche.Again writer Kennedy gets a lot of mileage out of shades of gray. Scott may be polite as heck but he's none too likable, while Aiken's good-bad guy has his principles but likes money even more. There's an uneasy truce between them, but that will last only so long as the Indians do. Meanwhile, the two young henchmen ponder their future as outlaws in a couple of well-scripted scenes. They're basically a likable pair, but can't seem to figure out what else to do, which lends poignancy to a genre that seldom trades in softer emotions.Naturally, most of this plays out against the neolithic Alabama Hills with the brooding southern Sierras in the background. What a perfect backdrop for the majority of the Ranown series, including this entry. There was always something basic about the conflicts that needed a primitive landscape as a reflection. In my little book, Boetticher did for those rocky spires what John Ford did for the majestic mesas of Monument Valley.All in all, this may not be the best of the Ranown bunch, but it's sure as heck worth catching up with, including the highly appropriate ending.