The Comancheros

Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests Paul Regret, wanted for killing a man over a card table. On the road the two are forced into an arrangement: an organisation known as the Comancheros is selling guns and liquor to the Comanche in the area and the Rangers want to find their base. Cutter goes in disguised as a trader and Regret goes with him. Michael Curtiz directs. John Wayne plays Cutter and Stuart Whitman plays Regret, with Lee Marvin in a brief, memorable part. This was Curtiz's last film. The director of Casablanca and Mildred Pierce was seriously ill during production and could not complete some sections; it is widely accepted that John Wayne directed those scenes and kept his name off the credits. Curtiz died a year after release. The register is not a serious western. Humour and adventure dominate, and the sparring between the two men is the engine. Lee Marvin's Tully Crow, a gun trader who has been scalped and is half bald, is on screen briefly and is the most remembered character in it. Elmer Bernstein wrote the music. Who it is for: viewers who like classic John Wayne westerns and light adventure. Who it is not for: the depiction of the Comanche is entirely of its period, and the story falls apart in the second half.