Chuka

This is a strange western that I think owes some inspiration from John Ford's classic Cheyenne Autumn. Like the Ford movie it's concerning starving Indians on the reservation, in this case Arapahoe who resolve not to starve any longer.

Especially when post commander John Mills has plenty of army supplies in his fort and won't feed the Arapahoe or give them guns to hunt. His fort is a last chance outpost where apparently the army sends all its misfits from the commander on down. Holding some kind of discipline together is Sergeant Ernest Borgnine.

Into the mix rides gunfighter Rod Taylor in the title role together with Luciana Paluzzi and her niece Victoria Vetri. Paluzzi and Taylor had a little something something going back in the day.

In any event the Arapahoes have them boxed in with a massacre impending. Our sympathies are completely with the Indians on this one. This post contains some of the worst specimens of human being ever gathered together in one spot. Mills is a frightening spectacle with Borgnine enforcing his edicts on an unruly post. Of course there's a reason he's a drunken shell of a man which we learn near the end of the film.

Chuka misses being a classic because of the pedestrian direction it got from Gordon Douglas. Someone like Delmar Daves or John Huston could have made it a classic. The cast is a good one.

John Ford would never have directed it though, no way he would have portrayed his beloved United States Cavalry like this.

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.

The story occurs in 1876 , Chuka (Rod Taylor) is a grizzled gunfighter who helps an unexperienced though honorable cavalry officer to appease renegade soldiers and hold a tribe of Arapahoe Indians . When the main characters arrive at the fort a soldier being flogged for desertion (though 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 the American Natives but also the 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 . Meantime , the violent 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 vs. Indians tale that is far from ordinary , exploring the anguish and desperation of the stressed 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 enough . 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 was an expert on adventures genre , such as ¨Black arrow¨ , ¨Fortunes of Captain Blood¨ , both starred by Louis Hayward and Western genre , as he proved in the enjoyable 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 others concerning legendary bandits as ¨Doolins of Oklahoma¨ , ¨Great Missouri raid¨, and anything else . Rating Chuka : 6/10 . Acceptable and decent Cavalry/Indian Western . Well worth watching.

I will always look back on CHUKA as a B movie with a stellar cast, including Oscar winners Borgnine and Mills. The latter, and lead Taylor (not to mention beautiful Paluzzi) were not known doing Westerns, and all look rather uncomfortable, even if Taylor looks physically fit and does his best to make the most of a not particularly desirable role.

Direction is unimaginative and unable to extract anything close to the best from the cast. One of the highlights of the movie, the fight between Borgnine and Taylor, is unconvincing, with poor stunts.

The script is limited, and predictable in its attempts to shock the viewer with revelations about the characters' dark sides. I kept thinking that I was watching a British production with Indians for color and atmosphere which, surely, was not what Director Douglas intended.

Photography is in keeping with the low budget and the ultimate pointlessness of the entire project.

Chuka is an unusual and unsatisfying Western with a plot that several times reminds one of Beau Geste. It starts with the US Cavalry retrieving their comrades' bodies at a fort that has been overwhelmed by Indians and then flashes back to portray the events that led up to the massacre.

John Mills usually plays a sympathetic character but as Colonel Valois he has no redeeming feature at all, even at the end he stands apparently helpless as his ragtag soldiers fight off the Indian attack. (One wonders why a colonel has such a small command, which seems to total barely 40 men, and the fort itself is small enough to fit conveniently into a studio.) It is hard to find much to like about most of the cast, but then the members are playing unlikeable people. Rod Taylor as the gunslinger Chaka shows his good side in the opening scenes when he offers his food to starving Indians but drives a hard bargain when his scouting expertise is needed. Louis Hayward, looking a bit like the British character actor Terry-Thomas, pays for the services of an Indian girl. Only Ernest Borgnine, appearing larger than one usually visualises him, makes much of a screen impact, and his character is one of the few who seems not to have an unfortunate past.

The two Mexican ladies marooned at the post after rashly travelling across country in a stagecoach are an intrusion into the plot (but then I often groan at the contrived introduction of glamorous women into an environment that in real life would be all-male).

All in all, a disappointing oddity.