Chuka le redoutable

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.

Just recently I found a video store in New Haven County where fine old westerns can be had on VHS. One of the ones I had long wanted to see was "CHUKA" or Chuka: the Gunfighter, from 1967.

The video transfer was high quality and so watching this movie on tape was an enjoyable experience. Luciana Paluzzi is stunningly beautiful.

Indeed, Chuka is something of a Hollywood fantasy but the tone and the settings of the story are fairly well done.

Both Paluzzi and her niece, played by Victoria Vetri ( as Angela Dorian ), do very well in this western oddity. Ernest Borgnine is good as ever, at being Ernest Borgnine. Rod Taylor was also very good and very believable as the cowpuncher turned hardened hired killer.

The most interesting part of the story was about how Fort Clendennon became a dumping ground for misfits, rejects, and bad officers. This is a well-known but seldom portrayed part of the truth of how the U.S. Army operated in the late 1870's. It is true that in this fiction, many of the soldiers and civilians seem to be just a little too clean for that day and age, but it doesn't really detract from the rapid pace of the events in this drama.

Additionally, the extreme deprivation imposed on the Arapaho tribal nation by the Army at this time is another important element. The "injuns" are rather cartoonish in their depictions but at least some aspects of their true grievances are relayed in the plot.

Perhaps this Chuka -- pronounced Chuck-Uh -- is a lot more savvy than circumstances in that day and age might have permitted, but Rod Taylor does really well at being fast-as-lightning and very tough.

This film gets a vote of 7 from me, which was really a six with a kicker for the beautiful Vetri and the beautiful Paluzzi.

Many of the better westerns have been good about presenting the Mexican culture of that time in a favorable light, and this is one of them, and neither Vetri nor Paluzzi appear as simply being "eye candy" for a rough-and-tumble western. The dinner sequence where Colonel Valois rakes his officers over the coals and embarrasses them all is a piece-de-resistance in western drama. Other elements are not so convincing but this is fun way to see a good western drama from a by-gone era of movie making.

Chuka derives its power from the high quality of the story on which it is based. I can recommend it heartily for western fans, for Victoria Vetri fans, and for Rod Taylor's excellent, dynamic performance.

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.

That's for me one of the best Gordon Douglas' western, besides RIO CONCHOS of course. And Rod Taylor is purely magnificent in this awesome role, as excellent as in THE MERCENARIES, which he made the same year. It is a superb story, adapted from a novel by Richard Jessup that I have not read. It is action packed, moving, poignant concerning characters relationships, even the sub characters are terrific. John Mills, the British famous actor, gives here one of his most brilliant performances. It is an Indian wars, military western, not an outlaw one, a fort under siege scheme, an underrated film for my taste, but I repeat, an excellent one. And an unforgettable ending which may leave you unsatisfied. But that's a matter of opinion.

Chuka was co-produced by Rod Taylor's Company Rodlor he had all control of this fine picture, since The Time Machine the Australian Rod Taylor became one of my favorite actor, on greats movies as The Birds and The Mercenaries, he made few westerns, Chuka quite sure is the best, here in Brazil according my old fellows moviegoers, have been said the same, Chuka is great, Rod Taylor recently was presented by Tarantino as one his great hero in his childhood.

Supported by a strong casting the plot orbit around of the odd members of Fort Clendennon, where gathered the scum of the US's Army, surrounded by hungry Indian of the great nation Arapahoe in middle of the desert, Chuka arrives at Fort facing his destiny where his former girlfriend Veronica (Luciana Paluzzi) and his niece Helena (the beauty Victoria Vetri) whom find a safe shelter, there are multiples colorful characters, as the British Colonel Stuart (John Mills) who was spelled by British Army due he is a drunker.

The Major Benson (Louis Hayward) for a cheater gambler, the rough Sgt. Hahnsbach (Ernest Borginine) follows the strict orders of Col. Stuart by personal reasons, anyway all them were there as a punishment impose by the US's Army, the highlight come up with the fight between Chuka and Hahnsbach that surprisingly ends up in a draw, the final Arapahoe attack on the fort is inexorable, but stays a feasible doubt at the end, great western, too much underrated by IMDB's members!!

Resume:

First watch: 1988 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8.