Le sabre et la flèche

If you like Broderick Crawford, you will enjoy this film from beginning to end. Broderick plays the role of Sgt. Matt Trainor who leads a group of people from Arizona with all kinds of backgrounds, one man was a gun smuggler for the Indians, Black Cloud and a young woman, named Julia Lanning, (Barbara Hale) who is among many men but no one tries to hit on her, mainly because they are too busy fighting off Indians constantly. There is plenty of action with arrows flying through the air and people running out of water and Sgt. Matt playing all kinds of games with the Native American Indians who do not fool around and drive a hard bargain. Lloyd Bridges, "Sea Hunt TV Series" (Jim Starbuck) looks very young and gives a great supporting role. Enjoyable 1953 film classic which was filmed in Buttercup Dunes, California and not the Sahara Desert.

I saw this movie at a children's Saturday afternoon matinee performance in Belfast under its then-British title THE SABRE AND THE ARROW. Only a young child, I remember being extremely moved by the juxtapositioning of the Brodrick Crawford seen-it-all Cavalry Sergeant's pragmatism with Johnny Stewart's vulnerablity as Little Knife, the abandoned Comanche boy in the desert. Normally at a children's matinee kids fidget and talk throughout, only cheering or boohing the action sequences. Thus we mostly came away from a western with an impression rather than a comprehension because the noise built to a point where dialogue went unheard. Not so in THE SABRE AND THE ARROW, the children's attention being a tribute to this western's emotional pull in the days when just seeing movies in colour was regarded as a treat. Cinema-only viewing added to the lustre. The dryness of that sun-blanched desert still haunts my senses fifty years on.

This movie is almost a carbon copy of the WWII, 1943 version of the movie Sahara which starred Humphrey Bogart as Sergeant Joe Gunn. Bogart and a ragtag group of soldiers cross the Sahara Desert and make an almost hopeless stand against terrible odds.

They and the Germans are greatly in need of water. The..."trade a rifle for a cup of water... two rifles, two cups of water" is the same in both.... still fun to watch. It's fun to match the characters and the similarities. Sahara (1943) is a very, very good WWI movie.... Last of the Comanches (1952) is a so-so Western.

This is an old fashioned cowboys and Indians story with the cavalry literally saving the heroic band of Indian fighters at the last minute. It has some very good old fashioned character actors with the likes of Broderick Crawford, Martin Milner, Mickey Shaughnessy and a much younger Della Street in the guise of Barbara Hale. In this age of extreme anxiety, with bands of terrorists threatening we know not where or what, it was very nice to escape back in time to this kind of well produced, well acted 50's western. Though it is, perhaps, a movie for those of a certain generation.

This movie takes place in the southwestern part of the United States with the Comanche chief "Black Cloud" (John War Eagle) having left the reservation with a large number of warriors to wage war upon everyone in that area. And one of his first targets is the small town of Dry Buttes where a small cavalry regiment finds itself forced to fight against incredible odds. Eventually finding themselves unable to successfully defend the town, a few cavalry soldiers led by "Sergeant Matt Trainor" (Broderick Crawford) manage to escape into the desert but in their haste carry very little food or water with them. Not long after that they come upon a stage coach headed directly for Dry Buttes and after turning it around they realize that their only chance to survive depends on their making it safely to Fort Macklin which is over 100 miles away. But to do that they will not only have to evade the Comanches but also need to find a source of water somewhere in the very near future as well-and that is much more difficult than they realize. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a pretty good Western which captured the feel of the harsh conditions of the southwestern desert pretty well. Admittedly, a couple of the decisions made by Sergeant Trainor seemed rather odd but it made for good entertainment none-the-less. Be that as it may, while this film may not have been a great Western by any means it managed to pass the time fairly well and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.