Customer Reviews

Comanche Station [VHS]

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Randolph Scott rides into the sunset in a moving story of a man who searches for his wife who was captured by indians 10 years earlier. He saves another man's wife with no thought of repayment. He shows that he is a man of character and honor. He never quits or gives up. A must see film and should be considered a western classic.

After seeing this movie, it's not hard to understand why Scott is the quintessential cowboy. Everything is right in this movie. And even at sixty-two years of age, he looks great! This is one of those westerns you should consider when forming a video collection.

There was a time when Randolph Scott sat as tall in the saddle as John Wayne. It is most unfortunate that most of his work is not on DVD and some of his best (The Tall T) aren't even currently on VHS! Scott's westerns of the 50's decade revealed a versatile and talented actor, which is remarkable for a star who was instantly recognizable and reliable to play a hero of certain standards. One thing that is that is also remarkable about these films (and The Tall T immediately comes to mind) is they certainly didn't need a big budget. Instead, a good, suspenseful script, excellent cast, and dare I say, a redeeming morality made for an excellent and classic film.

After watching all kinds of Westerns: Spaghetti, modern revisionist, Hollywood 40's, 50's, 60's, & 70's, I sat down to watch a few Randolph Scott movies and was literally on the edge of my seat. And this was right after sitting through the over-the-top effects wizardry of Van Helsing! Mr. Scott's extraordinary but ordinary characters made me forget I was watching a movie and drew me into the story and issues as if they were happening to me.

Randolph Scott is virtually relegated to obscurity today compared to the major Western star he was many years ago. This is our loss. A boxed set or two of his great Westerns would be a small step in the right direction of returning him to his proper status in film history. More importantly, after watching just a few of his movies and the realistic honor portrayed by him, I am left with the distinct feeling that the world was a better place with Randy in the saddle, and his kind will not ride through again.

I was reading an article about overrated and underrated westerns in a magazine recently and the author cited this movie as one of the underrated westerns. I had not heard of it, but always liked Randolph Scott, so I decided to get the movie. I was not dissapointed.It has good action scenes, plus a good moral message as well. I also enjoyed the surprise ending, which caps of the movie very well. I recommend this movie highly.

this astounding Western mixes a modernist treatment of space (look at the way Boetticher grids the West, through composition, editing and camerawork) with a story of mythological force - a man spends his life wandering deserts looking for his probably dead wife. The ironical sense of an imprisoning West creates a sense of the Hell to which Cody has been condemned. This enforced loneliness is not mere self-pitying - the old ideals of the West have been debased by genocide and greed; solitude is the only moral stand possible, and yet it cuts one off from family or community. Heartbreaking.

All of Bud Boetticher's westerns are superior to many westerns received as classics. I won't mention John Ford's The Searchers or his Calvary Trilogy at all, but Randolph Scott, unlike Wayne, can act; Scott has that vacant, self-absorbed quality in his face, forged in this film and many others onlife styles chiefly underscored by major sensory deprivation. Budd Boetticher removes the conventional dust and the Dance Hall "scenes" and the irritating, endless, comic breaks, as A. Mann did with J. Stewart in The Naked Spur, as Zimmernman and Wyler did with Cooper in High Noon and the Westerner. Boetticher gives us here an almost absurdist odyssey of a man looking for his lost wife by searching for stolen white women, allegedly captured by Indians. Comanche Station, the title, functions in the film as a real place where the heart of this drama works itself out. It has, the Station, the look of Rashomon, a locale ruined by humans turned into beasts, bodies everywhere, undiscovered and visible. There's no peace at the "station," nothing but chaos. A place where everything stops, where there is nothing to understand, and no truth... too much ignorance out there, and a love of racism and how it makes everything evil.

The point of Comanche Station is that there is no point; the notion in this film that a white person would have something to bring to the table in the way of protest to the Indians is what Scott knows and acts out for us. In The Searchers no such discovery ultimately infuses that film, because with Ford in westerns, it's always about the sorrows of the whites; the Indians are unimportant because they are not quite human, and therefore without moral purpose, no credentials for being in the world. In Budd Boetticher's film the native Americans are very much a cultural/ moral issue, and their vengeance in taking whites is seen as boldly civilized, compared to the white way of breaking treaties, and ghetto-izing and murdering. Here in this film, the Comanches wear blue pants, bare tops and resemble a force for self-preservation, a dignity seldom afforded them in other westerns.Randolph Scott magnifies all of this in his portrayal, and he and the rst of the cast are brilliant.


The color, the cinemascope, not Vista Vision, are, however, crucial to this film, and the VHS tape is a pan scan job, but, the DVD should be forth coming.

See this and then watch a Wayne western...you'll see all the problems Huston had with Wayne, Hawkes had with Wayne, and countless co-stars, far above him in every way, both in talent and insight.

Budd Boetticher: an artist and major influence, as said above, on Pekinpah and even on Anthony Mann.


See this and all of Boetticher's work.

I love this movie and have seen it many times. I have purchased copies for gifts, and this is why, I was the Stunt Doubel for Nancy Gates! Fun Stuff.

A tall man on a horse. A face as leathery as his saddle. A determination to do what needs doing. And fast with a gun when he needs to be. It must be Randolph Scott. Comanche Station is the last movie Scott made with Budd Boetticher. It has a taut, crisp screenplay by their frequent collaborator, Burt Kennedy. If Comanche Station -- well made, small scale but looking big, with plenty of tension between Scott and the bad guy -- isn't quite in the same league as The Tall T and Ride Lonesome, it'll do.

"A lot of money has a way of making a man all greed inside," says smiling gunman Ben Lane (Claude Akins).
"Such as?" says Jefferson Cody (Randolph Scott).
Lane gives a smile. "It can get him to thinking of doing things he might not otherwise do," he says. "You know, it's a long way to Lawrenceburg. It wouldn't surprise me if somebody didn't try to take that woman away from you."
"Like you, for instance?"
"Like me, in particular," says Lane.

The woman is Mrs. Nancy Lowe (Nancy Gates), captured by Comanches and now the property of one of the chiefs. Cody heard about it, was in the territory and set out to get her back. He succeeds, barely. But on their way to Lawrenceburg, where she lives with her husband and son, they stop at Comanche Station to water and feed their animals. Minutes later a group of Comanches show up pursuing three men. They barely fight the Comanches off. That's when Cody realizes he's got Ben Lane on his hands, along with Lane's two young guns, Frank (Skip Homeier) and Dobie (Richard Rust). Lane is all too happy to tell Mrs. Lowe that her husband, who didn't go out searching for her himself, has posted a $5,000 reward for her. He doesn't mention that includes her alive or just the body. Seems the husband wants closure.

The rest of the movie is the journey to Lawrenceburg. Cody is determined to get her there. Lane is determined to take her there without Cody. And dead is okay. Lane and his two naive but willing guns can travel a lot faster through Comanche territory with a body slung over a horse. The contest between Cody and Lane gets underway immediately with sly words. But don't underestimate Cody. He even manages to put a little daylight between Lane and one of the two young men. And what about Cody and Mrs. Lowe? There's a reason Cody has spent ten years rescuing people from the Comanche. Maybe we'll find out what the reason is. Cody says a lot of "Yes, ma'ams," to Mrs. Lowe, but what's he thinking?

There are Comanche attacks, backstabbing plots, leering suggestions and gunplay. We even grow fond of Frank and Dobie. They're two young guys, none too smart, quick with a gun, kids too willing to do what Ben Wade tells them to. They're not really bad kids, except that if Lane tells them to kill you, they most likely will.

"A man does one thing, one thing in his life he could look back on... go proud. That's enough. Anyway, that's what my pa used to say," Dobie tells Frank one night when they're wondering if there's a better way to live.
"He talked all the time, didn't he," says Frank.
"Yeah," Dobie says. "He was a good man. Sure is a shame."
"Shame?"
"Yeah, says Dobie, "my pa. He never did amount to anything."

This economical Western, just 74 minutes long, has only five main characters. The entire movie was filmed outdoors. Those boulders may look familiar, but Boetticher gives us the wide-open treatment...big vistas, big mountains, big scenes of scrub and open-throated pursuits. The movie was shot on a small budget in less than 14 days. It doesn't look it unless you're a cynic. As with all the Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott movies, the bad guys pay a price. But that's not the end of the story. You may be surprised. I didn't see it coming.

Claude Akins does a fine job as Ben Lane, a charming, dangerous, amoral man. Akins is not as mean or as much fun as Lee Marvin in Seven Men From Now. He's not as charismatic and unpredictable as Richard Boone in The Tall T. Still, Akins holds his own amongst the better bad guys Scott has faced down over the years. As for Scott, in his long career he turned out to be one of a kind. He retired at 62 after finishing Comanche Station, then was lured back two years later to co-star with Joel McCrea in Ride the High Country. With High Country and the Boetticher movies, he went out on a high note.

Comanche Station looks just fine on DVD. Extras, which I didn't spend any time on, are a commentary by Taylor Hackford and a filmed appreciation of Boetticher and Comanche Station by Clint Eastwood. The movie is part of the DVD Budd Boetticher Collection, along with The Tall T, Decision Before Sundown, Buchanan Rides Alone and Ride Lonesome.

I've only seen "Comanche Station" once, on television years ago. Like John Wayne's character Nathan in "The Searchers", Randolph Scott plays a loner for whom honor and duty is everything. And like "The Searchers", it is a powerful film about a solitary man's determination to find his only real connection to the world, in this case his long missing wife. But unlike "The Searchers", the story is much more encapsulated in time and space, which makes the viewer feel he is a part of the journey. The scenery is breathtaking and the suspense is real. It is perhaps Budd Boetticher's best work, certainly equal to "Seven Men From Now", but with a far superior musical score, haunting and moody, yet as beautiful as the landscape. The ending is worth the wait. I hope someone has the good sense to release a clean, crisp version on DVD soon, so my kids can see what good scripting, directing, cinematography, and acting are really like.

Columbia Pictures / Ranown Pictures Corporation "COMANCHE STATION" (1960) (73 mins/Eastmancolor/Widescreen) (Dolby digitally remastered) --- Starring Randolph Scott, Nancy Gates, Claude Akins & Skip Homeier --- Directed by Budd Boetticher and released in March 1960, our story line and film, Loner Cody trades with the Comanches to get a white girl released ... He is joined on his way back to the girl's husband by an outlaw and his sidekicks. It turns out there is a large reward for the return of the girl, and with the Indians on the warpath and the outlaw being an old enemy of Cody's, things are set for several showdowns --- Another typical interestingly plotted entry from the Scott/Boetticher/Kennedy teaming (their last), in which the old west moral code of right versus wrong gets a surprising twist ending --- Beautiful widescreen print that was remastered in the late 1990s, this one would be a welcome addition to any western library. It needs a DVD release.

Under Budd Boetticher (Director / Producer), Harry Joe Brown (Producer), Randolph Scott (Producer), Burt Kennedy (Screenwriter), Charles Lawton (Cinematographer), Mischa Bakaleinikoff (Composer (Music Score), Edwin H. Bryant (Editor), Carl Anderson (Art Director), Frank A. Tuttle (Set Designer), George Cooper (Sound/Sound Designer), Sam Nelson (First Assistant Director) - - - - the cast includes Randolph Scott (Jefferson Cody), Nancy Gates (Mrs. Lowe), Claude Akins (Ben Lane), Skip Homeier (Frank), Richard Rust (Dobie), Rand Brooks (Station Man), Dyke Johnson (Mr. Lowe), Foster Hood (Comanche lance bearer), Joe Molina (Comanche chief), Vincent St. Cyr (Warrior), P. Holland (Boy) - - - - Randy Scott had a quiet gentleman nature about him which is not seen in the films of today ... Randy took his job and his responsibility to his audience very seriously...would not settle for anything less than his best...same was true in his personal life.

SPECIAL FEATURES BIOS:
1. Randolph Scott (aka: George Randolph Scott)
Date of birth: 23 January 1898 - Orange County, Virginia
Date of death: 2 March 1987 - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California

Special footnote, George Randolph Scott better known as Randolph Scott, was an American film actor whose career spanned the sound era from the late 1920s to the early 1960s ... his popularity grew in the 1940s and 1950s, appearing in such films as "Gung Ho"! (1943) and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (1938); but he was especially famous for his numerous Westerns including "Virginia City" (1940) with Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart, "Western Union" (1941) with Robert Young and "Ride the High Country" (1962) with Joel McCrea (a coin was flipped to see whether Scott or McCrea would receive top billing, and Scott won despite having a slightly smaller role) ... his long fistfight with John Wayne in "The Spoilers" (1942) was frequently cited by critics and the press as the most thrilling ever filmed; they were fighting over Marlene Dietrich ... another smash hit film together that same year called "Pittsburgh" (1942) once again with Dietrich, Scott and Wayne --- Daniel Webster defines "Legend", as being a notable person, or the stories told about that person exploits --- well by the time Randolph Scott made his best films he had long established himself as a legend in the film industry --- they say practice makes perfect, if that is true by 1958 at 60 years of age he was the master with these oaters from the 50s ... "The Cariboo Trail" (1950), "The Nevadan" (1950), "Colt .45" (1950), "Santa Fe" (1951), "Sugarfoot" (1951), "Fort Worth" (1951), "Man in the Saddle" (1951), "Carson City" (1952), "The Man Behind the Gun" (1952), "Hangman's Knot" (1952), "Thunder over the Plains" (1953), "The Stranger Wore a Gun" (1953), "Ten Wanted Men" (1954), "Riding Shotgun" (1954), "The Bounty Hunter" (1954), "Rage at Dawn" (1955), "Tall Man Riding" (1955), "A Lawless Street" (1955), "Seven Men from Now" (1956), "Seventh Cavalry" (1956), "Decision at Sundown: (1957), "Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend" (1957), "The Tall T" (1957), "Buchanan Rides Alone" (1958), "Ride Lonesome" (1959), "Westbound" (1959), "Comanche Station" (1960) --- Scott's age seemed to matter little, they only came to see another Randolph Scott film and always got their money's worth --- Scott's films were good and getting better becoming classics --- so if you ever wonder "What Ever Happened To Randolph Scott", just rent or purchase one of his films and you'll see he's never left us.

2. Nancy Gates
Date of Birth: 1 February 1926 - Dallas, Texas
Date of death: Still Living

3. Claude Akins
Date of Birth: 25 May 1918 - Nelson, Georgia
Date of Death: 27 January 1994 - Altadena, California

4. Skip Homeier
Date of Birth: 5 October 1930 - Chicago, Illinois
Date of death: Still Living

5. Budd Boetticher (aka: Oscar Boetticher Jnr) (Director)
Date of Birth: 29 July 1916 - Chicago, Illinois
Date of Death: 29 November 2001 - Ramona, California

Hats off and thanks to Les Adams (collector/guideslines for character identification), Chuck Anderson (Webmaster: The Old Corral/B-Westerns.Com), Boyd Magers (Western Clippings), Bobby J. Copeland (author of "Trail Talk"), Rhonda Lemons (Empire Publishing Inc), Bob Nareau (author of "The Real Bob Steele") and Trevor Scott (Down Under Com) as they have rekindled my interest once again for Film Noir, B-Westerns and Serials --- looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage serial era of the '20s, '30s & '40s and B-Westerns ... order your copy now from Amazon where there are plenty of copies available on VHS, stay tuned once again for top notch action mixed with deadly adventure --- if you enjoyed this title, why not check out VCI Entertainment where they are experts in releasing B-Westerns and Serials --- all my heroes have been cowboys!

Total Time: 73 min on VHS ~ Sony Home Video ~ (7/09/1996)