Comanche Station is the last of the brilliant Boetticher-Scott-Kennedy (Ranown) collaboration, and it's probably just as well. Judging from the results here, the material is wearing a little thin. The familiar figure of a loner (Scott) rescues a married woman (Gates) from Indians, but must get past bounty hunter (Aikens), his two youthful gunmen, and the now hostile Comanche.
Again writer Kennedy gets a lot of mileage out of shades of gray. Scott may be polite as heck but he's none too likable, while Aiken's good-bad guy has his principles but likes money even more. There's an uneasy truce between them, but that will last only so long as the Indians do. Meanwhile, the two young henchmen ponder their future as outlaws in a couple of well-scripted scenes. They're basically a likable pair, but can't seem to figure out what else to do, which lends poignancy to a genre that seldom trades in softer emotions.
Naturally, most of this plays out against the neolithic Alabama Hills with the brooding southern Sierras in the background. What a perfect backdrop for the majority of the Ranown series, including this entry. There was always something basic about the conflicts that needed a primitive landscape as a reflection. In my little book, Boetticher did for those rocky spires what John Ford did for the majestic mesas of Monument Valley.
All in all, this may not be the best of the Ranown bunch, but it's sure as heck worth catching up with, including the highly appropriate ending.
Again writer Kennedy gets a lot of mileage out of shades of gray. Scott may be polite as heck but he's none too likable, while Aiken's good-bad guy has his principles but likes money even more. There's an uneasy truce between them, but that will last only so long as the Indians do. Meanwhile, the two young henchmen ponder their future as outlaws in a couple of well-scripted scenes. They're basically a likable pair, but can't seem to figure out what else to do, which lends poignancy to a genre that seldom trades in softer emotions.
Naturally, most of this plays out against the neolithic Alabama Hills with the brooding southern Sierras in the background. What a perfect backdrop for the majority of the Ranown series, including this entry. There was always something basic about the conflicts that needed a primitive landscape as a reflection. In my little book, Boetticher did for those rocky spires what John Ford did for the majestic mesas of Monument Valley.
All in all, this may not be the best of the Ranown bunch, but it's sure as heck worth catching up with, including the highly appropriate ending.