User Reviews

A good remake of Sahara with Broderick Crawford leading the cast of competent if not name performers. Crawford was still in the glow of his two star quality performances in All The King's Men and Born Yesterday.

Broderick Crawford is a cavalry sergeant leading a patrol in the Arizona desert and they're attacked. As in Sahara, the patrol settles in for a siege at a waterhole, where the numerically superior Indians surround them, but are being dehydrated for lack of water. It's a test of wills and if you saw Sahara, you know how it will come out.

Young Johnny Stewart as the Comanche boy Little Knife is in the second of the two feature films he did for Columbia. He had a good screen presence and God only knows why he didn't become a major star.

Good B western with a quality cast.

Fair western, but the plot was identical to the 1943 Humphrey Bogart movie Sahara. That made it predictable to me. Lloyd Bridges must have liked the plot because he was in both movies and got killed in both movies. Broderick Crawford, a fine actor was his old self, barking orders through all of the movie. Calvary came to the rescue at the last moment, just what we like to see. Also you can see a very young Martin Milner later on Adam-12.

Better than average western directed by Andre DeToth. Cavalry Sgt. Matt Trainor(Broderick Crawford)and his detail are helping a stagecoach across a hundred miles of sweltering desert following an Indian attack. Among the riders in the coach is Julia Lanning(Barbara Hale), who is going to visit her brother, an officer at the military encampment a couple of days away. Not far behind is Chief Black Cloud(John War Eagle)and his Comanche warriors, who are also in need of water. Trainor and the group find water at an old abandoned mission, where they must fight for the water they found and their very lives. Among Sgt. Trainor's detail are Jim Starbuck(Lloyd Bridges), Rusty Potter(Mickey Shaughnessy), Billy Creel(Martin Milner)and Cpl. Floyd(Jack Woody). A young Comanche boy Little Knife(Johnny Stewart)actually is sent to bring the cavalry to the rescue. A well written story and very interesting. It is easy to see that Crawford is wasting his talents in this role. Miss Hale is impressive in a movie that has mostly monotone dialog.

Six cavalrymen, led by strong Broderick Crawford, survive a devastating Indian raid on a plains town...

After a hundred-mile desert hard journey, they are joined by a collection of stranded stagecoach passengers, a wandering group of different types in the true John Ford-derivative tradition, ranging from heroine Barbara Hale to a murder suspect and an Indian lad (Johnny Stewart).

Almost needless to say, the reserve cavalry arrive just before it is too late, to save laconic Crawford and his contingent from a redskin massacre...

Barbara Hale appears properly harried yet brave, but she has little duty to perform in this conventional B-film helped a little by color photography but spoiled by boring dialog...

Director Andre De Toth's cavalry versus the Indians western "Last of the Comanches" with Broderick Crawford and Lloyd Bridges qualifies as a first-rate remake of the classic World War II propaganda war film "Sahara" (1943) that starred Humphrey Bogart and Lloyd Bridges. Calling "Last of the Comanches" a carbon copy of "Sahara" stretches the resemblance between the films almost to the breaking point. There is nobody in "Comanches" that looks like the Italian soldier and the German soldier that ride on the tank with Bogart and company. Further, "Comanches" is more realistic in terms of what happens. Everybody in this western could have been there, but there is some question that an American tank and its crew played the role that they did in what was essentially a British theatre of operation. For example, Columbia—the same studio that produced "Comanches"—never explained how the crew of the U.S. Army tank 'Lulu Belle' landed in North Africa six months before the U.S. actually landed in Morocco. In fact, scenarist Kenneth Gamet of "The Stranger Wore A Gun" goes to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of the date—1876—in the opening credit narration where tough Sgt. Crawford compares their holding exploits against the Indians with Custer's Last Stand that occurred in 1876. The other major difference is that no African-Americans appear in "Comanches" while there was one in "Sahara." However, "Comanches" sticks to the same basic plot—a survival saga set in inhospitable surroundings with a numerically superior enemy force waiting to massacre the good guys.

"Last of the Comanches" opens with Sergeant Matt Trainor (Broderick Crawford of "Born Yesterday") and five other cavalry troopers who survive a massive Comanche attack led by the infamous Chief Black Cloud (John War Eagle of "They Rode West") on the isolated frontier town of Dry Buttes. No sooner has the action unfolded than our heroes find themselves in peril. There is a really nice looking matte painting of Dry Buttes in ruins after the savages stampeded a horse herd through the town, incinerated everything in sight, and left most everybody for dead. Low on water, Sgt. Turner rallies his soldiers—among them "Sea Hunt's" Lloyd Bridges and "Adam-12's" Martin Milner--by reminding them that they are still soldiers and the maintenance of military discipline is the only thing that will ensure their survival. They set out on a 100 mile journey to the closest settlement, Fort Macklin, through craggy terrain thriving with redskins and low on water.

Along the way, they encounter a stagecoach—nicknamed 'Buttercup'—with a lone female, Julie Lanning (Barbara Hale of TV's "Perry Mason"), whiskey drummer Henry Ruppert (Chubby Johnson of "Gunfire at Indian Gap"), former cavalry scout Satterlee the Prophet (Milton Parsons of "That Hagen Girl") and stagecoach driver O'Rattigan (George Matthews of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") and catch a ride on it. Later, they discover a suspicious white man in the desert Denver Kinnaird (Hugh Sanders of "The Last Command") for no apparent reason. Eventually, they discover that Kinnaird has been running guns to the redskins and Sgt. Trainor has Jim Starbuck (Lloyd Bridges) keep his eye on him. Starbuck doesn't have much use for Kinnaird because he cheated a fellow trooper out of money during a gambling hand. The last passenger that our heroes come across is a young Kiowa Indian boy, Little Knife (Johnny Stewart of "Boots Malone"), with whom they initially want nothing to do, but in a fit of conscience they let him join their ranks because Black Cloud is his enemy, too. Our heroes prospect for wells unsuccessfully until Little Knife appears, and he takes them 30 miles out of their way to a mission with a well. Black Cloud attacks them, but his superior numbers are no match for the lack of water. Trainor offers Black Cloud a deal, a cup of water for every repeating rifle, but the Indians refuse. Meanwhile, Turners sends Little Knife off to deliver a help message. Non-surprisingly, Little Knife gets through in the nick of time and our heroes are saving, but not before several of them bite the dust.

"Play Dirty" director De Toth does an outstanding job with "Last of the Comanches." Everybody emerges as a tangible character, not like the poorly drawn characters in De Toth's "The Stranger Wore A Gun." Broderick Crawford is at his commanding best, and it's interesting to see Martin Milner at this early stage in his Hollywood career. De Toth pulls off some cool looking visuals, such as Crawford and Bridges conferring with each other in silhouette during the last moments of sunlight. The camera-work when the cavalry excavate the well at the mission looks great, too. We are shown it from the perspective of the well as the troopers break through it. The multiple explosions that Crawford sets off when the Indians attack looks truly spectacular! Barbara Hale holds her own among the all male cast with expert marksmanship. Clocking in a 85 trim minutes, "Last of the Comanches" doesn't waste a moment on needless material. It's a cliché that the cavalry ride to their rescue at the end, but our heroes are pretty close to the end at that point. Surprisingly, for a 1950s western, "Last of the Comanches" piles up a rather high body count, something that most westerns held to a minimum.

Broderick Crawford does a fine job of taking his city tough guy persona to the West. I particularly liked when the cut off and beleaguered survivors of the massacre mined their perimeter and surprised the attacking Comanches. (It didn't seem to reduce their numbers, however.) After carefully following plot developments, it struck me that this was Bogart's "Sahara," including the oasis/fortress with the barely dripping well portioned out among the survivors and used to negotiate a deal with the attackers. The well even seemed to drip like the Saharan version. Then when Little Knife is sent off for rescue from the nearest relief column, the last shot of him before the rescue is collapsing on a shifting sand dune.

Doesn't matter. It was great when Bogart played it. It was good remake with Crawford.

This 1953 western features Broderick Crawford as a cavalry sergeant leading a small band of soldiers and civilians against a superior force of indians at a nearly dry water hole in the desert. There is some action, but much of this is a battle of wits, with much bluffing going on.

There was one bit of dialogue between Crawford and the indian chiefs which was so wildly improbable in terms of figures of speech which would have been incomprehensible to the indians, that it jarred.

Otherwise, this was a decent but low key western, slightly unusual, but very much of its period.