The Comancheros
by John Wayne, Michael Curtiz
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ina Balin, John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Nehemiah Persoff, Stuart WhitmanDirector: John Wayne, Michael Curtiz
Brand: TCFHE
Cinematographer: William H. Clothier
Editor: Louis R. Loeffler
Producer: George Sherman
Writer: Clair Huffaker
Writer: James Edward Grant
Writer: Paul Wellman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 4.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 4.0; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-05-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The Comancheros
Movie Review: Ambivalent reaction to the hero
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently bought the DVDs of 16 John Wayne westerns and liked The Comancheros best. The casting, acting, dialogue, music, etc. are wonderful, but I would like to comment first on the main factor that makes this or any other story believable and compelling. Especially great drama or tragedy is based on the spectator's inner conflict and derives energy from that conflict and becomes believable. This inner conflict can be created by (a) the action presented in the story, or (b) the reaction of the spectator to the characters in the story, especially to the leading characters. These two types of conflict can be used together, but the second one appears to be the more effective one.
The action in the story can make the spectator experience inner conflict especially by having immoral aspects. But the inner conflict is stronger if he or she envies a story character and identifies with him or her and, at the same time, is jealous and critical of him or her for some reason and wishes him or her to be punished. This is the type of conflict caused by the characters played by Wayne in his mature films, because he is big in every way, rough and tough, handsome, and ready to hit, although he hides a cupid in him, as pointed out by Monsoor Paul Regret and the widow of a fiend of his. Moreover, he often has sins like neglecting his children or his entire family, being too harsh on his subordinates in attaining his goals, and even transgressing the law somewhat. Consequently, he is often hit on his head, rolls in mud, rides a mule and is made fun of, is disobeyed by his subordinates, etc., to please the ambivalent spectator and make him or her feel guilty at the same time.
The TV series Dallas was very successful because of the strongly ambivalent reaction of the spectator to JR. Many Hollywood people thought that the spectator's sharing the life of the rich and the powerful made the series successful. The series Dynasty made on this assumption was a failure. Shakespeare's great tragedies and Hitchcock's films are based on knowingly inducing inner conflict, guilt, and anxiety in the spectator's mind. The supremacy of Hollywood is due to this method, but most filmmakers are not abstractly aware of it like Hitchcock and Shakespeare were.
The auxiliary characters in The Comancheros are fun to watch. Monsoor is one of the pillars of the film. The dialogue is very clever and leaves much unsaid and lets the spectator complete it. Anything that the spectator adds to a film contributes to its believability. The music is an Oscar piece.
In the closing scene, Monsoor, by the side of his girl, yells at Big Jake who is riding away alone, "Big Jake, don't forget to mend that fence!" The spectator understands that this means, "Marry that widow!" Such references to future events at the end of a film serve to prevent the feeling that it was only a story and it ended. The spectator even regrets not having the chance of witnessing those future events. Michael Curtis insisted on such an ending for the film Casablanca. Accordingly, as the French police chief and Bogart walk away from the camera toward the plain that will take Bogart out of Casablanca to save him from the Nazis, Bogart says something like this: "We will meet again somewhere else and will start a new friendship." A new friendship means in this case a new cooked business, like illegal gambling.
Film and Suspense
Summary of The Comancheros
Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 05/13/2008 Run time: 107 minutes Rating: NrSimilar DVD Movies
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