Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Blistering performances.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Not the greatest Western,but a nice enough effort.How anyone could say it's awful must be looking for FX.Dana Andrews not at his best,but makes an honest effort.Henry Brandon is as wooden here as Black Cloud as he was as one of Maximilian's soldiers/officers in Vera Cruz.Linda Cristal and Dana show their having gotten quite close during Mexican filming.Loved the wig.Didn't realize Lowell Gilmore,one of my favorites was in this as an agent for the U.S. Government.Kent Smith again co-stars with Dana Andrews,as Indian Chief trying to keep his nemesis Black Cloud from gumming up the peace with Washington,DC.Just thought it was a decent enough film.

Had this movie starred a lesser name than Dana Andrews, I probably never would have watched it or else turned it off after a while, as this was a rather dull but competently made picture. Aside from more modern sensibilities about the American Indians (they aren't savage or bad and there is an attempt to understand their motivations), there really isn't anything different to set this apart from hundreds, if not thousands of mediocre Westerns from the 40s and 50s.Part of the problem was in casting Kent Smith as the Indian chief. He was a good journeyman actor, but here he was all wrong. While his character was supposed to have SOME White blood, Smith looked and sounded about as much like an Indian as Shirley Temple! It's odd that although the script is quite sensitive and "politically correct" by today's standards, they still used a lot of White actors in makeup as the Indians (if you look, you'll also notice Mike Mazurki as an Indian as well).Another part of the problem is that while I like Dana Andrews a lot, I've got to admit he was pretty bland in the part--a part which would have been more convincing had it featured Randolph Scott or Jimmy Stewart. Andrews just wasn't believable as a cavalry scout in the old West. Andrews forte was in contemporary stories--placing him in a horse and Indian film just seemed unnatural and his performance reflects this.Aside from these complaints, I am not recommending you avoid the film--it is fairly entertaining and won't rot your brain. However, it really is nothing more than a time-passer and it SHOULD have been much better given the decent script.

COMANCHE is filmed in Durango, Mexico for a sense of authenticity. It is also one of the first Hollywood films to be sympathetic toward the Native American Indian. A Comanche attack on a Mexican village nets the capture of several woman and children including the lovely Margarita(Linda Cristal). Black Cloud(Henry Brandon)is a hotheaded brave that have no use for the white man, let alone Mexicans, whom he can also get the pleasure of scalping. Jim Read(Dana Andrews)is a strong willed frontier scout, who hopes to shield his Native American friends from a bigoted genocidal Gen. Miles(John Litel). It is Read and his friendship with Chief Quanah Parker(Kent Smith)that restores trust and peace between the Indians and the white man. This is Cristal's movie debut. Andrews, not out of the norm, is wooden. Others in the cast: Nestor Paiva, Tony Carbajal, Lowell Gilmore and Iron Eyes Cody.

Blasé outdoor yarn set in 1875 is based loosely on real events, with peaceful villagers near Durango, Mexico pitted against the Comanches. Linda Cristal plays the daughter of a Spanish aristocrat who's been kidnapped; frontier scout Dana Andrews (looking weary) is working with the Calvary to bring peace between the white man and the Indians until he and his partner are also captured. There's an amusingly upbeat theme song by The Lancers ("A man is as good as his word/as good as his word is he/and if he is as good as his word/he's good enough for me"), and the outdoor cinematography is inspiring, but this plot is so old it creaks. John Ford's "The Searchers", also from 1956, covered similar territory; "Comanche" isn't as pumped up with machismo as "The Searchers" is--but neither is it especially memorable. ** from ****