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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 12774
Released: May 20, 2003 |
| Our Price: $5.84 |
| Used Price: $3.18 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
John Wayne is Capt. Jake Cutter, a Texas Ranger determined to crush a powerful outlaw gang that's selling guns to the Indians. Cutter is also trying to bring in gambler Paul Regret (Whitman), who's wanted for murder. Both missions get entangled when Cut
Description of The Comancheros:
Nobody made a fuss about The Comancheros when it came out, yet it has proved to be among the most enduringly entertaining of John Wayne's later Westerns. The Duke, just beginning to crease and thicken toward Rooster Cogburn proportions, plays a veteran Texas Ranger named Jake Cutter. When we first see him (in a tongue-in-cheek delayed entrance), he's catching up with a New Orleans dandy (Stuart Whitman) who killed a judge's son in a duel just after that gentlemanly practice was banned. Monsieur Paul Regret--or "Mon-sooor," as Jake insists on calling him--is not a bad fellow, let alone a badman, and it only follows that, after the requisite number of misunderstandings, he and Jake will join forces to subdue rampaging Indians and the evil white men behind their uprising.
The Comancheros was the last credit for Michael Curtiz, who, ravaged by cancer, ceded much of the direction to Wayne (uncredited) and action specialist Cliff Lyons. With support from Wayne stalwarts James Edward Grant (coscreenplay) and William Clothier (camera), the first of many rousing Elmer Bernstein scores for a Wayne picture, and a big, flavorful cast including Lee Marvin (the once and future Liberty Valance), Nehemiah Persoff, Bruce Cabot, and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (in his last movie), they made a broad, cheerfully bloodthirsty adventure movie for red-meat-eating audiences of all ages. Even the liberal-pinko Time magazine had to second the salute from leading lady Ina Balin at film's end: "Take care of yourself, Big Jake ... we've sort of gotten used to you." --Richard T. Jameson
The Comancheros Reviews:
Classic 
2009-06-26 - this is the complete John Wayne moive, all the way from the gun fights to the larger than life screen apperance. its a must buy
JOHN WAYNE ACTOR AND DIRECTOR!
2009-01-10 - I love John Wayne. He is here at his prime and he also got to direct that end parts of this classic movie.
The Comancheros is a 1961 western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring John Wayne and Stuart Whitman. When health troubles prevented Curtiz from finishing the film, Wayne directed the remainder of the movie, though his role remained uncredited. Curtiz died shortly after the film was completed. The supporting cast includes Lee Marvin, Jack Elam, and Edgar Buchanan. Also featured are western film veterans Bob Steele, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, and Harry Carey, Jr. in uncredited supporting roles.Anachronisms: Although set in 1843 Texas, the characters all use Winchester lever action rifles and Colt Peacemaker pistols, which were not available until 1866 and 1873 respectively. The Guinn Williams character is said have stolen rifles from the army base at Fort Sill and to have served a sentence in the Yuma Territorial Prison, neither of which became operational until after the Civil War, 1869 and 1876 respectively.
John Wayne and Stuart Whitman leave Galveston bound for the Louisiana border and immediately find themselves in desert-like surroundings with sandstone bluffs in the background. From Galveston to Louisiana the only thing they would have seen is canebrakes, grass prairies, live oak groves and piney woods.
Whitman's character Paul Regret was the lead in the novel and Wayne's part had to be amplified for the film version. Wellman had envisioned Cary Grant as Regret as he wrote the novel.
Michael Curtiz also directed The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart. The Comancheros was his last film.
Budd Boetticher was the first choice for director of the film but turned it down as he had previously worked for John Wayne's Batjac on Seven Men From Now and The Bullfighter and the Lady.
Elmer Bernstein's theme music is heard in the Apocalypse Cow episode of The Simpsons when Bart drives a farm tractor
An above average John Wayne Western! 
2008-10-26 - I've always been a John Wayne fan, although I'm not fanatic enough to think every movie he ever made was great. When you make 18 - 20 movies per decade there will be some clinkers. The Comancheros, though was not one of them. An above average John Wayne Western that never takes itself too seriously.
Taking place before the Civil War, Wayne plays Texas Ranger Captain Jake Cutter who has been assigned to bring in a Louisiana Killer/Gambler named Paul Regret (portrayed well by Stuart Whitman) for extradition. Regret is able to escape, gets caught again, fights side-by-side with Cutter against an Indian attack, and ends up joining the Rangers, although being less than enthusiastic about it. He and Cutter then pose as gun runners to infiltrate a society of outlaws who have a very good working relationship with the Comanches. There are many twists and turns to enjoy throughout the movie, even if the ending is somewhat predictable.
What makes this movie good is that the plot has both a serious and an easy-going side. Plus Wayne doesn't have to carry the movie. Whitman does a great job matching up to Wayne and even manages to steal a few scenes. Add to that a great cast. Besides Wayne & Whitman you have Lee Marvin as Crow, another gun-runner, Bruce Cabot as Major Henry, Cutters Commanding Officer, Ina Balin as Pilar - Regret's love interest, Nehemiah Persoff as her father and leader of the Comancheros, and Michael Ansara as Amelung, the second-in-command of the outlaws and want-to-be suitor of Pilar.
One other great aspect of the movie, the wonderful music score by Elmer Bernstein. One of my favorites.
I would recommend this to fans of 1960's western. Not too much violence but plenty of action, with just enough romance slipped in, it is a very entertaining film.
Comuncheros
2007-01-11 - I am a John Wayne fan so it goes with out Quwstion that this was another great movie.
I'M GONNA GO OUT WEST AND WRESTLE ME A GRIZZLY BEAR 
2006-12-24 - Texas Ranger, (John Wayne) enlists the aid of wanted fugitive, (Stuart Whitman), to bust gunrunning operation. Everything you can expect from a Wayne western, with eye-popping Cinerama,(or whatever they called it in 1961), rousing musical theme that becomes a little less so by the fourth or fifth ride into the sunset, dancing skirt sashaying senioritas, (hoochie-koochie, anyone?), standard western stunts, (falling horses, especially), and a still cloudy distinction of the American Indian as being either 'wild', (bloodthirsty scalpers of white people), or 'tame', (sell their soul for a cheap bottle of whiskey and a good cigar). Love interest Ina Bolin, (dark, mysterious, like you can picture a whip in her hand), adds some Mexican zing to the mix, but man, those are some nasty wigs she wears.
