Review of Comanche Station (1960) by Justin R — 17 Mar 2009

The last of the great 'Ranown' cycle of westerns starring Randolph Scott, produced by Harry Joe Brown (hence the production company's name - Ran for Randoph and Own for Brown), written by Burt Kennedy and directed by the brilliant Budd Boetticher.

Kennedy's script hits all the of the familiar (and perfect) notes - Scott as the lone gunman with a tragic past, Claude Akins as the adversary who has an amiable but uneasy relationship with Scott, and Nancy Gates as the always glamorous female lead being escorted through hostile Indian territory.

And as always, Boetticher treats his small film as if it were an epic, filling his Cinemascope canvas with gorgeous location photography (his old favorite, the Alabama Hills of Lone Pine, California) and placing his actors into arenas of combat, thus recalling his days as a bullfighter in Mexico.

A brilliant and exciting way to wind up an important cinematic partnership that ranks right up there with John Wayne and John Ford, James Stewart and Anthony Mann, and Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone.

(And by the way, Scott was to retire after this picture, but was lured out of retirement two years later by director Sam Peckinpah to make the landmark western Ride the High Country. After that film, he finally did call it quits).