Michael Curtiz picked his final film to be his first with the Duke, and it's a gem. "The Comancheros" (meaning white men that ride with Indians) starts off as a pretty typical buddy movie with Wayne and Stuart Whitman doing the country versus the city riff, and doing it well. The story begins to wander however, and a most unusual structure rewards the viewer with many surprise twists and turns.
Whitman kills a man in a duel in New Orleans. The dead man just happened to be the son of someone important, so he is forced to run or be hung. Wayne is Big Jake Cutter, the Texas Ranger who hunts him down. Most westerns of the era would be content to leave the plot at that and let the action play out. Here however, is just where The Comancheros starts getting interesting.
Without half of the intelligence but all of the fun of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" Curtiz's film takes a decidedly political bent, attempting to establish a mini-dictatorship in the middle of the desert. The Comancheros are a subculture of what appears to be mostly Texans and Mexicans using the perceived power of the Indians to create fear and open paths for gun and liquor-running.
I've never seen a western deal with the Indian issue in this manner, treating them as drunks, incapable of fighting, interested only in partying. Normally I would pan this treatment as the worst kind of stereotyping, equal to the "Breakfast at Tiffany's" treatment of Asians. However, to see it used as a plot point I believe justifies its existence, regardless of how vulgar it may appear. Using the image of the Indian to create fear and respect is a part of North American culture, from the Washington Redskins to the Indian nickel.
Ultimately, the protagonist female (played convincingly by the beautiful Ina Balin) sees the error of her dictator-father's ways, and breaks up their community rather than continuing it. This is the kind of issue-oriented subject matter that genre films can tackle better than any other because they can keep it under the surface. As subtext, the issue because a layer, not an annoying polemic.
I was very impressed with Stuart Whitman, an actor who has been in a ton of movies I have never seen. The Duke can play this kind of role in his sleep, but as usual he chooses to invest his character with vitality. As a bookend to Curtiz's fine career, "The Comancheros" bids a fond farewell to one of Hollywood's great masters.
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