''Comanche Station'' is a 1960 American

CinemaScope CinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen films that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter. Its creation in 1953 by ...

Western film directed by

Budd Boetticher Oscar "Budd" Boetticher Jr. ( ; July 29, 1916 – November 29, 2001) was an American film director. He is best remembered for a series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott. Early life Boetticher was born in C ...

and starring

Randolph Scott George Randolph Scott (January 23, 1898 – March 2, 1987) was an American film actor whose career spanned the years from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in a variety of ...

. The film was the last of Boetticher's late 1950s ''Ranown Cycle''. It was filmed in the Eastern Sierra area of Central California near Lone Pine, California, not far from the foot of

Mount Whitney Mount Whitney ( Paiute: Tumanguya; ''Too-man-i-goo-yah'') is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States and the Sierra Nevada, with an elevation of . It is in East– Central California, on the boundary between California's Inyo and ...

. The towering granitic boulders known as the

Alabama Hills The Alabama Hills are a range of hills and rock formations near the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada in the Owens Valley, west of Lone Pine in Inyo County, California. Though geographically separate from the Sierra Nevada, they are part o ...

served as the backdrop for the film's opening and closing scenes.

Plot

Jefferson Cody, whose wife was captured by

Comanche The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in ...

s, frees another man's wife and is taking her home. Three outlaws, led by the charming but malevolent Ben Lane, reveal that the woman's husband has offered a $5,000 reward, making the woman, Lordsburg resident Mrs. Lowe, suspicious of Cody's motives in coming to her rescue. Lane is known to Cody, who helped court-martial him from the army for killing "tame" Indians. The Comanche are on the warpath due to recent scalpings. (An oddity, as the “Comanches” were inexplicably made up by the filmmakers to resemble Pawnee and thus have very little hair to scalp.) They kill Frank, one of Lane's men, and make repeated attempts to kill the rest of the party. Lane attaches himself to Cody, intending to make it look like the Comanches/Mohawks killed Cody and to take the reward for himself. Although her husband did not try to find her himself, the reward for the return of Mrs. Lowe is "dead or alive," so Lane prefers dead so she won't be able to testify against him. He tries to ambush her and Cody, and when partner Dobie refuses to help, Lane shoots him. In a showdown in the hills, Cody gets the better of Lane. He escorts the woman back home, discovering that her husband is blind. Before he can be paid the $5,000, Cody rides away.

Cast

Home media

In 2008 a DVD box set of five Budd Boetticher films starring Randolph Scott was released. Along with ''Comanche Station'' the set includes '' Buchanan Rides Alone'', '' Decision at Sundown'', '' Ride Lonesome'', and '' The Tall T''.

References

External links

* * * * 1960 films 1960 Western (genre) films American Western (genre) films Revisionist Western (genre) films * Films shot in Lone Pine, California Films directed by Budd Boetticher Columbia Pictures films 1960s English-language films 1960s American films {{1960s-Western-film-stub

Plot

Cast

Home media

See also

References

External links