Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Nonureva Really Surprised!

Micitype Pretty Good

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

35541m Chuka is a strangely written film with some strange characters, all of whom need to have some tedious expository background scene whilst the audience twiddles its thumbs waiting for the Indians to attack (that they win is revealed in the opening scene so there's no suspense here).Writer Richard Jassup creates some bizarre people who are unlikely to have existed in real life. His army fort is populated by a collection of what is described as the 'scum of the Earth'. As if a USA army fort in Indian territory would ever be (or ever could be) populated with 'disgraced' people. The officer in charge is a disgraced (and, it is implied, castrated) former British officer who, for reasons understandably unexplained, is now a colonel in the USA army. Not only that, but his German sergeant who served with him in the British army in the Sudan (?!) is also with him at the fort. Another character explains that he hates battles because horses get killed (!). With such bizarre creations as these, there is little one can do really but sit it out for the full 105m whilst these people all reveal something 'significant' about their backgrounds and hope that the end action justifies the wait (even know you know it won't).The real star of the film is not Rod Taylor but the most unconvincing fort set that I have ever seen (and I must have watched over 400 westerns including all 13 of AC Lyles' films). It is so small you only ever get to see one small part of the wall. The inhabitants must number about 30 at most - only about 20 can fit in the non-existent 'parade ground' - and there is room in the stable for about 10 horses. Apart from Taylor, none of the main actors seem to have left this set for the duration. Consequently, the film has a cramped, claustrophobic, artificial look throughout and I was half expecting the source material to be a stage play. The constricted set causes several Indian arrows to defy the laws of physics and gravity - one army officer gets one in the back when his back was up against a wooden wall ! Other highlights include a long fight between Taylor and Ernest Borgnine which ends, following kidney punches and the banging of Taylor's head against a wooden post, with the two simply laughing and seemingly unharmed. Plus a somewhat incomprehensible ending that tries to strain for significance (would a grave really not be dug-up due to 'sacrilege' if a relative was after the body?).

bkoganbing This is a strange western that I think owes some inspiration from John Ford's classic Cheyenne Autumn. Like the Ford movie it's concerning starving Indians on the reservation, in this case Arapahoe who resolve not to starve any longer. Especially when post commander John Mills has plenty of army supplies in his fort and won't feed the Arapahoe or give them guns to hunt. His fort is a last chance outpost where apparently the army sends all its misfits from the commander on down. Holding some kind of discipline together is Sergeant Ernest Borgnine.Into the mix rides gunfighter Rod Taylor in the title role together with Luciana Paluzzi and her niece Victoria Vetri. Paluzzi and Taylor had a little something something going back in the day.In any event the Arapahoes have them boxed in with a massacre impending. Our sympathies are completely with the Indians on this one. This post contains some of the worst specimens of human being ever gathered together in one spot. Mills is a frightening spectacle with Borgnine enforcing his edicts on an unruly post. Of course there's a reason he's a drunken shell of a man which we learn near the end of the film.Chuka misses being a classic because of the pedestrian direction it got from Gordon Douglas. Someone like Delmar Daves or John Huston could have made it a classic. The cast is a good one.John Ford would never have directed it though, no way he would have portrayed his beloved United States Cavalry like this.

Poseidon-3 An unfortunate veneer of artificiality hangs over this otherwise rugged western, giving it a cheap feeling despite its impressive cast. Taylor plays the title character, a drifter and a gunman, who comes upon a distressed stagecoach and escorts it to a nearby fort. On the coach is a former love of his (Paluzzi) and her ward Vetri. Once inside, rather than finding the relief of security, Taylor and the others discover that the fort is actually manned by inept, almost mutinous soldiers and run by a stubborn tyrant with esteem issues. The colonel in charge (Mills) is about to incite an attack from local Indians because he reuses to aid them with food or supplies. Taylor urges him to desert the fort before everyone in it is slaughtered, as they are mightily outnumbered, but Mills is steadfast in his decision. Soon enough, Indians are attacking with rage as the fort's inhabitants options dwindle. Taylor, a reliable and appealing actor, was co-producer on this film. He clearly saw it as an opportunity to essay a serious, deep character. Unfortunately, his inherent amiability makes his tough character a harder sell than it might be for another actor. Still, he does a decent job. Oddly, his character's name comes from the fact that, as a boy, he could always be found around the "chuck wagon", hence the pronunciation "chuck-a" which looks like it would be "chew-ka" (why not just spell it "Chucka"?? Why not "Chuckie" or "Chuck-O" for that matter?) This is stupid and makes viewers glad that Taylor didn't hang out at the "sh*t hole" as a boy. Borgnine is pretty good as one of Mills devoted flunkies who clashes with Taylor in an extended fight sequence. Mills has a badly written role to play and comes very close to embarrassing himself at times. Thankfully, he had an Oscar with his name on it just around the corner for "Ryan's Daughter". Paluzzi, best known as a Bond girl from "Thunderball" is mostly made to stand around and stare, which she does attractively. Vetri barely registers. Her initial scenes are distracted by having a huge crueller stapled to her head. Later, she's basically furniture. If she'd been allowed to show any type of skin besides her face and hands, maybe she'd have been more memorable. Speaking of clothing, this must be a low point for the legendary costume designer Edith Head (if she even, in fact, had anything to do with the dull, non-evocative costumes.) A few other actors pop up in supporting roles including Whitmore as a boozy scout, Hayward as a jaded major and Cole (soon to be one of TV's "The Mod Squad") as a rebellious soldier. Noted voice-over actor Sirola appears as the stage coach driver and a pal to Taylor. Apart from Taylor and, to a lesser degree Borgnine and Mills, the only creative or arresting acting comes from the ever-reliable Whitmore. The script, derived from a novel by the novel's author, is not cohesive enough and really should have been streamlined in order to retain a particular focus. It allows too many characters and subplots to chip away, to no great effect, at the primary story. Even so, the movie is nearly undone by the horrendous lack of authenticity in the settings. A key outdoor scene features plainly artificial snow made up from chipped tissue paper. The fort is almost entirely constructed (obviously) indoors. All the distress to the set, such as char, aging, etc..., is done with all the skill of 4th grade art students. Time and again, the cheapness and confining restriction of an indoor set takes the viewer out of the moment. There is also an atrociously bad matte painting of an Indian camp. These things brand the film as being just above a TV show, if even that! Most of the action occurs at the tail end of the film and it isn't staged in any grand way. This is for die-hard Cavalry and Indian buffs or for fans of the stars only.

Garranlahan This may be one of the strangest A-List movies ever made. It has a superb international cast (U.S., Great Britain, Australia, Italy), but the story is unbearably childish, intolerably boring, and riddled with errors and plot missteps that defy belief. Just a very few: no cashiered foreign officer could possibly get a commission in the U.S. Army, much less rise to the rank of Colonel; no Colonel wears major's leaves as his rank insignia; no Colonel ever commanded a fort consisting of what appears to be no more than a squad of soldiers (not to mention that no frontier fort was ever held by a mere squad); no Americans served in the British Army's Sudan Campaign; Chuka NEVER misses his shots at the rapidly moving Indians, regardless the range and the fact that, rather than aiming, he lunges, throws out, his pistol when firing, which absolutely GUARANTEES a miss; poor Louis Hayward (at the end of his career) agrees to lead a mutiny, which no officer in the U.S. Armed Forces has ever done; there was no concept, ever, of a fort to which were banished incompetent, criminal officers and cast-off, second-rate men (where do they GET ideas like that?)---this could go on forever. Given the idiocies of the plot and parade of one moronic scene after another (e.g., the Commanding Officer going around the dinner table and grievously insulting every single officer in his command), it must be admitted that the highly professional cast did its very best with the hopeless script (written by someone with no knowledge of the military or the American West)---but that was like trying to breathe life into the first 500 pages of the Manhattan telephone directory. Years from now this film---given its stellar cast---will be pondered upon as one of the great mysteries in Hollywood production and film-making.