Chuka (1967)

It is a performances centric movie

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Chuka is directed by Gordon Douglas and adapted to screenplay by Richard Jessup from his own novel. It stars Rod Taylor, John Mills, Ernest Borgnine, Luciana Paluzzi, James Whimore, Louis Hayward and Victoria Vetri. Music is by Leith Stevens and Pthe Color photography by Harold E. Stine.1876 and Fort Clendenon is host to a bunch of army misfits and a lovelorn gunslinger, hardly a group capable of defending the Fort against an impending Arapaho attack...A super cast and a rather gorgeous colour print can't avert this being a distinctly average Siege Oater. Prodution wise it's a hodgepodge, an uneasy blend of stuffy looking studio bound sequences, matte paintings and airy locales, while the acting, sparse characterisations and general reliance on non meaty chatty filler scenes, all make it an odd viewing experience.The chat angle is most frustrating, not so much because there is so much of it so as to make this a 90% talky piece, but in that there are moments of great dialogue, where interesting character arcs are dangled, but alas they are threads that are never pulled to the benefit of all. Action is sparse but what there is is competently staged, with the siege itself - while not worth the wait - has enough moments of excitement and intelligence so as to not annoy.A very good and intriguing ending further adds to the strange mix of poor and good of it all, but ultimately it's average and hardly essential for fans of Westerns and the stars involved. 5/10

I'd love to have given this a higher vote than 6 but there are just enough corny, well okay bad scenes, that meant I just couldn't bring myself to do it.Fact is though that all the problems with the film for me were washed away with that one moment at the end of the film that brought it back from being below average to being rather satisfying.I don't really care so much about historical accuracy. I doubt many people would watch this film with the idea that they are being educated about life in the west 150 years ago. The story is the key and I was quite able to accept most of it. The jarring moments are the ones where Rod Stewart can't carry off some really poor dialogue and some really bad, well, let me say, childish stuff where his character is putting across the tough guy persona that misses by a long way.The vast majority of westerns that were made were pretty poor. They were churned out as fast as Zane Grey could write them. No wonder then that the really good ones made such an impact since they were such a shock compared to the usual dross.I haven't actually watched this film for, oh 20 years or so, but I have never forgotten it and have thought on it often. It is a personal favorite in that way and if I can get a copy I will buy it.It isn't a great film. It has many flaws. But ... I enjoyed it and would gladly watch it again.

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.

Just recently I found a video store in New Haven County where fine old westerns can be had on VHS. One of the ones I had long wanted to see was "CHUKA" or Chuka: the Gunfighter, from 1967.The video transfer was high quality and so watching this movie on tape was an enjoyable experience. Luciana Paluzzi is stunningly beautiful.Indeed, Chuka is something of a Hollywood fantasy but the tone and the settings of the story are fairly well done.Both Paluzzi and her niece, played by Victoria Vetri ( as Angela Dorian ), do very well in this western oddity. Ernest Borgnine is good as ever, at being Ernest Borgnine. Rod Taylor was also very good and very believable as the cowpuncher turned hardened hired killer.The most interesting part of the story was about how Fort Clendennon became a dumping ground for misfits, rejects, and bad officers. This is a well-known but seldom portrayed part of the truth of how the U.S. Army operated in the late 1870's. It is true that in this fiction, many of the soldiers and civilians seem to be just a little too clean for that day and age, but it doesn't really detract from the rapid pace of the events in this drama.Additionally, the extreme deprivation imposed on the Arapaho tribal nation by the Army at this time is another important element. The "injuns" are rather cartoonish in their depictions but at least some aspects of their true grievances are relayed in the plot.Perhaps this Chuka -- pronounced Chuck-Uh -- is a lot more savvy than circumstances in that day and age might have permitted, but Rod Taylor does really well at being fast-as-lightning and very tough.This film gets a vote of 7 from me, which was really a six with a kicker for the beautiful Vetri and the beautiful Paluzzi.Many of the better westerns have been good about presenting the Mexican culture of that time in a favorable light, and this is one of them, and neither Vetri nor Paluzzi appear as simply being "eye candy" for a rough-and-tumble western. The dinner sequence where Colonel Valois rakes his officers over the coals and embarrasses them all is a piece-de-resistance in western drama. Other elements are not so convincing but this is fun way to see a good western drama from a by-gone era of movie making.Chuka derives its power from the high quality of the story on which it is based. I can recommend it heartily for western fans, for Victoria Vetri fans, and for Rod Taylor's excellent, dynamic performance.