Sophia Loren in playful mood. Not every serious actress could whip up a confection as light as this. She was in the middle of a romance period embracing both comedy and drama that began with Houseboat (1958) and rattled through to The Millionairess (1960) before embarking on a half-decade of more serious stuff starting with her Oscar-winning performance in Two Women (1960).
Easy to dismiss her here as all pout and bosom, but there’s a distinct egalitarianism on show, especially given it’s set in early stuffy 20th century Vienna, where protocol reigns, making life difficult for a lass who wishes an active sex life outside the constrictions of marriage.
There’s not much to the story, in fact it’s as flimsy as heck, but the kind of picture that a top star can swan her way through and charm the audience with her.
When we meet Olympia (Sophia Loren) she’s been exiled to the countryside for one scandal too many and to ease her boredom takes potshots at anyone visiting her quaint castle. Out horse-riding, she tangles with a motor car driven by Yank businessman Charlie Foster (John Gavin) and engineers that they spend the night in a nearby hunting lodge, leading him to believe she’s an ordinary peasant girl and not a princess.
Summoned back to Vienna by her father Prince Philip (Maurice Chevalier) and mother Princess Eugenie (Isabel Jeans) because they’ve found a prospective suitor in Prince Ruprecht (Carlo Hintermann), she encounters Charlie again because he’s trying to sell her father on some business deal.
On the sidelines causing trouble is (Angela Lansbury) who threatens to dish the dirt on Olympia and Charlie and cause a great scandal. And, really, that’s all there is to it except, as had become somewhat de rigeur in his pictures, Maurice Chevalier chips in with a song.
But the settings are glorious and costume design takes the top prize. While everyone else has a whale of a time, John Gavin (Midnight Lace, 1960) looks lost, wooden and out of his depth, unable to respond to the mischievous sparkle of La Loren. This could easily have been devised to show Loren at her marquee best, the belle of the ball, but with a cunning mind, quick repartee, and surprisingly feminist in her approach.
It was one of those Hollywood-Italian co-productions that were starting to take off with little regard for national gridlines. Though set in Austria, the female lead was Italian, male lead American, Maurice Chevalier (Jessica, 1962) as French as they come, Isabel Jeans (The Magic Christian, 1969) is English and director Michael Curtiz (The Commancheros, 1961) Hungarian.
It’s hardly demanding and since Gavin doesn’t step up to the plate lacks the necessary sizzle but all that means is Loren can steal the spotlight. Walter Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) and Ring Lardner Jr (The Cincinnati Kid, 1965) turned the Frederic Molnar play into a screenplay.
Easy to criticize if you’re wanting something more demanding, but otherwise effortlessly enjoyable.
The making of this could have been a movie in itself. The novel, published in 1952, suffered from a long gestation involving four directors with seven actors at various points either signed up or mooted for the two top main roles.
Journalist-turned-author Paul Wellman specialized in westerns and historical non-fiction with a western bent. The Comancheros was the last of the half-dozen of his near-30 novels to reach the screen, following Cheyenne (1947) with Jane Wyman, The Walls of Jericho (1948) with Cornel Wilde and Linda Darnell, Alan Ladd as Jim Bowie in The Iron Mistress (1952), Burt Lancaster as Apache (1954) and Glenn Ford as Jubal (1956).
Originally earmarked by George Stevens as a follow-up to his Oscar-nominated Shane (1953), it was scheduled to roll before the cameras on completion of Giant (1956) in a Warner Bros production that contemplated re-teaming Vera Cruz (1954) pair Gary Cooker and Burt Lancaster. When that failed to gel, next up were Gary Cooper and James Garner. That was kind of a tricky proposition given that Garner had taken on the might of Warner Brothers in a lawsuit in a bid to extricate himself from his contract.
But the producer didn’t seem to care as the day the actor won the lawsuit he received the script. “I didn’t like it, I didn’t want to do it,” recalled Garner, “but a couple of days later I heard Gary Cooper was going to do it,” resulting in a speedy change of heart. However, despite his verbal acceptance, no contract appeared and never hearing from Fox again assumed foul play from Warner studio head Jack Warner.
Meanwhile, Stevens’ interest had cooled and after settling on The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) he sold the film rights off to Twentieth Century Fox for $300,000, more than he had originally paid the author. Fox hired Clair Huffaker (Hellfighters, 1968) to write the script with Cooper’s sidekick role assigned to the up-and-coming Robert Wagner (Banning, 1967). But Cooper’s ill-health prevented that version going ahead.
Comic specialist Dell was a bit slow on the uptake, it’s tie-in copy (Issue 1300) not appearing until three months after the movie opened.
Television director Douglas Heyes (Beau Geste, 1966) was set to make his feature film debut with the plum cast of John Wayne and Charlton Heston, fresh off global monster hit Ben-Hur (1959). Ironically, Wayne could have made this movie years before, in 1953 having been sent the novel by then-agent Charles Feldman (who had clearly also contacted Stevens).
Wayne had come back into the equation after signing a three-picture deal with Fox. But Heston, on reflection, decided it would not be in the interests of his career at this point to take second billing and dropped out.
Wayne’s involvement meant re-shaping the script. In the novel the main character was Paul Regret, the Louisiana gambler wanted for murder for killing a man in a duel. Wayne was too old to play him so to puff up his part the Huffaker script was rewritten by James Edward Grant, better known originally as a short story writer, who had begun working for Wayne on The Angel and the Badman (1947) and would continue to do so for another 11 projects ending with Circus World (1964).
Another newcomer, Tom Tryon (The Cardinal, 1963), was lined up to play Regret. Then Heyes dropped out leaving the way clear for the final teaming of Hungarian director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, 1942), now a freelance after decades with Warners, and John Wayne.
Stuart Whitman (Murder Inc, 1960) arrived from left field. While starring as Francis of Assisi (1961) he was shown the script by that film’s director, Curtiz. Tryon was eased out after Whitman managed to secure an interview with Wayne and the pair hit it off.
That Curtiz was already suffering from cancer was obvious to Whitman. Whatever sympathy his illness might have attracted was scuppered by the director’s rudeness. He had a predilection for sunbathing in the nude and blowing his nose on tablecloths, the actions of a powerful figure letting everyone know he could get away with it. His illness meant he restricted working to the mornings. After lunch he fell asleep in his chair, the crew placing umbrellas over his head to protect him from the sun.
While the director dozed, Wayne took over the directorial reins. When Curtiz was hospitalized, the actor finished the picture. It is estimated that he filmed over half of it, including the climactic battle.
Ina Balin, a Method actor, found her acting style cut little ice with Wayne. When she demanded rehearsals and long discussions about her character, he simply shot the rehearsal. “Cut. Print. See how easy this is,” explained the actor after wrapping her first scene with him using the rehearsal take.
“Duke was a terrific director,” observed Stuart Whitman, “as long as you did what he wanted you to do. Shooting with him was very easy although Ina Balin…pissed him off. Before each shot, she’d dig down and get emotional and he was a little impatient: get the goddam words out, he’d mutter to himself.”
Jack Elam, playing one of the heavies, had won in a poker game with their handler a pair of camera-trained vultures. The daily fee for the birds to sit on a branch was $100. Elam thought he’d get cute and ramp up the price to $250. That notion didn’t sit well with Wayne and he soon reverted to the original price.
While on the set, Curtiz fired third assistant Tom Mankiewicz, later a screenwriter, but currently just a lowly nepo, owing his job to the fact he was son of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Tom’s downfall was arguing with Curtiz over his plans for the stampede scene for which he had rented dozens of Wayne’s prized longhorns. Asking the cattle to go over a 5ft drop and scramble up the other side was a good way of breaking their legs. Having informed Wayne of the director’s proposal, he was told by the star to turn up for work the next day, by the time the actor had finished chewing out the director that would be the least of his problems.
Despite friction with Curtiz, Wayne was surrounded by old friends and colleagues, including producer George Sherman, cinematographer William Clothier and screenwriter James Edward Grant. “Duke and George Sherman grew up together working at Republic for $75 a week and all the horses you could ride,” explained Clothier. “They were old friends. Duke didn’t understand old Mike Curtiz very well and I must say he didn’t try very hard. Mike was just plain out-numbered and I felt sorry for him.”
Although set in Texas in 1843, parts of the film were shot in Utah and the cast used weapons such as the Winchester lever-action rifles and the Colt Peacemaker which were not in production for another three decades.
Michael Curtiz, after nearly half a century directing movies, died shortly after the film’s release. The Comancheros, a box office smash, helped balance Wayne’s finances after the financial hit of The Alamo and solidified the notion that as far as is career went he was better concentrating on westerns than anything else.
For some reason, U.S. box office figures are sketchy but it was a huge hit around the world, finishing seventh for the year at the British box office for example, and re-emphasizing the Duke’s resounding global popularity.
SOURCES: Scott Eyman, John Wayne, His Life and Legend, (Simon and Schuster paperback, 2014) p352-357; Howard Thompson, “Wagner Steps Up Work In Movies,” New York Times, January 21, 1961, p18; Lawrence Grobel, “James Garner, You Ought To Be in Pictures,” Movieline, May 1, 1994
You can always tell a studio is piling a lot behind a rising actor when the top-billed star is absent, except for a fleeting moment during the credits, for the first 10 minutes. In this case, Twentieth Century Fox was showcasing two new talents, Stuart Whitman (Murder, Inc. 1960) and Ina Balin (From the Terrace, 1960).
I’m sticking my neck out a little on this one, not considered as top-notch as Duke’s other great westerns of the decade – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), El Dorado (1967) and True Grit (1969) – but it’s an unusual story, hardly following a standard narrative, has a great score by Elmer Bernstein but most importantly because it’s real old-school film-making with the emphasis on the classic long shot and the horizon line.
And it takes a surprisingly feminist approach with gypsy Pilar (Ina Balin) making the running in the seduction stakes. Indeed, should she be willing to surrender an iota of her hard-won independence for a long-term relationship sticks to the view that in love there is always a dominant one and a subservient one, with no question about which she is. Plus, although the nickname “Pilgrim” became a famed element of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance this is where the nickname notion began when lawman Jake (John Wayne) assigns prisoner Paul Regret (Stuart Whitman) the appellation “Monsoor” because he’s of French heritage.
Meshes effortlessly three storylines – Jake taking prisoner Regret back to base, Regret turning from western tenderfoot to accomplished hand, and Jake and his captive infiltrating the Comancheros of the title, a secret society of white men who utilize Comanche power to its own ends. You could argue this is ushered in the “buddy” movie, the repartee between the two principals a delight. Plus, you would have to take note that legendary director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, 1942), in his final picture, has done something remarkable in getting the Duke to speak proper, not hi-hat English, but without that Wayne trick of breaking up his sentences so it appears he’s thinking.
Curtiz is pretty nifty when it comes to setting up scenes, interrupting gentle moments with elements of stunning ferocity. When Jake arrives at a ranch, the camera tracks back from his arrival to reveal the corpses hanging upside down under the ranch gateway. Later, Jake is tucking into a meal at the home of another rancher when that man’s pregnant wife in the background suddenly sits up and from her point-of-view we see through a window as big as the entire screen a band of renegades in attack mode charging through a river.
Regret isn’t one to hang around either when he can escape during the ensuing melee, but no sooner has he gone than he returns with a bunch of Texas Rangers, thus redeeming himself in Jake’s eyes. And there’s a great cut between Jake being knocked unconscious in the blazing sun and waking up in the pouring rain.
And it’s chock-full of reversal, not just that Pilar dumps her pick-up Regret when their riverboat docks at Galveston, but Regret, forced to ride a mule in handcuffs to prevent his escape, gets the jump on his captor at the saddest scene in the picture, the burial of a family killed by Comanches. Later, after taking on the alias McBain, he encounters Regret at a poker table and the wanted man does not give him away.
After a bit of legal chicanery, Regret is a free man, although with the proviso he teams up with Jake to go undercover into the Comancheros camp. This doesn’t work out too well, the pair strung up by suspicious crippled leader Graile (Nehemiah Persoff) until rescued by, surprise, Pilar. Love works its mysterious way and soon Pilar is on Regret’s side, resulting in a classy finale.
Along the way we encounter Lee Marvin (Raintree County, 1957) having another scene-stealing ball as the Comancheros contact. Clever screenwriters James Edward Grant (Circus World/The Magnificent Showman, 1964) and Clair Huffaker (Hellfighters, 1968) find an entirely believable method of getting him out of the way. And in passing we learn that Jake’s wife died “two years, two months and 13 days” ago and without an ounce of revealing dialog between them that Jake would like to take up with widow Melinda (Joan O’Brien). Meanwhile, initially presented as a man of such honor that he will fight a duel to protect such notions of nobility, Regret goes from gambler, wanton lover, and prisoner to revert to his original state.
Expect chunks of western lore – don’t give a hot horse water until it has cooled down is one takeaway. And men who swear by an unwritten code. Here, it’s “words are what men live by.” What’s so refreshing is that lore and code alike arequickly punctured. The follow-up to the code annoncement to which Regret shows indiference is a pronouncement from Jake: “You must’ve had a real careless upbringing. ” that’s not forgetting characters remembering to be characters in the midst of all the uproar as with the bedridden pregnant wife instructing her husband to make sure Jake eats off the “best china.”
It’s not only a well-structured movie but it’s filled with moments that reveal character and even when Curtiz feels duty bound to include standard tropes such as the bar-room brawl or the drunk there are enough twists to have you believe the clichés have been bitten in half.
A superb ending to Curtiz’s career, terrific performances all round, great double act from Wayne and Whitman, with the latter afforded considerably more leeway acting-wise than any time in his career, and Ina Balin in a prize role.
The Magnificent 60s 