Le sabre et la flèche (1953) Online

Director Andre De Toth's cavalry versus the Indians western "Last of the Comanches" with Broderick Crawford and Lloyd Bridges qualifies as a first-rate remake of the classic World War II propaganda war film "Sahara" (1943) that starred Humphrey Bogart and Lloyd Bridges. Calling "Last of the Comanches" a carbon copy of "Sahara" stretches the resemblance between the films almost to the breaking point. There is nobody in "Comanches" that looks like the Italian soldier and the German soldier that ride on the tank with Bogart and company. Further, "Comanches" is more realistic in terms of what happens. Everybody in this western could have been there, but there is some question that an American tank and its crew played the role that they did in what was essentially a British theatre of operation. For example, Columbia—the same studio that produced "Comanches"—never explained how the crew of the U.S. Army tank 'Lulu Belle' landed in North Africa six months before the U.S. actually landed in Morocco. In fact, scenarist Kenneth Gamet of "The Stranger Wore A Gun" goes to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of the date—1876—in the opening credit narration where tough Sgt. Crawford compares their holding exploits against the Indians with Custer's Last Stand that occurred in 1876. The other major difference is that no African-Americans appear in "Comanches" while there was one in "Sahara." However, "Comanches" sticks to the same basic plot—a survival saga set in inhospitable surroundings with a numerically superior enemy force waiting to massacre the good guys.

"Last of the Comanches" opens with Sergeant Matt Trainor (Broderick Crawford of "Born Yesterday") and five other cavalry troopers who survive a massive Comanche attack led by the infamous Chief Black Cloud (John War Eagle of "They Rode West") on the isolated frontier town of Dry Buttes. No sooner has the action unfolded than our heroes find themselves in peril. There is a really nice looking matte painting of Dry Buttes in ruins after the savages stampeded a horse herd through the town, incinerated everything in sight, and left most everybody for dead. Low on water, Sgt. Turner rallies his soldiers—among them "Sea Hunt's" Lloyd Bridges and "Adam-12's" Martin Milner--by reminding them that they are still soldiers and the maintenance of military discipline is the only thing that will ensure their survival. They set out on a 100 mile journey to the closest settlement, Fort Macklin, through craggy terrain thriving with redskins and low on water.

Along the way, they encounter a stagecoach—nicknamed 'Buttercup'—with a lone female, Julie Lanning (Barbara Hale of TV's "Perry Mason"), whiskey drummer Henry Ruppert (Chubby Johnson of "Gunfire at Indian Gap"), former cavalry scout Satterlee the Prophet (Milton Parsons of "That Hagen Girl") and stagecoach driver O'Rattigan (George Matthews of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") and catch a ride on it. Later, they discover a suspicious white man in the desert Denver Kinnaird (Hugh Sanders of "The Last Command") for no apparent reason. Eventually, they discover that Kinnaird has been running guns to the redskins and Sgt. Trainor has Jim Starbuck (Lloyd Bridges) keep his eye on him. Starbuck doesn't have much use for Kinnaird because he cheated a fellow trooper out of money during a gambling hand. The last passenger that our heroes come across is a young Kiowa Indian boy, Little Knife (Johnny Stewart of "Boots Malone"), with whom they initially want nothing to do, but in a fit of conscience they let him join their ranks because Black Cloud is his enemy, too. Our heroes prospect for wells unsuccessfully until Little Knife appears, and he takes them 30 miles out of their way to a mission with a well. Black Cloud attacks them, but his superior numbers are no match for the lack of water. Trainor offers Black Cloud a deal, a cup of water for every repeating rifle, but the Indians refuse. Meanwhile, Turners sends Little Knife off to deliver a help message. Non-surprisingly, Little Knife gets through in the nick of time and our heroes are saving, but not before several of them bite the dust.

"Play Dirty" director De Toth does an outstanding job with "Last of the Comanches." Everybody emerges as a tangible character, not like the poorly drawn characters in De Toth's "The Stranger Wore A Gun." Broderick Crawford is at his commanding best, and it's interesting to see Martin Milner at this early stage in his Hollywood career. De Toth pulls off some cool looking visuals, such as Crawford and Bridges conferring with each other in silhouette during the last moments of sunlight. The camera-work when the cavalry excavate the well at the mission looks great, too. We are shown it from the perspective of the well as the troopers break through it. The multiple explosions that Crawford sets off when the Indians attack looks truly spectacular! Barbara Hale holds her own among the all male cast with expert marksmanship. Clocking in a 85 trim minutes, "Last of the Comanches" doesn't waste a moment on needless material. It's a cliché that the cavalry ride to their rescue at the end, but our heroes are pretty close to the end at that point. Surprisingly, for a 1950s western, "Last of the Comanches" piles up a rather high body count, something that most westerns held to a minimum.

If you like Broderick Crawford, you will enjoy this film from beginning to end. Broderick plays the role of Sgt. Matt Trainor who leads a group of people from Arizona with all kinds of backgrounds, one man was a gun smuggler for the Indians, Black Cloud and a young woman, named Julia Lanning, (Barbara Hale) who is among many men but no one tries to hit on her, mainly because they are too busy fighting off Indians constantly. There is plenty of action with arrows flying through the air and people running out of water and Sgt. Matt playing all kinds of games with the Native American Indians who do not fool around and drive a hard bargain. Lloyd Bridges, "Sea Hunt TV Series" (Jim Starbuck) looks very young and gives a great supporting role. Enjoyable 1953 film classic which was filmed in Buttercup Dunes, California and not the Sahara Desert.

This story was originally written by Kenneth Gamet and interestingly directed by Andre De Toth. Indeed, this film which nearly duplicates the previous film called 'Sahara' which starred Humphery Bogart, now uses actor Broderick Crawford as Sgt. Matt Trainor for it's lead character, but entitled " Last of the Comanches." The story relates the tale of a small group of survivors who join together against a huge band of renegade Indians in a desert setting fighting for their lives. Out numbered, out-gunned and short of water decide to challenge a band of Commanche in a remote and abandoned watering hole. Discovering there is no water, they nevertheless convince the enemy, that there is plenty of water to be had if the Indians will surrender their guns in exchange for badly needed water, Although, the acting in the Bogart version is much more superior, this remake nevertheless has it's moments. The additional casts includes Lloyd Bridges, Mickey Shaughnessy and Martin Milner makes for a good remake. There is sufficient action to warrant lasting interest and also enough excitement and serious dialog to hold audiences to it's conclusion. All in all, a good remake of an established Classic. Yes I would recommend it for viewing as a mirror classic of a previous era. ****

I saw this movie at a children's Saturday afternoon matinee performance in Belfast under its then-British title THE SABRE AND THE ARROW. Only a young child, I remember being extremely moved by the juxtapositioning of the Brodrick Crawford seen-it-all Cavalry Sergeant's pragmatism with Johnny Stewart's vulnerablity as Little Knife, the abandoned Comanche boy in the desert. Normally at a children's matinee kids fidget and talk throughout, only cheering or boohing the action sequences. Thus we mostly came away from a western with an impression rather than a comprehension because the noise built to a point where dialogue went unheard. Not so in THE SABRE AND THE ARROW, the children's attention being a tribute to this western's emotional pull in the days when just seeing movies in colour was regarded as a treat. Cinema-only viewing added to the lustre. The dryness of that sun-blanched desert still haunts my senses fifty years on.

Six cavalrymen, led by strong Broderick Crawford, survive a devastating Indian raid on a plains town...

After a hundred-mile desert hard journey, they are joined by a collection of stranded stagecoach passengers, a wandering group of different types in the true John Ford-derivative tradition, ranging from heroine Barbara Hale to a murder suspect and an Indian lad (Johnny Stewart).

Almost needless to say, the reserve cavalry arrive just before it is too late, to save laconic Crawford and his contingent from a redskin massacre...

Barbara Hale appears properly harried yet brave, but she has little duty to perform in this conventional B-film helped a little by color photography but spoiled by boring dialog...

A good remake of Sahara with Broderick Crawford leading the cast of competent if not name performers. Crawford was still in the glow of his two star quality performances in All The King's Men and Born Yesterday.

Broderick Crawford is a cavalry sergeant leading a patrol in the Arizona desert and they're attacked. As in Sahara, the patrol settles in for a siege at a waterhole, where the numerically superior Indians surround them, but are being dehydrated for lack of water. It's a test of wills and if you saw Sahara, you know how it will come out.

Young Johnny Stewart as the Comanche boy Little Knife is in the second of the two feature films he did for Columbia. He had a good screen presence and God only knows why he didn't become a major star.

Good B western with a quality cast.

Fair western, but the plot was identical to the 1943 Humphrey Bogart movie Sahara. That made it predictable to me. Lloyd Bridges must have liked the plot because he was in both movies and got killed in both movies. Broderick Crawford, a fine actor was his old self, barking orders through all of the movie. Calvary came to the rescue at the last moment, just what we like to see. Also you can see a very young Martin Milner later on Adam-12.

Clearly, this was the same adventure yarn of the Bogart war movie SAHARA. It was great adventure, and it translated well into the old West. Six cavalry soldiers led by Broderick Crawford, meet a stagecoach in the desert, and they try to avoid hostile Native Americans. Not a lot of story line depth here. But the characters are winners. And some of the characters do a few unexpected but character-believable things, particularly the man who isn't accustomed to fighting. To be honest, SAHARA, which I liked, too, wasn't the first to make a movie of characters getting picked off one by one. This one is very much a carbon copy of it, though. The only movies I can think of that were even closer carbon copies to each other were THE JACKALS and YELLOW SKY. Good action. And the theme of being low on water is treated with some authentic practicality when Crawford tells the passenger that the horses need water first, unless they want to walk. Indeed, I would have spared almost all of the water for the horses and driver. The reasons for making a stand are far fetched, but that's Hollywood. And tired, thirsty, hungry men don't always make rational choices. Some people seem to think people are always on top of their game. If you're not one of these naive people, you'll enjoy a movie like this.

The fort, with a couple of men, and a woman, is surrounded by hundreds of Indians, very little water, until the cavalry shows up. We saw that on many films, we knew what was going to happen, and we enjoyed it most of the time, it is not a question of knowing the story, it is a question of how well it was brought to the screen. And here, with the expert direction of Andre de Toth, and the impeccable performances of Broderick Crawford and Barbara Hale it is at the top of the list among the films with similar stories. There is a climate of desperation in the film, from the beginning with the massacre at the town of Dry Buttes and up to the end with one dying after another. At a time when many westerns were trying to run away from the clichés of the genre, casting Broderick Crawford, not the usual handsome hero, was a great idea. Also not having the usual romance, but the growing affection between Hale and Crawford, specially in the way Hale looks at him, differentiates this film from the usual western of the fifties.

Last of the Comanches (AKA: The Sabre and the Arrow) is directed by Andre De Toth and adapted to the screen by Kenneth Gamet. It stars Broderick Crawford, Barbara Hale, Lloyd Bridges, Mickey Shaughnessy, Johnny Stewart, George Matthews and Hugh Sanders. A Technicolor production with cinematography by Charles Lawton Junior and Ray Cory and music by George Duning.

Safe as a bomb shelter Western. A remake of Zoltan Korda/Humphrey Bogart's war movie Sahara from 1943, Last of the Comanches finds Broderick Crawford as the leader of what remains of a massacred cavalry troop. As they make their way across the desert they pick up ragtag group of stagecoach passengers and as water runs low, they must fight for survival against fierce Comanches led by Black Cloud.

In essence it's a survivalist story with some Indian War action dotted around the outskirts of plotting. It's nice and airy, pleasingly performed, easy on the eye with its Technicolor photography, and De Toth once again shows himself to be a good marshall of action scenes. Crawford carries the movie of course, imbuing Sergeant Trainor with fearless bluster that holds the dysfunctional group together. The narrative strength comes from the lack of water, both for the whiteys and the Comanche, where the often forgotten weapons of war, that of food or drink, firmly keeps the story engrossing.

Not as good as Sahara but still a safe recommendation to Western and Brod Crawford fans. 7/10

This western is a survival story as a cavalry sergeant leads six cavalry troopers and a few stagecoach travelers across barren desert flats and battle thirst, sand-storms and Comanches. The film is a carbon-copy of the 1943 film "Sahara" in a western setting with the soldiers fighting Indians with other western movie clichés thrown in. Barbara Hale, the cast's only femme, is solid in her support of star Broderick Crawford and is very much at home in the western genre. Her characterizations are always credible. There are some fine battle scenes but most of the film is bogged down with dialogue for character development. An Indian boy turns out to be a hero after nearly being abandoned in the desert by the soldiers. Color photography is good.

Any time you see a movie with a theater full of kids and it holds your attention, it HAS to be a winner. So WHY don't we see it on Amazon? Whay is there only one seller who has it TODAy on eBay, torturing me?WHY is there only a Spanish poster available? WHY was Lloyd Bridges in BOTH the original "Sahara" and this remake? Wasn't he planning Sea Hunt or something? The color as IO remember it is saturated - please refer to DeToth's other big color pictures: He fell in love, obviously, in 1951 with Technicolor directing the HARD to FIND "Man in the Saddle" with Randolph Scott and Lone Pine, CA...; back in Europe he did the Italian job 'Morgan the Pirate' with Steve Reeves in '61 (Eastmancolor); what about Vincent Price's masterpiece remake? 1953's 'House of Wax' also in Warnercolor... and don't forget Coop's classic and De Toth's first Warnercolor picture from the previous year: "Springfield Rifle"...unforgettable! What a colorist! What a stylist! and he lived to NINETY!

This movie is almost a carbon copy of the WWII, 1943 version of the movie Sahara which starred Humphrey Bogart as Sergeant Joe Gunn. Bogart and a ragtag group of soldiers cross the Sahara Desert and make an almost hopeless stand against terrible odds.

They and the Germans are greatly in need of water. The..."trade a rifle for a cup of water... two rifles, two cups of water" is the same in both.... still fun to watch. It's fun to match the characters and the similarities. Sahara (1943) is a very, very good WWI movie.... Last of the Comanches (1952) is a so-so Western.

A solid directorial effort by Andre De Toth (check out the scene in silhouette with Broderick Crawford & Lloyd Bridges), good story and acting plus decent dialogue make this a must see for any western or "drama classics" fan.

This is an old fashioned cowboys and Indians story with the cavalry literally saving the heroic band of Indian fighters at the last minute. It has some very good old fashioned character actors with the likes of Broderick Crawford, Martin Milner, Mickey Shaughnessy and a much younger Della Street in the guise of Barbara Hale. In this age of extreme anxiety, with bands of terrorists threatening we know not where or what, it was very nice to escape back in time to this kind of well produced, well acted 50's western. Though it is, perhaps, a movie for those of a certain generation.

This 1953 western features Broderick Crawford as a cavalry sergeant leading a small band of soldiers and civilians against a superior force of indians at a nearly dry water hole in the desert. There is some action, but much of this is a battle of wits, with much bluffing going on.

There was one bit of dialogue between Crawford and the indian chiefs which was so wildly improbable in terms of figures of speech which would have been incomprehensible to the indians, that it jarred.

Otherwise, this was a decent but low key western, slightly unusual, but very much of its period.

A little too-standard re-make of the "Cowboys and Indians" western drama ("The Lost Patrol", "Sahara"…). It does update the budget - with scenic location camera-work, and interesting direction by Andre De Toth. Broderick Crawford is fine, but seems a little out of place in western gear. Barbara Hale adds feminine charm. Johnny Stewart is fine as the Indian boy; but, certainly not as mesmerizing as in "Boots Malone" (1952). But, there isn't as much potential in this film's parts. Lloyd Bridges looks similarly under-appreciated.

"Last of the Comanches" shows a formula getting tired, with not enough newness in the storyline. The production is good, though. The film is bracketed by exciting "Cowboys versus Indians" battles, and there is a lively series of line explosions, in-between.

***** Last of the Comanches (1952) Andre De Toth ~ Broderick Crawford, Barbara Hale, Johnny Stewart

Basically this film is a remake of the 1943 Humphrey Bogart film 'Sahara' with essentially the same plot moved from the deserts of North Africa to the American Southwest. Nevertheless, this is a solid western with good acting by a cast of competent character actors and vivid photography. Broderick Crawford was, to my mind, a very underrated actor and we see Barbara Hale here prior to her 'Perry Mason' days and Lloyd Bridges prior to his'Sea Hunt' underwater TV series. All in all, an enjoyable film for western devotees. I remember originally seeing this film at the weekly Friday night 'Ranch Night' at my local theater in the late 50s. If you like this film, be sure to see the 'Last Posse' with Broderick Crawford which is just as good, if not superior to this western.

Better than average western directed by Andre DeToth. Cavalry Sgt. Matt Trainor(Broderick Crawford)and his detail are helping a stagecoach across a hundred miles of sweltering desert following an Indian attack. Among the riders in the coach is Julia Lanning(Barbara Hale), who is going to visit her brother, an officer at the military encampment a couple of days away. Not far behind is Chief Black Cloud(John War Eagle)and his Comanche warriors, who are also in need of water. Trainor and the group find water at an old abandoned mission, where they must fight for the water they found and their very lives. Among Sgt. Trainor's detail are Jim Starbuck(Lloyd Bridges), Rusty Potter(Mickey Shaughnessy), Billy Creel(Martin Milner)and Cpl. Floyd(Jack Woody). A young Comanche boy Little Knife(Johnny Stewart)actually is sent to bring the cavalry to the rescue. A well written story and very interesting. It is easy to see that Crawford is wasting his talents in this role. Miss Hale is impressive in a movie that has mostly monotone dialog.

Seems weird though to already make a remake, only 10 years after the original This movie is being based on the 1943 movie "Sahara", which starred Humphrey Bogart in the main lead. That movie in return though was also a remake of the 1937 Soviet production "Trinadtsat". All that these three movies have in common are of course that they feature the same story and main premise but also feature different settings and groups of people. The 1937 version had Soviet soldiers, set in the Asian wastelands, the 1943 had American soldiers in the Sahara desert, during WW II and this version features a couple of American soldiers as well, only set in the late 19th century in the wild west.

It's funny that this movie also stars Lloyd Bridges again, who had also starred previously before in the 1943 movie "Sahara". This time he plays a more grateful role though. Also the Oscar winner Broderick Craword plays in this movie, as its main lead. Not that he impresses much though and nor does any of the other actors really. This has more to do with the script that is lacking in some good dialog. Also the characters just don't ever work out well in the movie. The movie obviously didn't cost a lot of money to make and it's also really a bit clumsily and cheap looking at times, especially when you compare it the black & white movie of 10 years earlier.

Still it's a fair enough and entertaining movie to watch. You can say that the movie serves it's purpose but you just feel that they just didn't do the best possible with its source material. Still its main concept remains what makes this movie a good and also quite entertaining one to watch.

The movie has plenty of action in it, though it also feels after a while that the movie starts repeating itself with its moments at times. Some of the moments also feel like they were put in just for the sake of having some action in the movie.

A good enough remake of a remake.

6/10

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A bad example of the western B-movie genre. Absurd dialogue, cornball all the way. Pretty Technicolor desert photography. Crawford, hilariously barking orders like on speed (remember Highway Patrol: "I want roadblocks here, here, and here. 10-4!"). Notable only for Yakima Kanut as 2nd unit director, and Jay Silverheels in a bit part. Favorite dialogue, aside from Crawford and Black Cloud (noted elsewhere): Indian boy says he knows where water is and is asked how far. "Thirteen miles", he replies with amazing attention to accuracy and a fine understanding of the English system of weights and measures. What, no GPS coordinates? For all the talk about the Indians having "carbines", all the soldiers seem to get shot by arrows. I had no idea this was based on the Bogart WW2 film "Sahara", and this unfortunate fact is ultimately insulting to that film.

Crawford is the grizzled cavalry sergeant here, trying to lead an assorted band of survivors of an Indian attack to safety. Story is predictable and drags. Considering the cast, this one is a disappointment on all counts.