Gunfight at Comanche Creek (1963) User Reviews (16)

Audie Murphy undercover

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 27 February 2016]

The events leading up to the Gunfight At Comanche Creek find Audie Murphy working as an undercover detective who has infiltrated an outlaw gang led by DeForest Kelley. The film has a plot not dissimilar to that of the great urban noir drama A Street With No Name.

Kelley has a unique recruiting method to supplement the hard core of his gang for jobs. He just breaks wanted criminals out of jail gets the use of their service and then kills them for the reward which has gone up in value like a stock in the bull market. One undercover detective has already been killed for the reward on his head so Audie has to watch himself from all angles.

Before he got his signature role as Dr. Leonard McCoy of the star ship Enterprise, DeForest Kelley did a lot of western roles where he was mostly a really nasty villain. If he hadn't signed for Star Trek, Kelley might well have kept in this career path.

Murphy himself was getting older and could no longer be cast as callow western youths as he was early in his career. After failing with a television series Whispering Smith, as so many of his fellow players did, Murphy kept doing westerns of varying quality until the end of the Sixties and the end of the B westerns which played the bottom half of double bills.

Not at all saying however that some of his westerns weren't good. Gunfight At Comanche Creek was done very well for low budget studio Allied Artists and goes at a real nice pace and maintains suspense throughout. Audie has to rely a lot on his wits to keep from being discovered. The gunfight at the end of the film is well worth waiting for.

"When you keep a rattlesnake around, you always pull his fangs."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 30 April 2005]

The setting is Comanche Creek, Colorado, 1875; a band of outlaws headed by Amos Troop (DeForest Kelley) breaks an unsuspecting jailbird out of the town lockup and kills the deputy. The gang then uses the outlaw as a front man for their other robberies. As the reward money on the bad guy escalates, the gang then shoots him and turns him in for the reward, all nice and legal like. Only trouble is, this time the victim was a member of the National Detective Agency gone undercover, and a close friend of Bob Gifford (Audie Murphy). Now the job of infiltrating the gang goes to "Gif", who insinuates himself into Comanche Creek society as a free spending high roller, as the agency creates a back story and wanted poster for "Judd Tanner".

The earlier Murphy Westerns usually cast him in the baby face role of a good guy; in 1959's "No Name on the Bullet", Murphy's character John Gant was a hired assassin, and even then his youngish countenance didn't seem to match his character. Here the older Murphy pulls off the outlaw gimmick a bit better, with wits quick enough to match the ever changing dynamics of his masquerade. When the cover is blown on the agency plant, Tanner maintains his cool, only revealing his identity to gang member Bill Carter, who's anxious to leave the outlaw life behind.

With a lesser known supporting cast, the gunfight of the title eventually sets things right and settles the score against the bad guys, who have been masterminded by the sheriff of Comanche Creek, Marshal Shearer (John Hubbard).

DeForest Kelley is so closely identified with his Star Trek role as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, it's easy to forget that he appeared in a fair share of Westerns, beginning with a 1949 Lone Ranger appearance. He also turned up in episodes of "Gunsmoke", "Trackdown", "Rawhide" and a host of others.

"Gunfight at Comanche Creek" winds up being a fairly intriguing Western, made so by the plot twists that keep Murphy's character on his toes. I found the background narrative a bit annoying though, as the story played itself out well enough without the commentary (by uncredited narrator Reed Hadley). Otherwise it's a generally worthwhile hour and a half of Audie Murphy entertainment.

Update - 7/22/2007 - Apparently, this movie was a remake of the 1957 film, "Last Of The Badmen", with Audie Murphy reprising the role of George Montgomery. Both movies were released by Allied Artists, even though the writers credited for each film are different. Check it out!

Good vehicle for Audie and company, but a remake, none-the-less

[Johnboy1221 · 7/10 · 11 December 2005]

I liked this film a lot, but then I love westerns. It's got Audie, Ben Cooper, Jan Merlin, and scores of others, so how can it go wrong? Well, for one thing, it's a blatant remake of the earlier western, Last Of The Badmen (1957). How the writers of that film could let writer Edward Bernds get by with taking full credit for writing this film is beyond me. Sure, the setting is different, the characters have different names, but the basic story is almost identical. Both films even feature an annoying narrator, who details facts that none of us need to hear voiced....all the way through the film. If you've seen both films, you'll know what I mean.

Which is the better version? It's hard to say. They are bot very good, with excellent casts and fine direction. Both would have benefited from losing the narrator.

Johnboy

Minor Audie Murphy western with some unexpected pleasures

[BrianDanaCamp · 27 July 2002]

GUNFIGHT AT COMANCHE CREEK (1964), done for Allied Artists, was part of Audie Murphy's last, frenzied wave of quickie westerns before his virtual retirement after 1966. It's a low-budget production shot on Hollywood backlots and nearby California locations, but within those parameters it actually boasts a well-written script by Edward Bernds, competent direction by B-movie vet Frank McDonald, and crisp photography by Joseph Biroc, a trio of professionals who were old hands at this kind of thing. It's also got a solid cast of familiar players who clearly know how to put on a good show for western fans.

Murphy stars as a Pinkerton-type detective who goes undercover to infiltrate a gang which specializes in a unique brand of caper. They bust known criminals out of jail, use them as front men in robberies until the price on their heads goes up, and then kill them and turn them in for the reward. When Murphy's partner is betrayed by someone who is secretly the brains behind the gang, Murphy is put in a particularly dicey situation--unarmed, unaided, and suspected of being the undercover agent that he is. While some of the plot turns will be predictable to western buffs, the script generates enough suspenseful situations to keep viewers glued, despite the fact that there really isn't a whole lot of action until the title shootout which comes at the very end.

Murphy is more relaxed than usual here, playing someone older, more experienced and more confident than the young, tormented loner he usually played. He's even something of a womanizer, a character touch not often applied to his roles. The star generally thrived when faced with formidable bad guys and he's got a colorful rogues' gallery to contend with here, including DeForest Kelley ("Star Trek") as the head of the gang and Adam Williams (NORTH BY NORTHWEST) and Mort Mills (TOUCH OF EVIL, PSYCHO) as convincingly snarling heavies. Also on hand are Ben Cooper (JOHNNY GUITAR) as a reluctant gang member, Colleen Miller as a lady saloon keeper, John Hubbard as the wily town marshal, Jan Merlin as Murphy's partner, old-timer Eddie Quillan as a hotel clerk, and the venerable Tom Browne Henry as the head of the detective agency. Future soap star Susan Seaforth has a brief turn in the requisite role of the rancher's love-starved daughter. Reed Hadley recites the abundant narration as if this were an episode of his old "Racket Squad" TV series. Such a strategy gives the unmistakable feel of a crime drama to the proceedings.

Where he was going he'd be an outlaw or a corpse.

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 29 July 2013]

Gunfight at Comanche Creek is directed by Frank McDonald and written by Edward Bernds. It stars Audie Murphy, Ben Cooper, Colleen Miller, DeForest Kelley and Jan Merlin. A Panavision/De Luxe Color production with cinematography by Joseph Biroc and music by Marlin Skiles.

Murphy stars as an agent for the National Detective Agency who goes undercover to find the outlaw gang that has been breaking convicts out of jail to help them to commit more crimes. The resulting crimes cause the bounties upon the fugitives' heads to rise, thus the outlaws then kill the convicts and claim the rewards.

Apparently a remake of 1957 film The Last of the Badmen, Gunfight at Comanche Creek is a suspenseful and entertaining blend of detective shenanigans with Western staples. It's an interesting role for Murphy, playing Bob Gifford (AKA: Judd Tanner) as a fearless ladies man having to just use his wits instead of guns just to survive the undercover operation. It's not exactly what you would call a high energy action movie, since we don't really get the pulse raised until the finale, but there's enough twists and intelligence in the plotting to keep the story intriguing.

Negatives? There's a continuous narration by an uncredited Reed Hadley which is most intrusive. Instead of letting us be involved fully with the unfolding story, the makers felt the need to have Reed fill us in on what is happening at every turn in the plot! Clearly they were going for a hard-boiled detective angle, but it's misplaced. While Miller is saddled with one of those token female roles. But the support cast do what is required to make the film work, Murphy delivers a good one for his fans and Biroc's colour photography is very easy on the eye. 7/10

Colorful and moving Western with Murphy taking on a gang who breaks out criminals from jail

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 7 July 2022]

Set in 1875 at the location called Comanche Creek , Colorado, it begins with prisoner Jack Mason who is broken out of prison by a band of strangers . They use him in a robbery , then when the dead-or-alive reward is high enough , they shoot him and collect the elevated reward. The National Detective Agency, now knowing the gang's methods , killing delinquents for the bounty , arranges to have the intrepid agent Bob Gifford (Audie Murphy) jailed in Comanche Creek for train robbery. The gang led by Amos Troop (De Forest Kelley) takes the bait but then things go wrong when to be aware there's a traitor in the band . A Gunslinging Detective Smashes The Most Ruthless Outlaw Gang Of All Time ! Masked marauders... rampaging raiders blasting a trail of terror and violence across the West... and the man who pledged to stop them rode at their side! Gunslinging Man-Hunter...She Was All Woman to a Man's Man

This thrilling Western has a peculiar , sui-generis plot : a murderous outlaw gang who helps escape inmmates from prison , uses them to help in crimes , when the reward goes high enough then killing them to collect money and to solve this criminal set-up , the tough detective Murphy infliltrates the gang of bandits forcing wanted men to participate in robberies . Uneven , but at times quite nice Western in which Audie gets two heroines for the price of one and here he faces off a whole gang of cutthroats . As Audie Murphy gives a nice acting in his usual style as a ruthless detective out to smash the West's most notorious outlaws . While the two girls are the lovely saloon-keeper Colleen Miller as Murphy's sweetheart with whom he catches the eye , she like Eddie was a refugee from Universal-International and Susan Seaforth , both make the performing sparks fly . And in this grim-face Western there's a great support cast with plenty of familar faces , such as : Ben Cooper , Jan Merlin , Mort Mills , Eddie Killan , John Hubbard , John Milford , William A Wellman Jr and , of course, De Forest Kelley is the best of the baddies .

It displays a spectacular and brilliant cinematography in Panavision by cameraman Joseph F. Biroc. As well as rousing and moving musical score by composer Marlin Skiles. The motion picture was professionally directed in B-style by Frank MacDonald , though it has some failures , flaws and gaps. Frank was a prolific craftsman whose career spands over forty years . At first hired as a dialogue director, McDonald turned out some scripts and in the mid-'30s began directing . Working for almost every studio in Hollywood at one time or another, he did a lot of work for Republic, grinding out Gene Autry and Roy Rogers westerns, and at the Pine/Thomas "B" unit at Paramount , churning out westerns, action dramas and war pictures. Not entirely comfortable as a director , he nevertheless turned out more than 100 pictures in his career . As he made a lot of fims with penchant for Western genre , such as : ¨Sioux City Sue, Under Nevada Skies, My Pal Trigger, Rainbow Over Texas , Song of Arizona , Sunset in El Dorado , Along the Navajo Trail , Tell It to a Star , Man from Oklahoma , The Chicago Kid , Scared Stiff , Las campanas de Rosarita, Lights of Old Santa Fe , One Body Too Many , Sing, Neighbor, Sing , Take It Big , Gambler's Choice , Timber Quee , My Darling Clementine¨, among others. Rating : 5.5/10 . Acceptable and passable Murphy western.

Gunfight at Comanche Creek review

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 10 May 2020]

Pint-size Audie Murphy goes undercover to infiltrate a gang (led by pre-Bones DeForest Kelley) that springs prisoners with a price on their heads and forces them to front robberies in order to up their wanted price before handing them in to claim the reward. It's a decent B-movie that loses its way a little in the final act when the outlaws make a series of increasingly stupid decisions.

Unwanted Dead Or Alive: Reed Hadley

[boblipton · 5/10 · 6 January 2019]

Audie Murphy goes undercover to break up a gang who have come up with a gimmick: break an outlaw out of jail, put him in front of their raids while the rest of them are masked, drive up the price on his head, then shoot him and turn in the corpse for a reward.

It's directed by Frank McDonald, a prolific director who spent a lot of his career in the upper ranks of the Bs, mostly because of his speed and cheapness. Most of his movies were westerns. His actual strength lay in comedy, and like many a B director, he wound up in TV, where he directed several episodes of GET SMART.

This late Audie Murphy oater is marred by Hadley Reed's narration, explaining what is going on, as if it's an episode of DRAGNET and the producers are afraid to either trust the audience to figure out what is going on or allow the actors to indulge in exposition. Joseph Biroc's color camerawork is efficient and not particularly distinguished. All in all, a mediocre example of the vanishing western.

Audie Murphy Goes Clandestine

[Henchman_Number1 · 5/10 · 28 May 2020]

The National Detective Agency sends investigators Bob Gifford (Audie Murphy) and fellow agent (Jan Merlin) to Comanche Creek to infiltrate a ruthless gang of outlaws who have devised a clever scheme to break criminals out of jail and force them to be easily recognizable participants in a string of robberies. As the wanted dead or alive bounty on their heads escalates with each robbery, the gang eventually murders them and turns them in for the reward. Gifford posing as criminal Judd Tanner places a target on his own back after intentionally passing stolen bills in a Comanche Creek saloon in order to get himself arrested. In short order he is busted out of jail and finds himself on the inside of the gang, a disagreeable lot of scoundrels headed by chief bad guy Amos Troop (DeForest Kelley) and his henchmen (Ben Cooper, Adam Williams, Mort Mills). Instead of taking down the crime ring then and there, Gifford reckons none of these gang members are smart enough to run an operation like this themselves and that there must the brains of the enterprise lurking in the shadows back in town. The rest of the movie consists of Gifford finding the unknown 'Mr. Big' behind the operation before he is the next wanted dead or alive casualty.

This Allied Artists Picture directed by longtime B-Western veteran Frank McDonald is largely a workaday affair. Audie Murphy is cast a bit off-type as a urbane, womanizing frontier detective. Maybe this was an attempt to appeal to changing audience tastes or to capitalize off of the "shaken not stirred" secret agent mania popular at the time. Possibly just a way to update this late in the cycle, traditional horse opera which was a remake of the another mediocre film, 'Last Of The Badmen' starring George Montgomery. There is also a romantic side story line introduced between Ben Cooper and Susan Seaforth of which little is made. Production values are pretty typical of Allied Artists releases of the era, which is at best, average quality. For some bewildering reason it was decided to include a grating and unnecessary voice-over narration explaining plot movements that most viewers would find obvious.

Despite it's modest roots and aspirations 'Gunfight at Comanche Creek' is watchable Western fare made so by Murphy's presence as well as Director Frank McDonald and the rest of the cast who do about as much as could be expected given the cards they were dealt.

Solid Dragnet-style western

[coltras35 · 8/10 · 26 April 2021]

Outlaws break convicts out of jail, forcing them to act as the unmasked frontmen in their bank robberies, and then killing them for the dead-or-alive reward money. To bring the crooks to justice, a member of the national detective agency poses as a notorious train robber and is put behind bars as bait.

If this Audie Murphy western sounds familiar, then that's because it is a remake of Last of the Badmen. Personally I prefer Gunfight at Comanche Creek, the suspense seems to be more enhanced, especially towards the end, and Audie comes across as a detective, and is easygoing and relaxed here with an eye for the ladies. Ben Cooper lends good support. Deforest Kelley is convincing as a cold-blooded outlaw leader. It's a Dragnet-style western, and has a narration running throughout, though there's too much of it. Not much action, but to compensate there's a neat shootout at the end, though, with a satisfying round up of the culprits, and the unmasking of the brains behind the outfit. Solid suspense western.

Fairly average oater

[dcp-93910 · 4/10 · 19 December 2020]

The plot, irritating narration, and lack of originality have been covered at length. Not Murphy's worst, not his best. Biggest problem I saw was its absolutely miserable sound. Remember the standard jet-fighter sound used in every jet movie of the '50s? It is omnipresent here... even revolver shots are truncated clips of the same noise. Otherwise, it has a relatively solid cast, and you won't feel like you wasted two hours of your life.

Turgid western is made even worst by awful narration

[a_chinn · 5/10 · 21 June 2019]

Durable western star and real-life WWII hero Audie Murphy plays a frontier detective tasked with stopping a clever gang of bank robbers. What makes these robbers more clever than most is their M.O. is to bust a random criminal out of jail, start robbing banks with them, and then shoots said criminal in back to collect the reward. One of these devious criminals shooting other unsuspecting criminals in the back is Star Trek's DeForest Kelley, which adds some entertainment value to the film, but overall, this is a pretty dull western that's made even worse by what is probably among the worst film narration you'll ever hear, a majority of which seems to simply describe what was happening on screen.

Sad looking Murphy

[angelsunchained · 5/10 · 20 October 2019]

Audie Murphy looked really unhappy throughout this whole film. I assume he wasn't too thrilled making this third rate run of the mill Western. The constant and unneeded narration gave me a headache. I am a fan of Audie, so I was entertained by this film, but not by much.

Solid Western noir with Audie in good undercover form

[adrianovasconcelos · 8/10 · 13 February 2024]

Perhaps GUNFIGHT AT COMANCHE CREEK is a reprise of other Westerns, and by 1963 having a Reed Hadley voiceover narrate events as happened in 1950s FBI-related docunoir movies came somewhat late in the day, but that does not detract from the solidity of the script by Edward Bernds, or the detail-attentive direction by Frank MacDonald, formerly a railroad worker who climbed to directing Gene Autry and Roy Rogers Westerns in the late 1930s through the 1940s.

Effective photography and a script premise that is as interesting as it is credible: a gang keeps springing criminals from jail, and forcing them to commit holdups, robberies and other crimes so as to pump up their "wanted dead or alive" reward money, and rendering them the fall guys in the eyes of the law before handing them over to the law - dead, naturally. So, guess what, lady charmer Audie Murphy is jailed and given a "wanted" poster so he can slip into the gang as an undercover agent, thereby exposing himself to great dangers... well, nothing that the real Audie had not experienced before.

Adam Williams plays the usual heavy with a temper, Deforest Kelly similarly brutal but more cerebral, Ben Cooper a credible baby-faced criminal with a conscience, all part of the vicious gang which, Audie soon suspects, must have a mastermind in high places...

I liked it. 8/10.

Adequate But Unexceptional Murphy Oater

[zardoz-13 · 5/10 · 9 July 2011]

Veteran director Frank MacDonald's "Gunfight at Comanche Creek" qualifies as an adequate but unexceptional western about an undercover detective trying to flush out a gang of outlaws. This lackluster remake of director Paul Landres' 1957 hold-up thriller "Last of the Bad Men" casts Audie Murphy in the role originated by George Montgomery. Although an element of mystery about the identity of the leader of the outlaw gang generates a modicum of interest, "Three Stooges" scenarist Edward Bernds has penned a thoroughly routine screenplay and cluttered it up with unnecessary narration by Reed Hadley that adds little to the action. The only thing of significance about this modest but well-made sagebrusher is that long-time heavy Jan Merlin plays a good guy who sacrifices himself when his friend is caught between a rock and a hard place. If you look carefully, this Allied Artists release used the same town set that appeared as Virginia City in the NBC-TV show "Bonanza."

No attribution to the Montgomery film appears in the credits to "Gunfight at Comanche Creek," but the plot about a gang of bank robbers who use a notorious felon with a price on his head as their front man makes this an unmistakable remake. None of the writers from the first film receive any credit as source material on this one. Murphy walks through his role as National Detective Agency operative Bob 'Gif' Gifford aka Judd Tanner. After the National Detective Agency figures out what the outlaws are doing, they send in Gifford with gold certificates from a robbery. He flashes the loot around in Comanche Creek and is promptly arrested by Marshal Dan Shearer (John Hubbard of "Duel at Diablo") who locks him up. No sooner has Gifford been locked up than the villains spring him. It seems that they prefer to use wanted felons because once they run the bounty up on their heads, they can kill them and turn them in for the reward. The National Detective Agency sends another agent to keep tabs on Gifford. Nielson (Jan Merlin of "Hell Bent for Leather") hides out in the rocks overlooking the line shack where the outlaws conceal themselves. Eventually, Nielson is caught by Amos Troop (DeForrest Kelly of "The Law and Jake Wade") and the rest of the gang. Troop sticks a revolver in Gifford's fist and forces him to shoot Nielson. Of course, if Gifford refuses to shoot Nielson, Troop and his cronies will know that he is detective. Instead, Nielson turns and charges Jed Hayden (Adam Williams of "The Big Heat") and Jed guns him down in cold blood. One of the other outlaws, likable Bill 'Kid' Carter (Ben Cooper of "Johnny Guitar"), learns that Gifford is a detective and decides to aid him. Unfortunately, Carter doesn't get far before he is gunned down, too.

By this time, the reward money on our hero has risen to $4-thousand and Troop and company are itching to cash Gifford in, but things are complicated when they abduct another outlaw. They break another outlaw out of jail, Buck (Tim Graham) after they clobber Marshal Shearer, and then they learn that there is an undercover agent in their midst. During the big finale in Comanche Creek, they plan not only to rob the bank but also eliminate both Gifford and Buck. However, additional agents of the National Detective Agency arrive in town and sling lead alongside Marshal Shearer when the outlaws try to ride out. The mystery as to the identity of the outlaw gang leader is resolved. As it turns out, none other than Marshal Shearer, a man that the detectives did not suspect, is revealed as the inside man. When he gets a chance, Shearer seizes local saloon owner Abbie Stevens (Colleen Miller of "The Rawhide Years") and uses her as a human shield, but Gifford does not allow him to escape. Interestingly, Amos Troop survives and is arrested.

"Gunfight at Comanche Creek" ranks as little more than a potboiler and Murphy spends most of his time without a gun in his grip. Long-time Robert Aldrich lenser Joseph Biroc makes this mediocre western look better than it deserves and the best that can be said of MacDonald is that "Gunfight at Comanche Creek" does not wear out its welcome.

HO-HUM AUDIE MURPHY WESTERN HERE...!

[masonfisk · 5/10 · 14 January 2019]

Another week, another Audie Murphy Western in which we have a devious band of thieves breaking a recently arrested man out of jail only to use him in future crimes until his bounty reaches a level whereby said gang kills him off for the reward money. Murphy plays a law officer from a detective firm who infiltrates the gang by pretending to be a new pigeon for them to fleece. I liked the story but as always since this a Murphy Western in the minor key, the results are middling rather than completely satisfying. Look for McCoy himself (DeForest Kelly) as one of the gang.