Chuka (1967)

Confronted with impending starvation and death "Chief Hanu" (Marco Lopez) of the Arapaho tribe mulls attacking a nearby United States Army outpost to acquire food and weapons. Although the commanding officer of the fort "Colonel Stuart Valois" (John Mills) fully understands the plight of the Arapaho, his superiors don't believe an attack is imminent and have forbidden him to help them out. Adding to his concern is the fact that the soldiers he has under his command are extremely undisciplined and a search party he has recently sent out has yet to return. Along with that a stagecoach carrying two female passengers and a gunslinger has arrived and with them the driver brings even more ominous news. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film turned out to be a solid, no frills western for the most part. Admittedly, some of the action scenes were a bit too far-fetched with the gunslinger "Chuka" (Rod Taylor) being much too fast and accurate with his pistol to be believed. Even so, I liked the way the story progressed and I thought that Luciana Paluzzi was perfectly cast as "Senora Veronica Kleitz". Be that as it may, I enjoyed this movie and because of that I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.