Released in July 1967, near the tail end of Hollywood's love affair with the traditional Western film, "Chuka" is a middling representative of that great cinematic genre, rescued largely by the thesping contributions of a bunch of seasoned pros. It was a disappointing performer at the box office and is largely forgotten today, yet a recent viewing has served to demonstrate for me that the film nevertheless contains many elements that make it worthy of reevaluation and commendation. The picture was coproduced, cowritten and stars Australian actor Rod Taylor, and those viewers who have only previously encountered Mr. Taylor as the handsome and well-groomed protagonists of such classic films as "The Time Machine" (1960) and "The Birds" (1963) might be a bit taken aback by how scruffy, craggy, grizzly and bloated he appears here. Only part of this seems to be a makeup job; Rod does appear to have aged a bit and packed on some poundage in those intervening years. And playing the part of a "pistolero," a hired killer since a young age, whose habit of loitering near chuck wagons has resulted in his nickname Chuka (we never do learn his real name), would conceivably have made him even more difficult to warm up to here. Not to worry, though; Taylor's innate charm manages to seep through Chuka's gruff exterior, and his "bad man" is ultimately revealed to have a heart of mush, despite the fact that he is said to have previously killed 16 men in fair fights.
When we first encounter Chuka, he is sharing some of his food with starving Arapaho Indians in what this viewer assumed was Colorado, in November 1876. The gunman soon fetches up at Ft. Clendennon, an outpost of cashiered Army losers and assorted scum, lorded over by its drunken commanding officer, Col. Valois (the great British actor John Mills), and the brutish Sgt. Hansbach (another typically wonderful performance by the late Ernest Borgnine). Fearing a mass attack from Arapaho chief Hanu and his warriors (a legitimate fear, the viewer realizes, as the film is told in flashback, its first images being some shots of the decimated Ft. Clendennon), Valois compels Chuka to do service as a scout. Meanwhile, Chuka is having some personal problems of his own, as the fort is currently serving as the temporary residence of his prior love interest, Mexican senora Veronica Kleitz (Italian actress Lucianna Paluzzi, who this viewer has had a major "thang" for ever since seeing her in "Thunderball" in 1965, and who was, truth to tell, my sole inspiration for renting out this film), who is escorting her niece Helena (Angela Dorian, later known as Victoria Vetri, who would memorably appear in a "Playboy" centerfold in September of that year and go on to appear in such films as "Rosemary's Baby," "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" and "Invasion of the Bee Girls") to her wedding in California. But can even the resourceful Chuka protect these women and himself amid the seemingly inevitable doom of Ft. Clendennon?
"Chuka" the film builds slowly to that grisly showdown between the riffraff of the lonely outpost and the desperate and starving Arapahos, and its ending is a surprisingly bleak and downbeat one, with a very high body count and hardly any survivors. And no, this is NOT a spoiler; as I mentioned, the aftermath of this battle, revealing the doom of the fort and its occupants, was shown to us at the film's onset. Besides this finely done battle sequence, the film offers at least two other memorable scenes, both of which feature Ernest Borgnine (who had just appeared in "The Dirty Dozen" the month before). In the first, Hansbach and Chuka engage in a lengthy and brutal fistfight, resulting in the sergeant beginning to have a grudging admiration for the grizzled gunman who he had previously regarded as only a "saddle bum"; in the second, Hansbach tells Chuka and others of his history with Valois, and of why he is so loyal to the man, and it is a fairly shocking story, indeed. In addition to the other fine performers already listed, "Chuka" features typically fine contributions from James Whitmore, as the fort's official scout, and Louis Hayward, as Clendennon's traitorous Maj. Benson. The film gives us some nice wintry backdrops (some very fine outdoor cinematography here by DOP Harold E. Stine), costumes by the legendary Edith Head, a pleasant but forgettable theme by composer Leith Stevens, and direction that is at times surprisingly inventive, from Gordon Douglas. (Douglas' list of credits is a huge one, in a wide variety of genres and formats; some of this viewer's favorites directed by Douglas are "Them!," "Call Me Bwana" and "In Like Flint," the last of which had been released just four months prior to "Chuka.") And as for Lucianna, well, she is just as gorgeous here as any 007 fan might recall, never more so than when she lets her hair down (literally and figuratively) before a lovemaking session with the lucky Chuka, hours before the Arapaho raid. All said, "Chuka" is a satisfying film, even a grim and startling one at times; certainly not in the front rank of classic Westerns, but a worthy addition to the genre, nevertheless....
