CHUKA (1967)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Gordon Douglas

SCREENWRITER: Richard Jessup, Rod Taylor (uncredited)

FILM STARS: Rod Taylor, Ernest Borgnine, John Mills, Luciana Paluzzi, James Whitmore, Victoria Vetri, Louis Hayward, Michael Cole, Hugh Reilly, Barry O’Hara, Joseph Sirola, Marco Lopez, Gerald York, Herlinda Del Carmen, Lucky Carson.

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Richard Jessup

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Coronet Books

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1967

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1961

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Western

WORDS: I love Rod Taylor, so, this pet project for him – he starred, co-produced and co wrote (uncredited) is a must.

The film is a brutal (for its time) western, with starving Indians on the warpath, a fort commanded by an aging ex-British Colonel, tough professional cavalry men, gunfighters, and buxom women. The cast is worth the price of admission (Taylor, Borgnine, Mills, Whitmore and Hayward) though the film is not wholly successful.

This is a B film made by a A studio trying to imitate the spaghetti westerns coming out of Italy. It doesn’t achieve that as it does not let go of its big studio apron strings. But, what we have is a interesting tangle of ideas and plot threads amid absurdities, occasional obvious sets, and plot holes. Regardless, the film is strangely entertaining, and one at the time, if I recall correctly, reminded me a little of Beau Geste (emotion under attack, a massacre and a flashback). The fort is under siege and it is manned by soldiers with back stories and some babes, Luciana Paluzzi and Angela Dorian (aka Victoria Vetri, who was Playboy Playmate of the Year in 1968 under the name of Angela Dorian). Everyone talks and everyone is flawed until the action kicks in. It’s all a little silly but director Gordon Douglas, always solid, could handle these cowboy macho heroics (Fort Dobbs (1958), Yellowstone Kelly (1959), Rio Conchos (1964), Stagecoach (1966), Barquero 1970 etc) and wasn’t afraid of emphasising (snippets of) philosophical dialogue.

Author Jessup had a colourful youth (brought up in an orphanage, became a merchant seaman, drank with Albert Camus) and put some of that onto paper. He wrote quite a few westerns (some under the pseudonym of Ricard Telfair) but is most famous for his book on poker playing, “The Cincinnati Kid”, made into a film with Steve McQueen and Edward G Robinson in 1965. Here, the script was apparently significantly reworked by producer/star Rod Taylor. The book is a good fast read but I haven’t seen the film in a while so I can’t comment on what’s been changed (or how well it’s been changed).

BTW: The title character Chuka is so named because, as a child, he hung around chuckwagons.