The Last Wagon

Buy This Item The Last Wagon by 20th Century Fox  Available from Amazon  $10.99  on 11-1-2008     Brace yourself for ?a tough, gritty, rip-snorting, Indian-fighting melodrama? (Cue) that?s drenched in suspense! Richard Widmark (The Alamo) gives ?one of his finest performances? (Los Angeles Examiner) as a wanted man unexpectedly freed in Indian country in this ?exciting? (Newsweek) and ?first-rate, historical Western!? (The Hollywood Reporter) <P>Adopted by the Comanche. Accused by the white man. On the road to his murder trial, ?Comanche Todd? (Widmark) is a soul without hope. But when a band of savage Apaches attacks his wagon train, leaving only a few teenaged survivors, he must choose between the freedom that fortune has handed him, and delivering the youths safely home. With a death sentence hanging over his head, will he risk losing his own life in order to save theirs? Reader Reviews Delmer Daves made some great Westerns in the 'fifties of which the best known are probably Broken Arrow and the recently revamped 3.10 To Yuma .However for my money the BEST is the movie under consideration here,The Last Wagon .Were it not for a slightly anti-climactic and tacked on moralistic ending it would be flawless. The opening crane shots alone are proof positive that we are in the hands of a cinematic genius -they are among the very best in cinema regardless of genre.Shot in a rugged part of Arizona the movie opens on a chase sequence as Comanche Todd (Widmark)is being pursued across inhospitable terrain by a trio of lawmen .They are hunting him down for murder -he killed their brothers .It emerges that he had strong motives for so doing -they killed his wife and two sons .Captured after a gruelling chase he is taken by his surviving tracker to join up with a small wagon train .Chained to a wheel his treatment by his captor is unrelentingly harsh but he does win a measure of support from some train members. The train is attacked and virtually wiped out by Apaches and Todd along with a handful of others survives He agrees to endeavour to lead the survivors to safety across hostile territory and handicapped by shortages of water ,food and ammunition.the party is also less than unanimous in the way it views Todd .Billy (Tommy Rettig)is an admirer -a teenager he comes to view Todd as a surrogate father .The women of the party are a mixed race woman Jolie (Susan Kohler)who is roundly abused by her snobbish and racist half sister Valinda(Stephanie Griffith).The other woman present is Jenny (Felicia Farr)who forms a strong emotional bond with Todd .The men are the hostile and belicose Ridge (Nick Adams)and the calmer Clint (Ray Stricklin) It is a fraught journey with numerous encounters with Apaches and the odd snake not to mention a final brush with the cavalry This is a very physical movie-Todd endures the kind of physical working over that befell James Stewart in the Anthony Mann pictures from the same era-at one point he is even crucified on a wheel .There is a genuine sense of hardsshsip conveyed here . The journey is not simply to physical survival -it is journey which sees many of the characters revising their world view and growing as people as a result of their ordeal.It is a genuine masterpiece and its relative neglect is a cause of sadnees and sorrow.

The Last Wagon Available from Amazon Price: $10.99 Updated on 11-1-2008.

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