The Wayneing of the West

The Comancheros (20th Century-Fox).

After 45 years of riding the neighborhood circuits, the pure-bred Hollywood hay-burner sure is a sorry hunk of horseflesh. But this time, Director Michael Curtiz gives the critter a tolerable tricky ride. He rowels out a few bursts of speed, and when there's nothing left but wheezes he plays them for horse laughs.

Plot ain't much. By James Edward Grant (The Alamo) and Clair Huffaker, out of a novel by Paul I. Wellman, the script describes how John Wayne and Stuart Whitman make buzzard meat out of, oh, about 700 greasy renegades--yellow-bellied skunks running guns to the Comanches. (Actually, Big John does the job by himself. Stu is like the human figure beside the geography-book whale; he just sort of stands there to show how big Big John really is.) But in this western the bald theme matters less than the hairy variations. Item: the big bold badman (Lee Marvin), when he wants a shot of redeye, does not tear the cork out with his stubby green teeth--a routine every Hollywood heavy learns in his first villain lesson. Nosirree, he whacks the bottom of the bottle with the flat of his hand and blasts the cork out.

What matters most of all, of course, is Big John Wayne, the biggest moneymaker in Hollywood history. In 35 years Wayne's 155 movies have grossed $300 million and his broad, dull, pleasant. Hereford face has become as much a part of the western scene as the Petrified Forest. But at 54, Big John is getting a bit long in the tooth and short in the wind for all this biffbang and muscling around. In Comancheros the camera discreetly looks the other way whenever he tries to haul himself up the side of a horse. The day is plainly not far off when Wayne will have to trade that pretty palomino for a sensible buckboard, and in the last line of the film the moviemakers wistfully express what millions of moviegoers will undoubtedly feel. As Big John strides resolutely into the sunset, the heroine (Ina Balin) calls after him: "Goodbye. We'll miss you. We've kind of gotten used to you."

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