Star Talk Enriches ‘The Comancheros’

With Westerns enjoying something of a renaissance, it’s exciting to rediscover a classic released on laser with new insights offered on its analogue-discussion track.

Fox/Image, in its special “Wide-screen Collector’s Edition” of “The Comancheros” ($60), has rounded up four co-stars--Stuart Whitman, Nehemiah Persoff, Michael Ansara and Patrick Wayne--whose memories serve up an analogue track that lets us see some of what the actor’s life was like on a remote location 30 years ago, where chess and poker games for unusual stakes helped fight boredom.

“The Comancheros” was director Michael Curtiz’s last movie after a string of hits that included “Casablanca,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” The 1961 movie based on a Paul Wellman novel, which stars John Wayne as a Texas Ranger, includes Lee Marvin in a supporting role and wide-screen scenery that won’t quit.

The rich, unspoiled Utah backdrop that doubled for Texas returns unscathed and breathtaking in this rich, crisp transfer. The red-dirt bluffs and plains, in fact, emerge as some of the strongest memories for the cast, with both Whitman and Ansara in particular recalling how the vistas took their breath away, even as they were shooting.

And for the young Whitman, getting the love interest--and the late, lovely Ina Balin at that--in a John Wayne movie was also enough to take his breath away. “I can’t get enough of that,” he says, watching the scene again. “A little smooching and hugging with Ina Balin,” he sighs. “And she smelled so nice. . . .”

All the actors have only the fondest memories of the Duke himself. Wayne “took interest in every aspect of the film,” Persoff recalls, with Curtiz, who was “old” by then, willing to carry out suggestions from Wayne, who had just finished directing “The Alamo.”

Son Patrick Wayne recalls the film as giving him an opportunity to spend time with his dad without competition from his siblings, and also to watch his father at work as a major presence on screen and on the set. “When you were in a John Wayne film, there were always two directors,” Wayne and the credited director, Patrick Wayne remembers.

For Ansara, an actor of Lebanese ancestry who often was typecast as a Native American (Cochise in the TV series “Broken Arrow”), the chance to play a bad guy and to work with Wayne at the same time was an irresistible combination.

Even though all four actors have distinctive voices, it is still sometimes difficult to know who is talking when on the analogue track. It would have been helpful if producers Bret Hampton and Dennis Rood had identified them throughout rather than just when they are initially introduced.

This is one time when the seeing the original film’s trailer adds a new dimension to the project. A scene shown in the trailer helps explain a hole in the film, obviously the result of one cutting-room snip too many.

Other bonuses include stills, publicity and marketing material and script excerpts. One clever idea instituted by the producers is to move the still material forward through the use of repeated dissolves. This takes some of the burden off the viewer’s finger--interactivity is not always all it’s cracked up to be--and if you want to stay on one picture all you have to do is freeze it. This is one method other producers might consider for future laser projects.