bkoganbing This is a strange western that I think owes some inspiration from John Ford's classic Cheyenne Autumn. Like the Ford movie it's concerning starving Indians on the reservation, in this case Arapahoe who resolve not to starve any longer. Especially when post commander John Mills has plenty of army supplies in his fort and won't feed the Arapahoe or give them guns to hunt. His fort is a last chance outpost where apparently the army sends all its misfits from the commander on down. Holding some kind of discipline together is Sergeant Ernest Borgnine.Into the mix rides gunfighter Rod Taylor in the title role together with Luciana Paluzzi and her niece Victoria Vetri. Paluzzi and Taylor had a little something something going back in the day.In any event the Arapahoes have them boxed in with a massacre impending. Our sympathies are completely with the Indians on this one. This post contains some of the worst specimens of human being ever gathered together in one spot. Mills is a frightening spectacle with Borgnine enforcing his edicts on an unruly post. Of course there's a reason he's a drunken shell of a man which we learn near the end of the film.Chuka misses being a classic because of the pedestrian direction it got from Gordon Douglas. Someone like Delmar Daves or John Huston could have made it a classic. The cast is a good one.John Ford would never have directed it though, no way he would have portrayed his beloved United States Cavalry like this.

malcolmgsw Sorry i could not resist the headline.This Western must have been made on the very cheap because everything seems to be made of balsa wood.Rod Taylor seems to have a six shooter which is as accurate as a snipers rifle and which fires 12 shots for every 6 rounds loaded.John Mills has a look which says"this will pay next years tax bill".What about poor Louis Hayward,i didn't even recognise him.It is little wonder that Westerns were on their way out with efforts like this.It has to be another in the pantheon of those films that are so bad that they are actually very enjoyable.So if it comes your way and you want a good laugh then watch this film

Richard Green Just recently I found a video store in New Haven County where fine old westerns can be had on VHS. One of the ones I had long wanted to see was "CHUKA" or Chuka: the Gunfighter, from 1967.The video transfer was high quality and so watching this movie on tape was an enjoyable experience. Luciana Paluzzi is stunningly beautiful.Indeed, Chuka is something of a Hollywood fantasy but the tone and the settings of the story are fairly well done.Both Paluzzi and her niece, played by Victoria Vetri ( as Angela Dorian ), do very well in this western oddity. Ernest Borgnine is good as ever, at being Ernest Borgnine. Rod Taylor was also very good and very believable as the cowpuncher turned hardened hired killer.The most interesting part of the story was about how Fort Clendennon became a dumping ground for misfits, rejects, and bad officers. This is a well-known but seldom portrayed part of the truth of how the U.S. Army operated in the late 1870's. It is true that in this fiction, many of the soldiers and civilians seem to be just a little too clean for that day and age, but it doesn't really detract from the rapid pace of the events in this drama.Additionally, the extreme deprivation imposed on the Arapaho tribal nation by the Army at this time is another important element. The "injuns" are rather cartoonish in their depictions but at least some aspects of their true grievances are relayed in the plot.Perhaps this Chuka -- pronounced Chuck-Uh -- is a lot more savvy than circumstances in that day and age might have permitted, but Rod Taylor does really well at being fast-as-lightning and very tough.This film gets a vote of 7 from me, which was really a six with a kicker for the beautiful Vetri and the beautiful Paluzzi.Many of the better westerns have been good about presenting the Mexican culture of that time in a favorable light, and this is one of them, and neither Vetri nor Paluzzi appear as simply being "eye candy" for a rough-and-tumble western. The dinner sequence where Colonel Valois rakes his officers over the coals and embarrasses them all is a piece-de-resistance in western drama. Other elements are not so convincing but this is fun way to see a good western drama from a by-gone era of movie making.Chuka derives its power from the high quality of the story on which it is based. I can recommend it heartily for western fans, for Victoria Vetri fans, and for Rod Taylor's excellent, dynamic performance.

helpless_dancer Pretty good western about the evil injun attacking the beleaguered Army outpost. What I didn't like about the film was that everything was so CLEAN. All these soldiers, drifters, and scouts always looked so nice and tidy; they should have looked like something the cat dragged in. Also, the fight scene between Chuka and the top kick was so phoney I nearly gagged. That seemed to be the way western fights went during this time span - lots of haymakers, stumbling into horses, falling through corrals, and rolling around in the hay. Fortunately, there was only hay on the barn floor, don't know where all the dung went. Ok, the show was corny, but it still had lots of gunplay and action. I feel that those of us who love old westerns will get a bang out of this flic.