By Lee Pfeiffer
An ambitious, off-beat Western produced by and starring Rod Taylor, Chuka is ultimately undermined by a complete lack of humor and threadbare production values. It appears all the production money went into salaries for the talented and high profile cast that includes Luciana Paluzzi, Ernest Borgnine, John Mills, Louis Hayward, James Whitmore and Cinema Retro's own Joe Sirola. The plot finds Taylor as Chuka, a legendary gunslinger who ends up at a remote U.S. Army fort that is destined to be attacked by an overwhelming number of Indians, who are facing starvation and desperate to get the food stored in the outpost. Chuka tries to reason with the martinet commanding officer, Colonel Valois (John Mills), a transplanted ex-British army officer who is trying to overcome alcoholism and depression over the fact that he has been relegated to overseeing a company of misfit soldiers, each with a sordid past. Valois stubbornly refuses to listen to Chuka's admonition that the only way the inhabitants of the fort can survive is if they abandon the place and leave the food for the Indians. Determined to finally prove he can be a competent army officer, Valois wants to engage the tribe in battle- despite the fact that the odds are against him. Complicating the situation is the presence of two young women, Veronica (Luciana Paluzzi) and Helena (Angela Dorian), who are isolated at the fort due to the threat from the Indians. Chuka feels a sense of personal responsibility for Veronica, as they had almost engaged in a love affair some years earlier.
Most of the tension in Chuka derives from the conflicts between the inhabitants of the fort. It seems that every solider has a skeleton in his closet and resentments against the colonel and each other mount until a mutiny is attempted. The problem with the screenplay is that there is far too much baggage for each character to carry and the storyline begins to take on soap opera-like patterns. The sin of it all is that the movie dares to be ballsy enough to forgo a certain number of cliches and dare to present the protagonists in an unsympathetic light. Chuka may be the hero, but he's hardly a symbol of virtue. The colonel deals with accusations of cowardice while hiding a shocking secret that refutes that notion. Even his steadfast sergeant (Ernest Borgnine) has a secret reason for being slavishly devoted to the colonel.
The performances are fine throughout. The primary problem with the film is the shockingly skimpy production values. Sequences in the fort are confined to a tiny area that gives the sets less grandeur than Fort Courage in the average episode of F Troop. The poor lighting only highlights the obvious studio setting. The always capable director Gordon Douglas does manage to provide some genuine suspense including a dinner sequence in which the drunken colonel verbally eviscerates his officers for their lack of loyalty. There's also a well-staged drag-down fight between Taylor and Borgnine and a far too tame sex sequence between Taylor and Paluzzi. Old pros Whitmore, Hayward and Sirola add capable support but have little to do.
Chuka is a passable time-passer but never fulfills its ambitions of being a truly memorable Western, though the ending does have its share of surprises and shocking moments.
The film was released by Paramount on DVD in 2005 but has been out of print for several years. A new, sealed version sells for over $50 on Amazon. The movie has its flaws but deserves to be accessible to retro film lovers, so let's get it back on the market!