MovieChat Forums > Chuka (1967) Discussion > Despite its quirks, CHUKA was very enter...

Despite its quirks, CHUKA was very entertaining

posted 14 years ago by jeffyoung1
3 replies | jump to latest

There used to be much more imdb comments for CHUKA, but imdb periodically empties out old posts, which makes sense, although I wish imdb would at least keep one full year's worth of old posts.

There's several reviewers who noted the visual and plot quirks of CHUKA which I don't argue because I noticed them all, too. It's not that CHUKA is a great western or a bad western, but it's a very entertaining western.

CHUKA came at the tail end of the western movie genre. There would be individual western movies afterwards, like Clint Eastwood's several westerns, but those were the exceptions.

I first watched CHUKA when I was a pre-teenager and still very much like it. I'm not sure entirely what makes me like CHUKA so much. On the surface there's nothing personal I identify with this movie. Yet there's a strong undercurrent of sentimentality, bittersweet nostalgia, and sad drama that makes me emotionally attached to CHUKA.

Colonel Valois holds a lot of sympathy with me when I shouldn't feel it so much for him, especially for being such a boor especially when he trashes his subordinate commissioned officers publicly at the dinner table to two beautiful women. But it's all a facade of sorts that masks the old man's tragic, and even horrific past. It was never explained how a disgraced, former British Army captain could emigrate to the post-Civil War United States and parlay himself into an American frontier Army full colonel. Perhaps the man came from one of the most elite and distinguished British Army regiments and perhaps he also had aristocratic nobility in his background, all of which impressed the American Army enough to immediately accept his services.

The next sympathetic characters are of course, Chuka (Rod Taylor) himself and Ernest Borgnine as Sergeant Major Hahnsbach, another odd character, apparently an American who briefly served in the British Army in the wor-torn Sudan.

Everybody in CHUKA is doomed from the start and we all know it and the characters soon know it, but there is no escape. The rest of movie is a human experience in how people deal with their remaining time knowing that certain death is around the corner.

As an honorable mention there's a Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) look-alike, the Lieutenant Daly in the movie.

Apparently the only one in the doomed Fort McClendon with REAL leadership ability is mutinous, ring-leader, Private Spivey, played effectively in a slimey, sleazy way by actor Michael Cole, best known for his later, 'Mod Squad' television series. Private Spivey (coincidentally rhymes with, slimey, doesn't it?) is a sleazy, failed deserter and a pimp. Yet he has all the remaining soldiers behind him, even those that outrank him, with the exception of the fort's cook, inexplicably a fat, buck sergeant who shows no discernable NCO skills other than swilling the men's food like a greasy spoon, and is neutral in the mutiny.

LAST NOTE: Much was spoken about Colonel Valois' unwillingness to provide food and aid to the starving Arapaho Indians. The aristocratic Senora Kleitz explained it all but it seems some people didn't understand or pick it up. I know something about the military, regulations, and military discipline. Senora Kleitz was correct. Colonel Valois was under express orders not to aid the Arapahoes but to enforce existing treaties whereby the Araphahoes would migrate south for the winter. Providing food would have been an direct violation of his orders. And there's absolutely no way Colonel Valois would have committed such an asinine act of giving firearms to the Araphaho Indians. Valois might have been a full colonel, but he had to follow strict orders too.

[–] willjohn 13 years ago

Migrate south for the winter?

Were they Native Americans or swallows? I thought the idea was to force them into reservations or kill them.

[–] magolding 13 years ago

"Perhaps the man came from one of the most elite and distinguished British Army regiments and perhaps he also had aristocratic nobility in his background, all of which impressed the American Army enough to immediately accept his services."

Did you suggest that he had a noble name, perhaps? Has anyone ever heard of dynasties named Stuart or Valois?

Lieutenant Charles De Rudio of the Seventh Cavalry was an Italian count who had fought in several European armies and almost been executed for trying to assassinate Napoleon III before serving in the Union army.

As for feeding the Araphaoe or arming them, order may be orders but most officers in that era were sometimes accused of disobeying orders.

I believe the fort would have been the Department of the Platte which at that time was commanded by General George Crook.

When Crook made peace with the Piutes in 1868 he told them that they could not count on the army feeding them. But he soon found that he had to feed a good proportion of the Piutes despite the strain on the army's finances.

And Crook himself ignored the orders of General "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" Sheridan and General "war is hell" Sherman in 1876 when they ordered him to disarm and take away the horses of all the Sioux at the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Indian agencies. Instead he only took away the guns and horses of the bands of Red Cloud and Red Leaf who had supported the hostiles. Then he appointed Red cloud's arch rival Spotted Tail high chief of all the Sioux at the agencies.

And then Crook offered guns and horses to the warriors of Red Cloud and Red Leaf if they would serve as scouts in his winter campaign against the hostiles, and recruited many. The camp of the Cheyenne was found by scouts from other tribes, but the Cheyenne were shocked to find Sioux among their enemies.

General Mackenzie captured and burned the Cheyenne camp and all its supplies, but the Cheyennes got away, and Mackenzie felt like such a failure that his friends feared he was suicidal. The freezing Cheyenne made their way to the Sioux camp of Crazy Horse, where they were welcomed, fed, and sheltered, But soon Crazy Horse's food began to run low, and he had to send the Cheyenne away. This broke the alliance between the Sioux and the Cheyenne. The Cheyenne surrendered at the Indian Agencies and agreed to supply warriors for the next campaign against the Sioux.

In the spring of 1877 Crook sent the rivals Spotted Tail and Red Cloud to visit the hostile camps and negotiate for their surrender. The carrot was keeping most of their lands and not being forced to move to Indian Territory. The stick was a description of the numbers of Crook's soldiers and of the Indian allies who had agreed to fight in the summer campaign, including Sioux and Cheyenne.

Most of the hostile Sioux surrendered in 1877. The Northern Cheyenne were forced to move to Indian Territory which turned out badly. Those who wished to send the Sioux to Indian Territory had give up the plan because 1) it violated the Fort Laramie Treaty even more than forcing the Sioux to give up the Black hills did, 2) the hostiles had surrendered on terms of keeping their other lands in Dakota 3) many Sioux had actually fought against the hostiles, demonstrating that most of the Sioux had not been part of the hostiles 4) most of the reservation Sioux had never been disarmed and the bands of Red Leaf and Red Cloud had been rearmed, thus making the reservation Sioux even more formidable enemies than the hostile Sioux had been.

So if you are going to invoke the reality of military discipline and suggest that orders must be obeyed even when they lead to certain and unnecessary death, I can point out that in historical reality the commander of Colonel Valois was ignoring some of the orders of his superiors and doing things his way, saving the lives of hundreds of soldiers and saving much of the Sioux lands for them.

[–] jeffyoung1 12 years ago

These are all very good historical points you wrote and I don't disagree with it. After all, history is a fact and a fact cannot be altered. But I'm talking about the movie's storyline and Colonel Valois may have been a fool, but he wasn't stupid and the man had a sense of duty and honor. Being British, he would have been even more a stickler for rules and regulations. I can really understand the movie character of the British-born, American cavalry fort commander, Colonel Valois declining to assist the Arapaho Indians as he was ordered. Historically, the Arapaho were among the most warlike and ferocious enemy of the U.S. western army on the frontier, alongside their allies, the Cheyenne and later the Ute.