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Rating:  -
This movie is very good. It is not a violent western. The Last Wagon has action and romance. It is very pleasent all the people to attend.
Rating:  -
The first 75% of the movie isn't too bad compared to most of the silly, mythical West movies of the 1950's. It's beautifully filmed in Arizona (where it's supposed to be taking place, as well), with vast vistas of canyons and mountains. However, the last 25% is far fetched like a silly 1950's western with an absurd ending.
Rating: -
Delmer Daves made some great Westerns in the 'fifties of which the best known are probably Broken Arrow and the recently revamped 3.10 To Yuma .However for my money the BEST is the movie under consideration here,The Last Wagon .Were it not for a slightly anti-climactic and tacked on moralistic ending it would be flawless.
The opening crane shots alone are proof positive that we are in the hands of a cinematic genius -they are among the very best in cinema regardless of genre.Shot in a rugged part of Arizona the movie opens on a chase sequence as Comanche Todd (Widmark)is being pursued across inhospitable terrain by a trio of lawmen .They are hunting him down for murder -he killed their brothers .It emerges that he had strong motives for so doing -they killed his wife and two sons .Captured after a gruelling chase he is taken by his surviving tracker to join up with a small wagon train .Chained to a wheel his treatment by his captor is unrelentingly harsh but he does win a measure of support from some train members.
The train is attacked and virtually wiped out by Apaches and Todd along with a handful of others survives
He agrees to endeavour to lead the survivors to safety across hostile territory and handicapped by shortages of water ,food and ammunition.the party is also less than unanimous in the way it views Todd .Billy (Tommy Rettig)is an admirer -a teenager he comes to view Todd as a surrogate father .The women of the party are a mixed race woman Jolie (Susan Kohler)who is roundly abused by her snobbish and racist half sister Valinda(Stephanie Griffith).The other woman present is Jenny (Felicia Farr)who forms a strong emotional bond with Todd .The men are the hostile and belicose Ridge (Nick Adams)and the calmer Clint (Ray Stricklin)
It is a fraught journey with numerous encounters with Apaches and the odd snake not to mention a final brush with the cavalry
This is a very physical movie-Todd endures the kind of physical working over that befell James Stewart in the Anthony Mann pictures from the same era-at one point he is even crucified on a wheel .There is a genuine sense of hardsshsip conveyed here .
The journey is not simply to physical survival -it is journey which sees many of the characters revising their world view and growing as people as a result of their ordeal.It is a genuine masterpiece and its relative neglect is a cause of sadnees and sorrow.
Rating:  -
"The Last Wagoon" was entitled in Spain "La Ley del Talión", that means "an eye for an eye". This is a Western I saw on the screen theaters in the fifties, but afterwards, the times I saw it again was always on TV in full screen, a real pity because you loose the wonderfull landscape, the mountains and the rivers with clean water (not as the ones today). I Live in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, and when I saw "The Last Wagoon" in Amazon.com, in Cinemascope, I bought it inmediatly, to recuperate this fabulous Western directed by Delmer Daves with an original script that is a chant to the nature not only for the landscape but also for the words of Comanche Todd (Richard Widmark) to Jenny (Felicia Farr) trying to conquer her heart with a very beutiful ending.
Rating: -
This is a Western as it should be. In mine opinion, everyone who has a library of Western DVD's should have it; it is superb. A good story with no unnecessary shooting and nearly no unneccesary violance. The story is at all times suspensefull and the end is both satisfying and original.The actors are generally good (on a scale of 1-10 I would rate them 8).There are four exeptions who rate a 9 - Comance Tod, the youngest boy and his sister, and the hysterical and spoiled girl. There are three with lower ratings: the dark haired young adult boy (rating:7), the blond young adult boy who unnecessari shot the rattlesnake (rating:6), and the sheriff (he was completely and without any reason unhumanely cruel (rating:4)
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