Sergeant Matt Trainor (Broderick Crawford) and five other cavalry troopers barely survive a massive Comanche attack led by the infamous Chief Black Cloud (John War Eagle) in which the isolated frontier town of Dry Buttes is totally destroyed. Driven into the Arizona desert and low on water, Sgt. Turner must rally his soldiers - among them are Lloyd Bridges and Martin Milner - by reminding them that they are still soldiers and the maintenance of military discipline is the only thing that will ensure their survival. They set out on a 100 mile journey to the closest settlement, Fort Macklin, through dangerous terrain that is crawling with redskins and no known sources of water. Along the way, they encounter a stagecoach with a motley crew consisting of Julie Lanning (Barbara Hale), whiskey drummer Henry Ruppert (Chubby Johnson), former cavalry scout Satterlee the Prophet (Milton Parsons) and stagecoach driver O'Rattigan (George Matthews) and the two parties join forces. Later, they also encounter a suspicious white man in the desert for apparently no reason, Denver Kinnaird (Hugh Sanders), who is keeping a very dangerous secret. The last passenger that our heroes come across is a young Kiowa Indian boy, Little Knife (Johnny Stewart), who only out of a nagging conscience do they let him join their ranks, but Little Knife saves the day when he takes them 30 miles off their course to an old abandoned mission that has a well! Just when things are looking up, Black Cloud attacks them - and his superior numbers are are extra-motivated by want of the precious water which our heroes now hold! Little Knife is sent off to deliver a message for help - but he's got to hurry as Black Cloud's swarm of Comanche warriors are ready to finish the survivors off!

Last of the Comanches is a surprisingly moving film directed by Andre De Toth and adapted to the screen by Kenneth Gamet. It stars Broderick Crawford, Barbara Hale, Lloyd Bridges, Mickey Shaughnessy, Johnny Stewart, George Matthews and Hugh Sanders. A Technicolor production with cinematography by Charles Lawton Junior and Ray Cory and music by George Duning. Andre De Toth was a skillful artisan, who made all kinds of genres as: Adventure: The Mongols, Morgan the Pirate, Tanganyka. Sword & Sandal: Gold for the Caesar. Terror: House of Wax 1953 (probably his best and most known film), and Westerns: Indian Fighter, Man in the Saddle, Ramrod, The Stranger Wore a Gun, Last of the Comanches. A stellar cast in on hand with the likes of Broderick Crawford, Martin Milner, Mickey Shaughnessy and Barbara Hale. This film is sometimes criticized as being a remake of Zoltan Korda/Humphrey Bogart's war movie "Sahara" from 1943, but that shouldn't deter anyone from checking out Last of the Comanches which finds Broderick Crawford as the leader of what remains of a massacred cavalry troop who band together with a ragtag group of stagecoach passengers. In essence it's a survivalist story with some Indian War action dotted around the outskirts of plotting. It's nice and airy, pleasingly performed, easy on the eye with its Technicolor photography, and De Toth once again shows himself to be a good marshal of action scenes. Crawford carries the movie of course, imbuing Sergeant Trainor with fearless bluster that holds the dysfunctional group together. The narrative strength comes from the lack of water, both for the whiteys and the Comanche, where the often forgotten weapons of war, that of food or drink, firmly keeps the story engrossing.