Land of Cochise

This low budget retread of the motion picture "Broken Arrow" actually used quite a bit of footage borrowed directly from the film . . . not that difficult to do since both TV anthology series and motion picture were Fox properties. Ricardo Montalban is Cochise with a Latin flair, but to be fair he downplays the style he was already making famous and portrayed Cochise in much the same manner that had worked so well in 1950 for Jeff Chandler . . . proud, slightly arrogant, and forceful. It is interesting that the role of Tom Jeffords was given to John Lupton, a relatively unknown actor at the time. He must have pleased the powers that be because he was cast to repeat the same role when the TV series was created (also 1956). In reality, this one-hour program served as the pilot episode for the TV series, though the first episdoe of the series was a virtual remake of the pilot, with the new Cochise installed (Michael Ansara).

Somehow the magic of the movie got lost in this highly condensed version. John Lupton's Tom Jeffords is miles apart from the character James Stewart portrayed (which, to be honest, was miles apart from the real Tom Jeffords). Still, watching Montalban do his own kind of justice to Cochise's graceful power was not unpleasant . . . though it made me want to pull out the "Broken Arrow" videotape and watch the Jeff Chandler version all over again.

I'd highly recommend trying to catch this rare TV episode and commit it to tape for your collection, as it has its own charm simply being the pilot for a highly popular TV series that helped spread Cochise's fame worldwide.

THE ALSO-RANS -Movies and TV shows that at least tried hard. -- Cont.