Taza (aka “Son of Cochise”) (1954): Douglas Sirk’s 3D Western, Starring Rock Hudson as Native American!

Blast from the Past: Rock Hudson Revisited

One of Douglas Sirk’s weakest films–and one of Hollywood’s most embarrassing treatments of Native Americans, Taza stars the all-white actor Rock Hudson as Cochise’s son.

Taza, Son of Cochise

Grade: C (*1/2* out of *****)

The tale is set three years after the end of the Apache Wars, and the death of peacemaking chief Cochise (Jeff Chandler).

His elder son Taza (Hudson) shares his father’s ideas, and in this fictional narrative, it is his brother, Naiche (Bart Roberts), who yearns for war, and for Taza’s betrothed, Oona (Barbara Rush).

Naiche, due to a bigoted cavalry officer, ends with the proud Chiricahua Apaches on a reservation.

Soon they are soon joined by the captured renegade Geronimo, and real trouble begins.

Taza was the third time Jeff Chandler played Cochise, after Broken Arrow and The Battle at Apache Pass.

Parts of the film were shot in Castle Valley, Professor Valley, Sand Flats, Devil’s Garden, and Arches National Park in Utah.

Curio Facts:

The film was shot in 3D, and is one of just two films to have been released in the Pola-Lite 3D System using one projector.

Such are the vagaries of Hollywood as an industry that in 1954 Douglas Sirk also made the superb melodrama, Magnificent Obsession, which catapulted Rick Hudson into major stardom.

The first version of Magnificent Obsession, produced in 1934, served the same function for the then young and handsome novice Robert Taylor.

Cast
Rock Hudson as Taza
Barbara Rush as Oona
Gregg Palmer as Captain Burnett
Bart Roberts as Naiche
Morris Ankrum as Grey Eagle
Gene Iglesias as Chato
Richard H. Cutting as Cy Hegan
Ian MacDonald as Geronimo
Robert Burton as General Crook
Joe Sawyer as Sgt. Hamma
Lance Fuller as Lt. Willis
Bradford Jackson as Lt. Richards (as Brad Jackson)
James Van Horn as Skinya
Charles Horvath as Kocha
Robert F. Hoy as Lobo (as Robert Hoy)
Barbara Burck as Mary
Dan White as Tiswin Charlie
Jeff Chandler as Cochise (uncredited)
Russell Johnson as Narrator (uncredited)

Credits:

Directed by Douglas Sirk
Screenplay by George Zuckerman, story by Gerald Drayson Adams
Produced by Ross Hunter
Cinematography Russell Metty (Technicolor)
Edited by Milton Carruth
Music by Frank Skinner
Production and distribution: Universal International Pictures

Release date: February 18, 1954

Running time: 79 minutes
Box office $1.1 million