In 1865, somewhere out West, around Las Cruces, a band of Confederate prisoners led by George Hamilton escape from a Yankee fort with missionary Inger Stevens as hostage. They head for the safety of Mexico. They are pursued by a unit of Federal soldiers led by Major Glenn Ford. By the time the end rolls around, all the men of both sides have either been killed or have run away except for Hamilton and Ford, who shoot it out over the outraged honor of Inger Stevens.
Now, there's a certain dramatic potential in a story like this, and the director, Phil Karlson, who has done some brutal work elsewhere, starts it off well. In the opening scene, a rebel prisoner has killed a guard while trying to get out and he is about to be shot by a firing squad. But the end of the war is near. Everyone knows it. And the squad balks. So the Commanding Officer turns the rifles over to the Colored Troops, as they were called, and orders them to fire at the prisoner. The nervous squad of ex-slaves has never handled rifles before and mostly they miss. The wounded prisoner cries out, "I'm still alive." They reload and fire. Once again they only wound the tortured man, who screams and laughs. The scene is excruciating.
From there on, it's pretty much downhill. The usual problem is that cliché is piled upon cliché. Here, it's that the narrative itself falls apart, not so much because the conventions are too strictly observed but because the writers seemed to be seated on a runaway wagon.
That Southern Captain -- Hamilton -- is a proud man and a determined one. "This war will never end," he mutters several times, a gentleman warrior. Yet, when he's alone with Inger Stevens, he slaps her around, rips her dress off, runs his spur along her naked flesh, and savagely rapes her. Whose breath blew out the light within this brain? But then nobody's motivations are entirely clear. They aren't ambiguous, as they are for you and me. They're muddled and conflicting and almost drawn up in order to suit the demands of the situation. Example: Glenn Ford is leading the pursuit but he's firm in his decision to not chase them beyond the Mexican border. Not even the pleas of the battered Inger Stevens, the now-debauched missionary and nurse, will sway him. Yet, later, when one of his men is killed, he abruptly changes his mind and charges towards the final confrontation. The dead man was not particularly important to Ford or to the plot. That is, he wasn't Ford's cousin or son or anything. So the newly formed engram is left unexplained.
The movie is "routine" by default. It doesn't carry with it the burden of ordinary stereotypes. It opens up a whole new package of problems involving mediocrity.
The period detail is carelessly handled. The mob of Confederate prisoners wears new boots. By the end, any attempt at realism is tossed out the window. The muzzle-loading rifles of the opening scene are soon replaced by single-shot breach-loading carbines. And in the last scene, Winchester repeating rifles are used. No one ever pauses to load -- regardless of the weapon.
The musical score is by Mundell Lowe, a decent guitarist, but it's terrible. From the beginning, we're subject to the kind of theme song common to the period, with lyrics. "A man's gotta ride home. But home is nowhere...." Something like that. The rest of the score would have provided a typical and uninteresting background for a shot of cars whizzing back and forth across the George Washington Bridge.
It's not worth going on about.
Now, there's a certain dramatic potential in a story like this, and the director, Phil Karlson, who has done some brutal work elsewhere, starts it off well. In the opening scene, a rebel prisoner has killed a guard while trying to get out and he is about to be shot by a firing squad. But the end of the war is near. Everyone knows it. And the squad balks. So the Commanding Officer turns the rifles over to the Colored Troops, as they were called, and orders them to fire at the prisoner. The nervous squad of ex-slaves has never handled rifles before and mostly they miss. The wounded prisoner cries out, "I'm still alive." They reload and fire. Once again they only wound the tortured man, who screams and laughs. The scene is excruciating.
From there on, it's pretty much downhill. The usual problem is that cliché is piled upon cliché. Here, it's that the narrative itself falls apart, not so much because the conventions are too strictly observed but because the writers seemed to be seated on a runaway wagon.
That Southern Captain -- Hamilton -- is a proud man and a determined one. "This war will never end," he mutters several times, a gentleman warrior. Yet, when he's alone with Inger Stevens, he slaps her around, rips her dress off, runs his spur along her naked flesh, and savagely rapes her. Whose breath blew out the light within this brain? But then nobody's motivations are entirely clear. They aren't ambiguous, as they are for you and me. They're muddled and conflicting and almost drawn up in order to suit the demands of the situation. Example: Glenn Ford is leading the pursuit but he's firm in his decision to not chase them beyond the Mexican border. Not even the pleas of the battered Inger Stevens, the now-debauched missionary and nurse, will sway him. Yet, later, when one of his men is killed, he abruptly changes his mind and charges towards the final confrontation. The dead man was not particularly important to Ford or to the plot. That is, he wasn't Ford's cousin or son or anything. So the newly formed engram is left unexplained.
The movie is "routine" by default. It doesn't carry with it the burden of ordinary stereotypes. It opens up a whole new package of problems involving mediocrity.
The period detail is carelessly handled. The mob of Confederate prisoners wears new boots. By the end, any attempt at realism is tossed out the window. The muzzle-loading rifles of the opening scene are soon replaced by single-shot breach-loading carbines. And in the last scene, Winchester repeating rifles are used. No one ever pauses to load -- regardless of the weapon.
The musical score is by Mundell Lowe, a decent guitarist, but it's terrible. From the beginning, we're subject to the kind of theme song common to the period, with lyrics. "A man's gotta ride home. But home is nowhere...." Something like that. The rest of the score would have provided a typical and uninteresting background for a shot of cars whizzing back and forth across the George Washington Bridge.
It's not worth going on about.