Go West… December 7, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, Westerns , trackbackGather round the campfire boys, for a tin plate filled with something indeterminately brown, a mess ‘o beans, some hot joe, and a peek through suitably narrowed eyes at three ’70s westerns…
Breakheart Pass (1975)
Tom Mix meets Agatha Christie could possibly sum up Tom Gries’s 1975 western Breakheart Pass. Based on the eponymous Alistair MacLean novel, this is not so much a ‘whodunnit’ as a ‘whatthehellisgoingon?’. But it’s decent, undemanding fun that’s enlivened by a good cast, beautiful Lucien Ballard cinematography, a very hummable Jerry Goldsmith main theme, and some excellent stuntwork choreographed by the legendary Yakima Canutt.
A train is speeding through the snowy mountain passes of Nevada (actually it’s Idaho, but we’ll not nit-pick…), taking much needed medical supplies and troop replacements for the stricken men of a U.S. Army outpost. Stopping for water, they also pick up a Deputy Marshal (the ever excellent Ben Johnson) who has just apprehended a low down skunk killer and - gasp - card sharp (we’re not told which crime is worse) John Deacon (Charles Bronson).
But something nasty is waiting at the end of the line and no-one on the train is quite what they seem…
MacLean, who also scripted this couldn’t really write a damn; but his books had a certain popular ‘unputdownable’ appeal that meant millions of readers worldwide and film deal after film deal. His real skill was in the story; he could plot up a storm even if his prose was considered clunky and his dialogue, risible. Example; Bronson to the only man on board wearing cooks whites: “You must be Carlos; the chef.” Well, duh, Sherlock.
Most of the time we don’t know what on earth’s happening (a MacLean signature) as we are drip fed little bits of narrative - men disappear, men die, the train ploughs on and on through a chilly, snowbound landscape. Governor Fairchild (Richard Crenna) is clearly up to no good (he is a politician after all), the Reverend, he’s played by shifty Bill McKinney, so he’s got to be a bad ‘un (or is he..?), and Charles Durning’s there, so he could go either way, as could Ed Lauter and David Huddleston. As for Deacon the neon light flashes early on that he’s no killer and soon we, and Maria (Bronson’s wife Jill Ireland) are rooting for him to, well, do whatever the hell he’s doing.
The gorgeous scenery and veteran locomotive make for striking imagery for Ballard to play with. The veteran Canutt, second unit directing a stunt team that includes his own son, does so with great verve and we get the obligatory fight atop the train scene; we even get a whoopin’ and a hollerin’ indian attack - hurrah!
If anything, in style and plotting, Breakheart Pass almost has the structure of a silent western. The dialogue, thankfully, is pared down to a minimum and there’s a decent amount of action to keep us on the edge of our seats. What do you mean those aren’t medical supplies? The men in the Fort aren’t sick - they’ve been taken prisoner by Red Beard (a badly dubbed John Mitchum, brother of Robert and clearly not on the same acting planet) and a band of renegade injuns? Hang on, who just decoupled the troop carriage…heavens to Betsy, who will save the day? At the risk of repeating myself; well, duh…
The denouement is a tad disappointing, as both the train and MacLean seem to run out of steam. The odds are firmly in favour of the men in the white hats, of course, and there’s a gunfight for Deacon to win before he can ride off with the girl. As said, undemanding stuff, but this is damn fine fluff, Bronson is always watchable and it’s entertainment that leaves one smiling. Breakheart Pass remains one of my many guilty pleasures. I love the stylised Saul Bass influenced (who hasn’t he influenced?) main titles, which for some reason I can’t explain (though it’s almost certainly time, place and genre), remind me of TV’s The Virginian; but then again it is a cracking Goldsmith theme playing behind them. Once in my head, I just can’t get it out…
This R1 disc is from the MGM/UA range, and as such I always approach them with fear and trepidation such has been MGM’s treatment of the UA catalogue generally. It’s not bad; a decent 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer (and full screen on the flip side), with a few nicks and marks and a little dirt, but nothing too intrusive. Colours, in the main, are pretty good. The mono soundtrack is quite good. The only subtitles are French and Spanish.
The Hunting Party (1971)
You know exactly where you are with The Hunting Party right from the off; Frank Calder (the brilliant, much-missed Oliver Reed) and his gang butcher a calf, cutting hunks of flesh off its still warm carcass and greedily devouring them. At the same moment, brutal cattle baron Brandt Ruger (Gene Hackman) - whose animal we assume Frank has killed - is viciously raping his wife Melissa (Candice Bergen), the last act before he sets off on an annual hunting trip with his millionaire buddies. Not Riders of The Purple Sage then.
When Frank mistakes Melissa for a schoolteacher and kidnaps her in order to get her to teach him to read, Ruger and his hunting party decide to set their long range rifle sights on a much more dangerous game than buffalo…
Dismissed by some as a throwaway Euro-western, it’s a tale that stumbles (sometimes awkwardly) into Peckinpah territory (and that’s not simply because of the presence of LQ Jones). Indeed, hack director Don Medford, a mainstay of American TV from Alfred Hitchcock Presents to The Untouchables, Mrs Columbo (I know, I know…) and The Colbys, even tries a little fast editing and slow motion to quite good effect, but Frank’s relationship with his fellow gang members - which Peckinpah would have explored in greater depth - is, understandably perhaps, rarely touched on.
Bergen’s character’s fate is to be raped and raped again (then nearly raped), but her decision to turn to Frank is not as baffling as it might seem. Indeed all the lead roles are nicely done (even some of the second string roles, where the English members of the cast blend seamlessly with the Americans), particularly Reed who pulls off the western ‘hard man’ role with greater success than Connery did in Shalako. Hackman doesn’t have a lot to do save glower and be thoroughly nasty, though who better?
It’s an almost great film, but nevertheless an engrossing tale that almost manages to transcend its graphic brutality; it doesn’t revel in buckets of blood as many from this era did (trying to ‘out-Leone’ Leone, the misguided seemed to think that pointless violence was the way), it simply attempts to be as realistic as it can, though, it has to be said, the repeated rapes are hard to take. The ending is shocking, almost inevitable, yet thought provoking; I can only imagine that writer Lou Morheim must have gone through, or been the observer of, a particularly messy divorce. Kill ‘em all; let the lawyers sort ‘em out.
MGM’s 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer on the R1 disc I viewed is merely okay. It’s quite soft, and watching the nice full colours in the trailer (which is in good shape), it appears a little washed out too. So, it could be better, but I think this is about as good as it’s going to get, and at the price it’s hard to gripe too much. The mono sound is fine; and a word here for Riz Ortolani’s sub-Morricone score, which is nicely done.
Valdez is Coming (1971)
Mexican American Bob Valdez (Burt Lancaster) is a constable, a deputised lawman in the Mexican quarter of a fly-blown, pissant little Texan border town. Bob is tired and weary, worn down from years of being kicked around by his white bosses, his hunched shoulders and wheedling obsequiousness coming as second nature. But it wasn’t always like that.
Our film opens as Bob comes across a riotous carnival of racist viciousness; men and boys - whole families - pound away with rifles, shotguns and pistols at the pitiful shack of a man the local gang boss, Frank Tanner (Jon Cypher), has fingered as the killer of the one-time husband of his current squeeze. The fact that the man is black and has an Apache squaw in tow, only adds to the ‘fun’.
Lawman Valdez takes it on himself to stop the violence, but when it all goes horribly wrong, thanks to cowardly R.L. Davis (Richard Jordan), Bob finds himself degraded, abused and ultimately tortured - crucified indeed - by Tanner and his men.
Valdez must make a stand; and it’s now that Tanner finds out he’s not dealing with the town ‘greaser’, but with a highly skilled professional manhunter and former 7th Cavalry sergeant, a man who fought the Indian wars, who went toe to toe with Geronimo, under the command of Brigadier General George Crook.
1971’s Valdez is Coming is a neat, intelligent, western with a fine cast; former theatre director Edwin Sherin handles not only the consummate professional Lancaster, but also first timer Cypher and newcomers Hector Elizondo (who delivers the fateful message ‘Valdez is coming…’) and Jordan pretty well, though only Lancaster manages to make his character thoroughly interesting. The others are mere sketches of stock characters; the rat (Jordan), the sadistic boss (Cypher), loyal friend Diego (Frank Silvera), and so on. Having said that, Susan Clark makes the most of not very much in the part of ‘Gay Erin’, Tanner’s woman, and Barton Heyman does the same as Tanner’s ambiguous lieutenant ‘El Sugundo’.
But it’s Lancaster’s movie and it’s fascinating watching him morph from the town punch bag into a one-man army, capable of taking a man down at 1,000 yards with his Sharp’s buffalo rifle. It could easily have become cliched in the hands of one less skilled, but Lancaster, baby blues and all, gives his honourable Mexican American an innate nobility even when he is shamelessly playing the white man’s game. And you’ll see that this legendary actor, well into middle age, doesn’t shirk from his role’s more physical aspects.
This is never less than interesting material provided by screenwriter Roland Kibbee who adapted Elmore Leonard’s source novel; it’s not the first time Leonard has tackled racism in a western setting. He covered much the same territory in the excellent Hombre, filmed four years earlier with Paul Newman.
There’s a wonderful scene with Lancaster and Silvera who act out the roles of master and slave, the latter a role that their characters have played all their lives, their sad smiles saying much about the hand that life has dealt them. Sherin underscores this when old Bob gazes at a dog-eared photograph of General Crook and the 7th; a uniformed Valdez is there standing tall and proud on his own, away from the group, an outsider even then. Late on there’s a super exchange between Valdez and El Segundo, with the latter weighing whether he should kill the former:
El Segundo: “You ever hunt buffalo?’”
Valdez: (looking at him with a quiet defiance) “Apache.”
El Segundo: “When?”
Valdez: (slight pause) “Before I knew better.”
If Sherin has a major flaw it’s that he doesn’t handle the action scenes too well, he doesn’t engage viscerally in the same way as Peckinpah. But what both Leonard and Sherin do very well is set up a terrific ending; don’t worry I won’t give it away for those that haven’t seen it, save to say it’s one of these satisfying yet totally unexpected endings that’s so well written, so well performed that it leaves the viewer with a warm glow, having been slapped right in the kisser by a tremendous cinematic high.
MGM’s R1 disc, under the ‘Western Legends’ umbrella, is available very cheaply; I point this out because, like many of their United Artists back catalogue DVD releases, it’s not much to write home about. First we have a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 transfer that is a times awful and then really quite good often in the same scene. Early on there’s evident print damage, scratches, even what appear to be water marks, but things do improve. Colours are pretty faded, and the Spanish filming locations look pretty drab as a result. I repeat, things do pick up in particularly in the last couple of reels; the picture is nice and sharp, colours are excellent and marks are fewer - a mixed bag. The mono sound is adequate.
Despite that slightly worrying DVD report card, Valdez is Coming is a good enough western to earn a recommendation without hesitation.
Comments»
Is THE HUNTING PARTY uncut?`The film has been cut/edited for TV/video a number of times. Fans of the film might appreciate any info on the subject. Look for cigarette burns and suchlike.
As far as I can tell, the R1 ‘The Hunting Party’ is uncut, certainly in comparison to TV edits I’ve seen; the slashing of the steer’s throat, horsefalls, etc., all there (and other graphic violence), and the DVD running time appears to equate to the film as premiered.
If anyone knows different, let us know.
Thanks for posting.