Ulzana's Raid
Music by Frank DeVol. Starring Burt Lancaster and no one else really notable
except Richard Farnsworth (Alf, FernWood Tonight...) as one of the cavalry troopers...
Another INDIAN WAR movie. Cavalry fighting the Apaches. Ulzana is a Bad-Ass
Apache who has escaped (?) a reservation, here called the "Indian Agency".
Ulzana is looking for white Homesteaders to rape and pillage to seek revenge.
This is a later Western very much about the Indians, as Burt Lancaster (MacIntosh)
is hired by Cavalry because he is a good scout and knows the Indians. The 'escaped'
Indians are called "hostiles" here, and there are cited regulations
for their 'capture' and return. Featured on the side of the Cavalry is an Apache
who knows of course, intimately of the Apache and Ulzana. He has his own mercenary
motives. There is considerable discussion and strategy concerning the Apache
and their ways. E.G.: they kill in cruel ways to "take the power of the
man they kill...", etc. And, from Burt: "Apaches got lots of whims..."
Burt is rather sympathetic and respectful of the Apaches, and the movie has
a more balanced view of the Indian situation than older films, but still not
quite out-and-out Revisionist or Politically Correct (?) such as Dances With
Wolves. It definitely does not flinch at displaying Apache cruelty. The moral
themes are not black-and-white: "Apache not soldier -- Apache not sign
paper to fight. Apache only fight when good..." Animal rights supporters
would find the movie problematic as it contains much horse killing
This is a good movie. A later Western with a real contemporary edge. Lancaster
is good and credible as the wily Indian fighter. Probably not a Classic, but
Definitely a Must See.
Jed
Director: Robert Aldrich
Screenwriter: Alan Sharp
Cast: Burt Lancaster....McIntosh
Bruce Davison....Lt. Garnett DeBuin
Jorge Luke....Ke-Ni-Tay
Richard Jaeckel....Sergeant
Joaquín Martínez....Ulzana
Lloyd Bochner....Captain Gates
Karl Swenson.... Rukeyser
Douglass Watson....Maj. Cartwright
Dran Hamilton....Mrs. Riordan
John Pearce....Corporal
Gladys Holland....Mrs. Rukeyser
Margaret Fairchild....Mrs. Ginsford
Aimée Eccles....McIntosh's Indian Woman
Richard Bull....Ginsford
Otto Reichow....Steegmeyer
Date: 1972 103 mins.
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