It's not a bad Western, as far as that goes, but it's hard to imagine why some people feel it's the best Western ever made.
Half a dozen or so diverse character enter into a brutal week-long horse race across the Southwestern desert, encountering numerous tribulations and conflicts along the way. Is that original? Well, in a way I suppose it is. Here we have six horses. In "Sahara", Humphrey Bogart and his companions only had one tank between them.
The musical score borrows from Aaron Copeland and Maurice Jarre's "Lawrence of Arabia," and indeed the scenery is exquisite, even if not as dramatically handled as in "Lawrence." (It was partly shot in White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.) Except for one or two effective slow-motion scenes of horses being ridden half to death -- or all the way -- Richard Brooks' direction is competent without being notable.
The plot. It's as if a committee had sat around a table drinking café lattes mit Schlag and made a lot of notes about what can happen to people who are riding horses through a colorful but forbidding Western landscape.
Let's see. A man can be bitten by a rattlesnake, or almost. In this instance they killed the rattlesnake on screen, for real, which is terrible treatment for a handsome reptile who wants only to be left alone. (I'll bet the wranglers kissed the horses' rumps.) A man can get shot in the back by an escaping prison gang. A woman can be almost raped by a duo of greasy no-goodniks who just happen to be hanging around in the middle of nowhere as she rides past. Of course, if the woman is Candice Bergen, it's understandable that they should notice her presence, but is it really necessary for them to try to do more than simply squeeze and bite her, as any normal man would do? Then there is Jan Michael Vincent as the hot-dog fanfaron strutting around and challenging strangers to draw on him, "trying to earn a reputation," a convention of only the earliest TV Westerns.
An old man can die of a heart attack from all the stress, and Ben Johnson gets to give a great speech about how important it is to be SOMEBODY and have people shake your hand. Johnson at least is given his due in one long take in which he directly addresses the camera. The guy is an icon.
Another extended monologue is given to Gene Hackman, a former Rough Rider, describing the way good old Teddy Roosevelt led the charge up San Juan Hill. (Kids: This is the Spanish-American war we're discussing here, 1898.) But he gets the destination wrong. It was Kettle Hill, not San Juan Hill.
Let me think of some other things that can go wrong during the race. A man can be poisoned by villains or by mistake, and, man, is this a mistake. After Gene Hackman imbibes some whiskey he takes a couple of gulps of laudanum, an opium compound, clutches his belly in agony and ululates his pain like a wounded animal. In reality, such a cocktail would put you into a soft, furry, tangerine-colored sleep in two minutes.
Oh. And can an upper-class British twit have his beloved horse break a leg and can he be force to commit a merciful equicide, even while drowning in his own tears? You bet.
Half a dozen or so diverse character enter into a brutal week-long horse race across the Southwestern desert, encountering numerous tribulations and conflicts along the way. Is that original? Well, in a way I suppose it is. Here we have six horses. In "Sahara", Humphrey Bogart and his companions only had one tank between them.
The musical score borrows from Aaron Copeland and Maurice Jarre's "Lawrence of Arabia," and indeed the scenery is exquisite, even if not as dramatically handled as in "Lawrence." (It was partly shot in White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.) Except for one or two effective slow-motion scenes of horses being ridden half to death -- or all the way -- Richard Brooks' direction is competent without being notable.
The plot. It's as if a committee had sat around a table drinking café lattes mit Schlag and made a lot of notes about what can happen to people who are riding horses through a colorful but forbidding Western landscape.
Let's see. A man can be bitten by a rattlesnake, or almost. In this instance they killed the rattlesnake on screen, for real, which is terrible treatment for a handsome reptile who wants only to be left alone. (I'll bet the wranglers kissed the horses' rumps.) A man can get shot in the back by an escaping prison gang. A woman can be almost raped by a duo of greasy no-goodniks who just happen to be hanging around in the middle of nowhere as she rides past. Of course, if the woman is Candice Bergen, it's understandable that they should notice her presence, but is it really necessary for them to try to do more than simply squeeze and bite her, as any normal man would do? Then there is Jan Michael Vincent as the hot-dog fanfaron strutting around and challenging strangers to draw on him, "trying to earn a reputation," a convention of only the earliest TV Westerns.
An old man can die of a heart attack from all the stress, and Ben Johnson gets to give a great speech about how important it is to be SOMEBODY and have people shake your hand. Johnson at least is given his due in one long take in which he directly addresses the camera. The guy is an icon.
Another extended monologue is given to Gene Hackman, a former Rough Rider, describing the way good old Teddy Roosevelt led the charge up San Juan Hill. (Kids: This is the Spanish-American war we're discussing here, 1898.) But he gets the destination wrong. It was Kettle Hill, not San Juan Hill.
Let me think of some other things that can go wrong during the race. A man can be poisoned by villains or by mistake, and, man, is this a mistake. After Gene Hackman imbibes some whiskey he takes a couple of gulps of laudanum, an opium compound, clutches his belly in agony and ululates his pain like a wounded animal. In reality, such a cocktail would put you into a soft, furry, tangerine-colored sleep in two minutes.
Oh. And can an upper-class British twit have his beloved horse break a leg and can he be force to commit a merciful equicide, even while drowning in his own tears? You bet.