A rip-roaringly good yarn, and an interesting gloss on Civil War history that shows food rather than glory, honour or empty triumph as the most important thing, being a forceful reminder that survival is all anyone wanted at the end of this terrible conflict.
A shocking small scene with the Union officer commanding in the field, when he effects his escape, from capture by the Confederate troops, by grabbing a black woman for a human shield, is very telling. Just previously, before the enemy trap was sprung, he had been asking this woman, who was refusing to inform on the whereabouts of the Confederate troops, why a slave like her supported this Southern army. His manner at the time seemed to indicate an ulterior and very unsavoury reason for his interest in this woman, rather than any urge to propagandise the putative Yanqui mission to free the slaves. This scene encapsulates the hypocrisy which the conduct of the war against the Secession States - and the later cynical implementation of the peacetime 'reconstruction' - had exposed.
The boasted 'honour' of the south is itself exposed by the savage mistreatment of prisoners - one of whom Kelly is, losing a finger when tortured to make him collaborate - and the completely ungentlemanly boorishness with which his tormentor treats a lady friend. By contrast, our Mexican-domiciled Texas cattleman, Alvarez Kelly, demonstrates genteel charm and practical self-sacrifice in rescuing this war-weary damsel from her uncongenial soldier-beau and his collapsing Secessionist cause.
Author John H. Lenihan compares the film to 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly', in that both films "offer no consolation in their vivid deglamorization of war. The heroes, or antiheroes, of both films pursue selfish pecuniary ventures as a conscious alternative to becoming committed in a pointless destructive war". (Thanks to Wikipedia for this detail).
A kind of reconciliation of the two sides finally proceeds as the cattle herd is delivered to starving Richmond, under siege by General Grant's forces, as during the historical 'Beefstake Raid' of 1864, and the deliberate stampede of the stolen herd, that targets and breaks through the Union lines, Alvarez - caught in a careless moment of selfless humanity - rescues a Confederate officer at peril of his own life.
And there it is: An epic of essential individual humanity and redemption, distilled out of the obscene conditions of a Civil War whose pretensions had been besmirched and degraded in the blood and muck of mutual destruction. The film's message was particularly well received in late 1960's America.
President Lincoln savoured this Confederate 'Beefstake Raid' very much, as a voiceover during the final shot reports, saying that" This is the slickest piece of cattle-stealing I ever heard of". What a disaster for the South that the complex and magnanimous Lincoln did not live to preside over Reconstruction.
A shocking small scene with the Union officer commanding in the field, when he effects his escape, from capture by the Confederate troops, by grabbing a black woman for a human shield, is very telling. Just previously, before the enemy trap was sprung, he had been asking this woman, who was refusing to inform on the whereabouts of the Confederate troops, why a slave like her supported this Southern army. His manner at the time seemed to indicate an ulterior and very unsavoury reason for his interest in this woman, rather than any urge to propagandise the putative Yanqui mission to free the slaves. This scene encapsulates the hypocrisy which the conduct of the war against the Secession States - and the later cynical implementation of the peacetime 'reconstruction' - had exposed.
The boasted 'honour' of the south is itself exposed by the savage mistreatment of prisoners - one of whom Kelly is, losing a finger when tortured to make him collaborate - and the completely ungentlemanly boorishness with which his tormentor treats a lady friend. By contrast, our Mexican-domiciled Texas cattleman, Alvarez Kelly, demonstrates genteel charm and practical self-sacrifice in rescuing this war-weary damsel from her uncongenial soldier-beau and his collapsing Secessionist cause.
Author John H. Lenihan compares the film to 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly', in that both films "offer no consolation in their vivid deglamorization of war. The heroes, or antiheroes, of both films pursue selfish pecuniary ventures as a conscious alternative to becoming committed in a pointless destructive war". (Thanks to Wikipedia for this detail).
A kind of reconciliation of the two sides finally proceeds as the cattle herd is delivered to starving Richmond, under siege by General Grant's forces, as during the historical 'Beefstake Raid' of 1864, and the deliberate stampede of the stolen herd, that targets and breaks through the Union lines, Alvarez - caught in a careless moment of selfless humanity - rescues a Confederate officer at peril of his own life.
And there it is: An epic of essential individual humanity and redemption, distilled out of the obscene conditions of a Civil War whose pretensions had been besmirched and degraded in the blood and muck of mutual destruction. The film's message was particularly well received in late 1960's America.
President Lincoln savoured this Confederate 'Beefstake Raid' very much, as a voiceover during the final shot reports, saying that" This is the slickest piece of cattle-stealing I ever heard of". What a disaster for the South that the complex and magnanimous Lincoln did not live to preside over Reconstruction.