Sometimes shockingly idiotic, this movie occasionally manages to entertain through the perversity of its decisions.
Basically, a game Richard Widmark and a drunk, bored William Holden wait an hour and a half for a battle sequence we were told about at the top, and we know, you and I and Bill and Dick, everybody knows, that what's coming will be one of the cheapest, least exciting battles in the whole canon of mostly or completely lame Civil War movies (has there ever been a good one?); but we also know, and the sheer insanity keeps us around, that this otherwise pedestrian Civil War battle scene will be perhaps the first to make the startling inclusion of a cattle stampede.
First, though, we get to hear them say clever things to each other:
"Damn you, Kelly! Why?" "Let's say I was getting even with someone for shooting a finger off."
and to their women:
"What's the matter, darling?" "War's the matter, I guess."
We are treated to the spectacle of Confederate troops at cattle-drive school, learning to sing "Dixie" to spooked dogies. We are escorted in no hurry at all through a series of plantation homes, hotels, whorehouses and restaurants, all featuring the same salmon-colored window treatment on - yes! - the same French windows. For four minutes, we are stunned by the awesome vision of soldiers cutting trees to shore up a bridge. Of course, this means later we'll get to watch the bridge blow up, and we fear that it will be one of the stupidest bridge-blowing-up sequences in history. And it is, with Holden reeling half-heartedly to the middle of the span, noticing the explosion behind him, and jumping off a perfectly safe part which does not blow up, so that he can dive into the river and have planks fall on his head. Good thing there wasn't a coffee table on that bridge.
This stinking potboiler of conflicted loyalties must have reminded Edward Dmytryk of the HUAC fifties. It seems to have been directed by absentee ballot. It looks like the whole crew was home by lunch every day. The dirt roads have visible tire ruts; dirty commando Rebs use knives shiny as chrome. Nobody bothered much about the script, either. We are asked to accept that, at great expense and effort, the Confederate army would rather shadow, catch and release and chase and catch again a man whom they obviously should, simply and legally, shoot as a spy (this also is a major failing of "The Great Escape", which at least has other virtues). "Alvarez Kelly" is further handicapped by apparently having been shot during the great Culver City period uniform and prop shortage of '65 - the Union army consists of about twelve soldiers; the Rebs have maybe forty. When the big fight finally comes, it takes place in some bushes, and the soldiers hide so well, you almost can't tell that it's a really major battle. A shrubbery nearly obscures the single cannon, and Columbia manages to arm both the North and South with Winchester repeaters that would not be mass produced for about 10 years after Appomattox.
Most incredibly, the whole story takes place in Virginia, and yet we hear the voice of only a single African-American in the entire picture. In a crowning touch of genius, Union officer Patrick O'Neal takes this slave woman hostage and uses her as a human shield while evading Confederate capture - and the Rebs not only don't shoot, they just stand staring, perhaps because, being the only slave with the power of speech, she is very valuable; or perhaps because this could only happen in a world gone mad. Or senile. Dmytryk directs like he's already dead.
And the pretentious road-show title sequence with eponymous song: "Sometimes a herd of cattle... is worth more than a herd of cannon!" (I swear to God), featuring lusty tough-guy lyrics sung by a gelded, milquetoast barber-shop quartet. One of the all-time worst songs in a movie, it serves as a spectacular opening to a remarkably terrible film.
Basically, a game Richard Widmark and a drunk, bored William Holden wait an hour and a half for a battle sequence we were told about at the top, and we know, you and I and Bill and Dick, everybody knows, that what's coming will be one of the cheapest, least exciting battles in the whole canon of mostly or completely lame Civil War movies (has there ever been a good one?); but we also know, and the sheer insanity keeps us around, that this otherwise pedestrian Civil War battle scene will be perhaps the first to make the startling inclusion of a cattle stampede.
First, though, we get to hear them say clever things to each other:
"Damn you, Kelly! Why?" "Let's say I was getting even with someone for shooting a finger off."
and to their women:
"What's the matter, darling?" "War's the matter, I guess."
We are treated to the spectacle of Confederate troops at cattle-drive school, learning to sing "Dixie" to spooked dogies. We are escorted in no hurry at all through a series of plantation homes, hotels, whorehouses and restaurants, all featuring the same salmon-colored window treatment on - yes! - the same French windows. For four minutes, we are stunned by the awesome vision of soldiers cutting trees to shore up a bridge. Of course, this means later we'll get to watch the bridge blow up, and we fear that it will be one of the stupidest bridge-blowing-up sequences in history. And it is, with Holden reeling half-heartedly to the middle of the span, noticing the explosion behind him, and jumping off a perfectly safe part which does not blow up, so that he can dive into the river and have planks fall on his head. Good thing there wasn't a coffee table on that bridge.
This stinking potboiler of conflicted loyalties must have reminded Edward Dmytryk of the HUAC fifties. It seems to have been directed by absentee ballot. It looks like the whole crew was home by lunch every day. The dirt roads have visible tire ruts; dirty commando Rebs use knives shiny as chrome. Nobody bothered much about the script, either. We are asked to accept that, at great expense and effort, the Confederate army would rather shadow, catch and release and chase and catch again a man whom they obviously should, simply and legally, shoot as a spy (this also is a major failing of "The Great Escape", which at least has other virtues). "Alvarez Kelly" is further handicapped by apparently having been shot during the great Culver City period uniform and prop shortage of '65 - the Union army consists of about twelve soldiers; the Rebs have maybe forty. When the big fight finally comes, it takes place in some bushes, and the soldiers hide so well, you almost can't tell that it's a really major battle. A shrubbery nearly obscures the single cannon, and Columbia manages to arm both the North and South with Winchester repeaters that would not be mass produced for about 10 years after Appomattox.
Most incredibly, the whole story takes place in Virginia, and yet we hear the voice of only a single African-American in the entire picture. In a crowning touch of genius, Union officer Patrick O'Neal takes this slave woman hostage and uses her as a human shield while evading Confederate capture - and the Rebs not only don't shoot, they just stand staring, perhaps because, being the only slave with the power of speech, she is very valuable; or perhaps because this could only happen in a world gone mad. Or senile. Dmytryk directs like he's already dead.
And the pretentious road-show title sequence with eponymous song: "Sometimes a herd of cattle... is worth more than a herd of cannon!" (I swear to God), featuring lusty tough-guy lyrics sung by a gelded, milquetoast barber-shop quartet. One of the all-time worst songs in a movie, it serves as a spectacular opening to a remarkably terrible film.