The Horse Soldiers dvd movie.|
The Horse Soldiers buy bestselling dvd movies, videos find reviews, ratings, prices |
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List Price: $14.98 Our Price: $11.99 You Save: $2.99 Features • Anamorphic • Closed-captioned • Color • DVD-Video • Subtitled • Widescreen • NTSC In Theaters : 12 June, 1959 DVD Release : 08 May, 2001 |
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The Horse Soldiers description This latter-day sort-of Western from John Ford--falling midway between The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--is a crisp retelling of a true-life episode from the Civil War. In 1863 a Union colonel named Grierson (Marlowe in the film, and John Wayne by any name) led his cavalry several hundred miles behind Confederate lines to cut the railroad between Newton Station and soon-to-be-embattled Vicksburg. Grierson's Raid was as successful as it was daring, and remarkably bloodless. Never fear that the screenplay makes up for that un-Hollywood lapse--as well as supplying amatory distraction for the colonel in the form of a feisty Southern belle (Constance Towers) who has to be dragged along to protect secrecy. There's a certain amount of bombast in the running arguments about wartime ethics between Marlowe and the new regimental surgeon (William Holden), who don't take to each other at all. But Ford more than makes up for it with such tasty scenes as an encounter with a couple of redneck Rebel deserters (Denver Pyle and Strother Martin), an ethereal swamp crossing led by a cornpone deacon (Hank Worden), and above all the famous skirmish with a hillside full of grade-school cadets from a venerable military academy. The film ends rather abruptly because Ford abandoned a climactic battle scene--the veteran stunt man and bit player Fred Kennedy having been killed in a horse fall. Golden-age cowboy star Hoot Gibson, who acted in Ford's directorial debut, Straight Shooting, appears as Sergeant Brown. --Richard T. Jameson |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | A good tale of the Civil War with horses, battles, and colorful supporting characters |
| This movie by John Ford paired John Wayne (Col. John Marlowe) and William Holden (Maj Hank Kendall, regimental surgeon) as the male leads in the film while Constance Towers provided the female lead and love interest as the Southern Belle Hannah Hunter. The movie was expensive for its time and everyone involved expected it to be a blockbuster. Both Wayne and Holden received $775,000 and a promise of 20% of the profits. However, the film did not do all that well and there were no profits to distribute. Some say that the era of lead star megadeals began with this movie.
This movie is loosely based on Grierson's Raid in April and May 1863 as part of the Vicksburg Campaign in Mississippi. Wayne's Marlowe is a former railroad builder without much formal education, but he is smart and brave. Marlowe is leading a regiment of cavalry through Mississippi to reach Vicksburg and join Grant's campaign. We know it is dangerous because most of his officers are looking for excuses to turn back and head North to safety. During the film we learn he is a widower and how losing his wife caused him to dislike doctors. Holden's Kendall is a doctor who cares for people and is only part of the war because he was put there. Wherever he sees someone who needs his help, he offers it and this gets him on Marlowe's bad side. Along the way, they stop at a plantation and requisition horses, supplies, and refresh themselves. They meet the mistress of the plantation, Hannah Hunter and when they leave they take her so she cannot warn the Confederates of their presence of plans. Her joining the regiment of hundreds of horse soldiers provides a tense love story with Marlowe with some competition with the more sophisticated Kendall. The final resolution of the love story is one of the less satisfying aspects of the story, but in war who gets to wrap up personal stories in a neat package anyway? The movie has some spectacular vistas, lots of great work with the horses (it is cavalry, after all) a couple of fine battle sequences, the Duke fighting on the side of the Union for once, and lots of colorful supporting characters. While I don't think it is a great Wayne movie like "The Searchers" or "The Shootist", it is still a good one. Enjoy! Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI |
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