A hard film to watch
And then there was Vietnam. The shock waves of the My Lai massacre in 1968 were still reverberating. American casualties reached a peak in 1969. The Kent State shootings took place the same month that Soldier Blue was released.
So we were given a film showing the US Army brutally massacring decent Native Americans, gleefully slaughtering women and children, raping, mutilating, beheading and heaven knows what else.
The event, set in 1877, was fictional but there is an explicit reference to Sand Creek (1864) in a voiceover at the end of the picture and there are also unmentioned similarities to Custer’s attack on the Washita (1868). The repulsive Army commander leading the cavalry is fictional, a Colonel Iverson (John Anderson, not holding back) but there are definite echoes of the even more repellent Reverend Colonel Chivington of Sand Creek and of Custer himself.
The film became a cause célèbre for its final shocking scenes, though there was an unpleasant element of exploitative Hollywood gore – Peckinpah without the talent. Brian Garfield in his guide Western Films wrote that the slaughter was “depicted with lip-licking, drooling, voyeuristic explicitness; the film is typically a Joseph E Levine production – expensive and tasteless.”
In reality, though, those final scenes only come after a long, even meandering story of just two people, the only escapees from a Cheyenne attack on an Army patrol, trying to get back to the safety of an Army fort. At very nearly two hours it was way too long. The plot wasn’t strong enough to take it, though this tends to be forgotten when the massacre scenes arrive.
The two survivors are not a vulnerable woman and a tough man-who-knows-Indians, as in the classic Western tradition, but the reverse. The star is Candice Bergen as Cresta Lee, a white woman (and her extreme blondness heightens the whiteness) who has been living with the Cheyenne, as one of the wives of their leader Spotted Wolf (Jorge Rivero). She is canny, shrewd and resourceful – and stridently pro-Indian. Her companion is a weepy and largely incompetent young trooper, Honus Gant, played by Peter Strauss, bungling and bumbling across the prairie but gradually learning from the tough woman. Ms Bergen, pre-Carnal Knowledge and better known at the time for less-than-great campus comedy, was actually quite strong as the foul-mouthed ‘lady’, though the script and her approach were far more 1970s than 1870s. Mr Strauss was pretty much an unknown and isn’t too bad as the totally bewildered soldier almost unable to cope. You sometimes want to shake him.
Bergen and Strauss
There’s a slight Rooster Cogburn/Two Mules for Sister Sara vibe as the man is accompanied through the hardships of the West by an apparently unsuited woman who turns out, though, to be competent, but as I said, really this is turned on its head and it’s the woman who leads and the man who eventually shows a bit of ability under the tutelage of his companion.
And unlike those other Westerns, Ms Bergen’s dress gets skimpier and skimpier as the film progresses. There is almost a soft-porn look to the movie.
The picture was directed by Ralph Nelson, better known for his TV work. He only did three big-screen Westerns, this one, the dire The Wrath of God in 1972 and Duel at Diablo (1966), the latter the best, but it’s only relative. Considering the slow pace of most of Soldier Blue and the rather heavy-handed message, I don’t think we can put Mr Nelson up on the Mount Parnassus of Western directors (probably somewhere up in the Rockies).
The film is marred by another dreadful performance by Donald Pleasence as Isaac Q Cumber, a seller of guns to the Indians (in Westerns a crime situated on the scale of awfulness somewhere between matricide and cannibalism). Pleasence would insist on doing Westerns, for which he was entirely unsuited, and came close to ruining several with his overacting, such as The Hallelujah Trail (not that he ruined that one because it was already so bad as to be past saving) and Will Penny – a fine Western in which he was abysmal. Brian Garfield, again, talked of “Pleasence, whose mugging performance brings new significance to the word ‘ham’.” Dramatically, too, it’s odd because this Cumber pursues the couple with intent to kill but suddenly gives up the chase and rides away never to be seen again.
Another weakness of Soldier Blue is summed up by Roger Ebert, in his review of the time:
You probably need to see Soldier Blue, once, if you are at all a keen Westernista. But it’s a hard film to watch, and an almost impossible one to like.
7 Responses
A very interesting piece Jeff,I've only seen the film once
(at the time) and have no wish to see it again.
Totally agree with the appalling Pleasence he virtually trashes the
otherwise pretty good WILL PENNY.
What is it with American directors who seem to be totally unable to
reign in British Ham Actors.
Bergen also appeared in the equally dire THE HUNTING PARTY Westerns
certainly not her thing although I've never seen BITE THE BULLETT
DOC is an interesting mis-fire and LITTLE BIG MAN I rather like
it's game is certainly raised by Jeff Corey's wonderful take on
Wild Bill Hickok..the best ever on screen I feel.
Eastwood aside,there were still some good early 70's Westerns namely
BILLY TWO HATS and THE CULPEPPER CATTLE COMPANY.
I also rather like CHATO'S LAND which I know you don't-I like it more
for the strong supporting cast.
Interestingly,on the extras on the Blu Ray the screenwriter says that
The Apaches learned the art of torture from Jesuit Priests and they
became very good at it. I thought I'd add that because of all people,
Jeff you would know if there is any truth in that.
I hold no candle for Jesuits but I can't imagine they had anything to teach Apaches on that score…
Jeff
I went to see this when it first came out. At the time I was going to the pictures 2 or 3 times a week and seeing almost anything on release. I caught True Grit, The Undefeated, Rio Lobo, Chisum, The Cheyenne Social Club and Bandelero as well as a number of westerns on re-release as the second feature to James Bond and Carry On re-releases. That's the way I saw the Dollars trilogy and some things like the a Gregory Peck/Henry Hathaway picture whose name escapes me and Doc. So I saw Soldier Blue on it's first release. All those pictures I mentioned have a certain sentimental attraction if they turn up on TV. But I never wanted to see Soldier Blue again and still haven't. Until I read your review I couldn't remember a single thing about the plot. Just the massacre. Horrible picture but maybe said it for Vietnam. Anonymous Paul again – I still can't figure the 'profile' business.
Hi Paul
Maybe that Peck movie was Shoot Out (Universal, 1971)?
Jeff
The Peck/Hathaway film was "SHOOT-OUT", by the way, Anon.Paul.
I agree totally – not a film I would ever want to put myself through again.
I think we're all agreed – one view of Soldier Blue is enough!
Jeff
Nelson’s best work is not in the genre. He tried to tackle some big weighty themes but somehow, nothing quite jelled, IMO. I did, when I was 12, like Duel at Diablo and am looking forward to reading your take on it, Jeff. But I saw it on a streaming service recently and found it a bit heavy handed. Oh, well.