Jeff Arnold’s West

The blog of a Western fan, for other Western fans

The Glory Guys (UA, 1965)

 

Custer’s Last Stand in all but name

 

The Glory Guys was supposed to be part of the Sam Peckinpah oeuvre. Peckinpah (left) wrote the screenplay in the late 1950s, adapting the 1956 novel The Dice of God by Hoffman Birney, and was to have directed the movie, which was going to star Charlton Heston and Angie Dickinson. It would have been Major Dundee ante diem. It is said that in fact Sam did direct a few of the early scenes – though Peckinpahists Nick Redman, Paul Seydor and Garner Simmons, in the audio commentary on the Blu-ray, dispute that.

 

Peckinpah, we know, was not the easiest person to work with. After the splendid Ride the High Country in 1962, a picture he largely wrote and casted as well as directed, he had difficulty in getting other big-screen projects. His cantankerousness and propensity for going vastly over-budget and over-schedule didn’t help, nor his fondness for the bottle while on set. In fact there was nothing till Major Dundee released in 1965, four months before The Glory Guys – and Major Dundee would be a very expensive critical and commercial flop (though later ‘rehabilitated’ by critics and fans). Peckinpah had been fired from The Cincinnati Kid in early ’65 and the producers and studio were nervous, so he was replaced on The Glory Guys by one of the producers, Arnold Laven, pictured below, who, with fellow Army Air Force war photographers Jules V Levy and Arthur Gardner, set up Levy-Gardner-Laven to produce movies in peacetime. The company made a specialty of TV Westerns, Laven directing many of The Rifleman episodes (some written by Peckinpah). As far as feature-film Westerns went, though, Laven had directed Geronimo (the weak Chuck Connors one) in 1962 but that’s all. The Glory Guys would suffer greatly from lukewarm direction.

 

 

Director Laven

 

It’s a Custer’s last stand picture, in all but name. Andrew Duggan was cast as the Custerish General McCabe. His officers blame him for the loss of Captain Harris at the attack on the Apaches at Wishbone Creek – for this, read Major Elliott at the massacre of Cheyenne on the Washita. Then we see ‘Custer’ disobeying orders from a Sheridan-like commanding general (Paul Birch) not to engage the Sioux before rendezvous-ing with another expedition, so desperate was he to prevent the ‘hostiles’ escaping, and ultra-rashly engaging the huge force against advice, with the inevitable result of Army corpses, including his own, strewn on the hillside. This reading of Little Bighorn allows for no pro-Custer sentiment. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

 

 

Duggan is the Custerish McCabe

 

It is clear that Laven & Co were also going for a John Ford cavalry-Western vibe, complete with officer’s ball, comic-relief drunken trooper (James Caan) and so on. But they failed in that endeavor. It’s true that very late Ford, e.g. Cheyenne Autumn, was overlong and meandering, with no clear directorial hand on the tiller, but Ford in his prime would never have allowed this slow, lumbering, elephantine picture to go on so long and with so little action until the final battle scene. Nor would he have countenanced such unsubtle interplay between the characters or put up with such stodgy acting.

 

The movie also went for the cliché of tough sergeant turning raw recruits into soldiers. We’ve seen it a hundred times and in this respect The Glory Guys (as the title might suggest) is just a generic war movie.

 

It was a big-budget affair, in Panavision and Color De Luxe, shot with a host of extras in Durango, Mexico locations and photographed by James Wong Howe, no less. It was no cheap B-picture, that’s for sure. There are some classic Howe shots in silhouette. He was a real artist, a master of light and shadow. His capturing of the large-scale battle scenes was also superbly done. Visually, the picture is indeed occasionally the equal of Ford’s work.

 

 

Jimmy Howe

 

 

A classic (and Fordian) Howe shot

 

The cast, however, was uninspired. Topping the billing was Tom Tryon as the noble captain battling against stupid senior officers – a standard Western trope, and Laven had nothing to add to Ford’s magisterial treatment of this theme. Tryon, Disney’s Texas John Slaughter from TV, had also featured in Three Violent People, a Charlton Heston/Anne Baxter Western of 1956. He had been Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal in 1963, which was much ballyhooed, but that turned out to be a surprise flop. Tryon turned to writing but still acted a bit. He would star in the 1967 TV remake of Winchester ’73, for example. You could hardly call him a big star of the feature Western.

 

Going for the Captain York vibe

 

Second billing went to Harve Presnell as the chief of scouts and Tryon’s rival for the hand of the fair Senta Berger. Mr Presnell had very 1960s coiffure in this movie. In fact his hair looks very like that of the present tenant of the White House, though perhaps less orange. The Howard Keel-esque Presnell was a baritone who had made it big in The Unsinkable Molly Brown with Debbie Reynolds the year before but there were precious few musicals around then and he tried his hand at a ‘straight’ Western. To be brutally frank (and when is your Jeff anything less?) neither Mr Tryon nor Mr Presnell was especially charismatic.

 

 

Donald Trump                                  Harve Presnell

 

Ms Berger, who had moved from her native Austria to Hollywood in 1962 and was Teresa in Peckinpah’s Major Dundee, is the point of the love-triangle in The Glory Guys. She soon returned to Europe. As far as Western movies were concerned, that was all she wrote. Berger would be back with Peckinpah in the 70s, though, in Cross of Iron. I must say that in The Glory Guys she plays a free and intelligent woman capable of empathy towards both her suitors, even if she clearly prefers one of them. It’s a strong character, and our sympathies for her are heightened when she is mistreated by the sneering and mean wife of the general (Jeanne Cooper).

 

 

Senta Berger

 

 

Slim Pickens was there, as the tough sergeant who really cares deep down, and doing his Slim thing. He was never less than entertaining. But really he and Duggan were the only ‘star’ Western names.

 

 

Slim does his thing

 

Michael Anderson Jr has a part as the green young recruit who falls in love. He had been the naïve kid in The Sundowners back in 1960 and just the month before the release of The Glory Guys he had been the young Bud Elder in John Wayne’s The Sons of Katie Elder. He was also in Major Dundee. Anderson specialized in ‘green kid’ parts. In fact, though, he is rather too wide-eyed and ‘innocent’ in The Glory Guys, really overdoing it.

 

 

Anderson

 

James Caan milks his comic-relief part for all it’s worth with his ‘Irish’ accent. It was his first feature Western. He would co-star with Wayne in El Dorado two years later and lead in some minor Westerns in the 70s but I’m not sure he was entirely suited to the genre.

 

 

James Caan hamming it up

 

There are obligatory scenes such as a semi-comic saloon brawl. Nothing new or special here.

 

There’s a Major Dundee-ish scene by the river that makes you wonder how much input Peckinpah in fact had. You can’t help thinking that Major Dundee was The Glory Guys the way Sam wanted it. The two movies paralleled each other in so many ways. Interestingly, three actors were on both sets: Anderson, Berger and Pickens.

 

There’s a very improbable bit where Tryon’s captain arranges for his troop to ride out without weapons and be attacked by fake Indians. I don’t know what was gained by this tomfoolery.

 

 

Battle

 

 

The music by Riz Ortolani is bold and martial – if you want to be polite. Strident and blaring might be other adjectives to employ. And by the ninety-third time you’ve heard it you are heartily sick of it. It is rendered as a cheesy ballad over the titles.

 

The fort (‘Fort Doniphan’) is good: instead of the usual toy fort with wooden palisade that Hollywood loved it is a more realistic ‘open’ one, like Fort Laramie or Fort Apache.

 

The Glory Guys is watchable, if a bit ho-hum and too long.
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Lousy poster

 

 

11 Responses

  1. A very interesting choice and a great write up as always.
    The Presnell/Trump comparison cracked me up.
    Presnell is the weak link in this film-Tyron is not much better-just think
    how good the film would have been with James Garner and James Coburn.
    Weakness aside I am rather fond of this film-superb combat scenes and wonderful
    James Wong Howe lensing.
    I always thought Laven was underrated as a director and generally like films
    from the Laven Gardner Levy team. The guys did however make a serious mis-step
    with the repellent THE HUNTING PARTY a dire attempt to jump on the Spaghetti
    bandwagon.
    Still THE GLORY GUYS is a decent watch as far as I'm concerned and…The Indians WIN!!

    1. Yes, for me Coburn as the scout Potts was the real stand-out in Major Dundee. There are so many movies where one says if only such-and-such had directed it, or starred in it. This is certainly one.
      I agree that a real plus point of Custer and Custerish stories is that the Indians win for once!
      Jeff

  2. Howdy pardners. Picking up on that discussion about Karen Steele a couple of articles ago there's a bonus feature bio of Budd B on the 'Seven Men From Now' DVD. I thought it said that Budd and Ms. Steele were married. I always assumed that's why she was allowed to be pristine pretty in Ride Lonesome while Gail Russell, Nancy Gates and Maureen O'Sullivan were de-glamourised in Seven Men, Tall T and Commanche Station. Give me Gates and Russell any day. Really sad about Gail Russell. I'm assuming you all know the story. Watched 'Chisum' today – off to read Jeff's articles about Young Guns, Billy the Kid etc. etc. Paul

    1. There was a story that they married in Mexico tho' Steele denied it. Whatever, clearly she and Budd had a fling.
      You have to see Chisum.
      Once.
      But please don't take any of the Billy the Kid mallarkey it shows as gospel!!! Read Robert Utley instead.
      Jeff

  3. Having worked in living history portraying an Indian Wars-era cavalry soldier at Fort Davis in west Texas, I really like the fort in this picture. About the most realistic one I know of in movies.

  4. I remember watching THE GLORY GUYS on the old NBC SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES in 1968. At the time I really liked it. Although, I thought, why not just do a straight Custer movie. I really liked the way the movie looked and I still do. I think proper credit should go to a couple of academy award winning production and art people and their crews. Edward "Ted" Haworth, production designer, and Ray Moyer, set decorator. Sam Peckinpah must have liked what he saw, because they would work for him in his future movies. Also, Frank Beetson, Jr. as costumer. I liked the Lakota dressed in a bearskin. I wish the lead actors would have been cast better, because this could have been a really great cavalry movie. Also, check out forgotten writer Hoffman Birney's THE DICE OF GOD(1956). Here is a good book review by the late Randy Johnson https://randall120.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/ffb-the-dice-of-god-hoffman-birney/

    Stereosteve, please tell us about working in Living History. What color was your campaign hat?

    1. Interesting. I think crew members such as production designers and set decorators are often overlooked. They contribute greatly to a movie.
      Jeff

  5. I think the Glory Guys is a very good western, well-directed, acted, and shot by the legendary James Wong Howe. It is obvious it is about Custer, and his blind ambition for personal glory. The leads, Tom Tryon (who actually looks very much like Charlton Heston) and Harve Presnell are reasonably good and Peckinpah’s scrip is well-structured. I thought the love story resonates and gives added dimension to both the characters and the story. There are two beautiful and charismatic actresses. Senta Berger, as noted as was an underestimated actress and gorgeous woman. The second is the breathtaking Jeanne Cooper, better known for television. She had all the requisite attributes for major stardom, beauty, talent, and charisma. She was memorable in Plunder Road (1957) and The Intruder (1962).

  6. In my opinion the final 7th Cavalry last ride has stiĺl to be shot, considering the incredible number of books dedicated to the subject efited each year or so, it is surprising that there is no newer films about it… A few years ago on this blog I was wondering if Matthew McConnaughey could have been a good Custer but he is 53 now. Ryan Gosling is 42 (and Canadian…). Jamie Bell is English… Chris Evans, Ben Foster, Chris Pine are now in their early forties as his Charlie Hunnam or Eddie Redmayne, both englishmen too. Zac Efron has the right age but the wrong jaw…
    Any idea !?
    The best movie inspired by this story so far is still Fort Apache; it includes most of the necessary ingredients to the Cavalry western from the themes to the superb photo.
    The best novel being the remarkable Bugles in the Afternoon (you can skip its film adaptation)

    1. Your knowledge of present day actors is way superior to mine! But I agree it’s about time for another bit of Custerology. The most fun Custer to date was Errol Flynn in THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON but of course he was also one of the most unhistorical. The most wildly ‘ant-Custer’ was probably Richard Mulligan in LITTLE BIG MAN. I agree about the Haycox novel, a fine book but a disappointing film.

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