Truly Dreadful Film

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This screenplay tells the story of a stoic pioneer rancher(William Holden, as John Benedict), in Colorado, who loses his entire family to a raid by Comanche, led by 2 Comancheros. One of the latter is later captured and is made to tell the name of the other(Tarp),the fact that he has one visibly abnormal eye, and his probable location, at Pueblo Plaza. Benedict goes looking for a cheap posse to help him tract down and kill Tarp, who also stole his horses. He goes to a Mexican prison camp, and chooses 6 disparate convicts to be his posse. The rest of the film deals with the travels and adventures of this gang, their near victory at one point and their final confrontation with Tarp and his Indians and Comancheros. During one period, Benedict is shot close to the heart by one of his gang. Amazingly, he eventually recuperates, over months, with his gang waiting around to see if he will live or die. During this period, his nurse, Elizabeth(Susan Hayward), falls in love with him, and requests that he either stay there with her or go back to his ranch. He does neither, in his continuing quest for revenge. The closing scene has Benedict riding off into the sunset, leaving his frustrated gang behind(to what end?). I bet he's riding back to that village where Susan is, to take her to his ranch. Incidentally, this was Susan's last role in a Hollywood film. She would soon be diagnosed with brain cancer.Other reviewers have noted some commonalities with several prior films, such as "The Dirty Dozen", "The Wild Bunch","Return of the Magnificent Seven" and "The Searchers". In regard to the last, both center on a long, long search of months and perhaps years. But also, when they did find their quary, they suddenly got cold feet about completing their mission. In Benedict's case, I can understand his response under the conditions. Tarp was a prisoner of the US Army, awaiting trial and a possible hanging. Thus, there was a good chance he would die rather soon anyway. If Benedict had shot him under this condition, as he could easily have done so, he would have to answer to the army, as he was a vigilante. In Wayne's case(The Searchers), initially he didn't want to 'rescue' Debbie because she was married to an Indian, and initially, she didn't want to be rescued. Thus, initially, Wayne wanted to shoot her, but a cooler head prevailed, and she was brought back to the remaining members of her European family.There is another prior film, I might mention as having some relation to this one. It's called "Wild Women", and involves releasing a bunch of army women prisoners in Texas, to help in a mission against the Mexican army. They accomplished their mission.Problems:1) I was usually confused as to where the action was taking place: in Colorado, where we started, in Mexico, to which we traveled, or back across the border, in the US? It seemed like Colorado was next to the Mexican border. This may not bother everyone, but it bothers me.2)We are supposed to believe that 6 desperate Mexican prisoners could be trusted not to run away, and with firearms, to follow their employer in his seemingly crazy mission of revenge, and not kill him(one almost did, out of anger). Benedict chose to get rid of the 2 guards the prison furnished him with, apparently, a psychological move to show he trusted the men, and hoped this would increase their trustworthiness.3) Holden isn't the most exciting leader of a posse. Is his character just very stoic, or perhaps he was bored with the film?4)Many viewers are apparently disappointed that the film didn't end with a duel between Benedict and Tarp, as expected. I previously offered a rational for this. At least, Benedict's gang took part in the climatic attack by Tarp's comrades, while he was locked up.5)The gang uses dynamite to scare and kill Tarp's comrades when they attack the army camp. But dynamite wasn't discovered until after the Civil War. Probably, it shouldn't have been available.6) There's precious little humor or romance to lighten things every now and then.There are, of course, some other problems with the film that I won't bother enumerating.See it at YouTube. Filmed at various locations in Mexico

I first watched this film more than thirty years ago, and I hated it. I must say that I discovered THE WILD BUNCH only a couple of days before...How the hell can any one compare this piece of crap to Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece? Because there are William Holden and Ernest Borgnine in it? I waited more than thirty years to see it again; maybe sometimes you can expect a different point of view, you may be more mature, you may watch in a more accurate way and, why not...But no, this feature seems even more dull and useless to me as a camel would be in the North Pole. I don't know if it is because of the director - Daniel Mann - who has never been an action films one. The actors direction seems OK, but it is the story which is dumb at the most. Poor Susan Hayward who gives here,as far as I know, her last performance. She deserved better. Far better.Forget it, a total waste.

William Holden, my candidate for the perfect American born leading Man with a series of hit films such as Sunset Blvd, Golden Boy, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, Picnic, Bridges of Toko Ri, The Bridge On The River Kwai, The Horse Soldiers, Suzie Wong, made this film at the near end of his fabled career. Directed by Daniel Mann, the film was shot in Mexico, and some of the scenes and photography to me seemed a bit murky, but it could have been the print I saw. Released by Cinema Center Films which tried to become a major studio, the action is fast paced. The film features 3 Oscar winners Holden, Ernest Borgnine and in a small cameo Susan Hayward. The Producers should have enlarged the role Ms. Hayward played. After all the tough lady we all know and love would have been part of the posse. A fine film that could have been better.

Just saw this movie on Saturday afternoon network TV. That's where this movie deserves to be. Rated it a 4 because the scenery is magnificent. Speaking of which...didn't the movie seem like a cheap knockoff of the Magnificent Seven? The movie borrowing a lot of ideas from other westerns (family gets wiped out and Good Guy's out for revenge), has-been Susan Hayward trying to look sexy and play it up in the going away scene, generally bad actors acting with generally bad dialog, actors that look like someone (thought Tarp was Nick Nolte and the lieutenant was David Soul) but really aren't anybody, a truly dead ending (just riding away after NOT shooting the bad guy and saying "Maybe I've got squigglies in my heart") leads me to say... why'd I give it a 4 again?