Rough Riders

Okay, history nerd alert. Who's your favorite United States president? Mine's easy to peg; Theodore Roosevelt, a President who did a little bit of everything. Beyond his two-term presidency though, what is he most known for? His involvement in the Spanish American War, told quite well in a 1997 TV miniseries, Rough Riders.

It's 1898 and the American government is in a bit of a spot. News of Spanish atrocities and cruel leadership in Cuba are making international news to the point American intervention seems like a sure thing. Who's at the forefront of that movement? Assistant secretary of the Navy Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt (Tom Berenger). He's been given approval to assemble a volunteer regiment of cavalry that will be sent to Cuba with American forces to stop the Spanish. Who is he looking to volunteer? Cowboys, mountain men, trailsmen, and anyone who can handle themselves when the bullets start to fly. He gets that and more as the volunteers assemble in Texas for training. What awaits the regiment of rough-hewn volunteers? Only the fighting in Cuba will tell.

Over the last month or so, this becomes the third TNT TV movie I've reviewed with 2001's Crossfire Trail and 1997's Buffalo Soldiers. I wish TNT still made historically-based movies like this! This 1997 miniseries is probably the network's biggest venture, a movie with impressive scale, a deep cast and a 187-minute running time. It comes from director John Milius (who also wrote the script with Hugh Wilson), a good, underrated tough guy director to helm a good tough guy flick like this. 'Riders' doesn't rewrite the historical epic/action genre, just content to tell a historical story that is known if not widely known. Elmer Bernstein turns in a fine throwback(ish) musical score, the cast looks to be having a lot of fun, and seeing a story that sticks pretty close to the historical truth? How can you lose?

The historical truth is pretty daunting for a filmmaker to take on. 'Riders' does a good job portraying not just Roosevelt and his famous cavalry volunteers, but many involved in the war from a variety of perspectives. We see the government, including President William McKinley (Brian Keith, a Milius favorite) and his secretary of state (R. Lee Ermey). We see the journalists/writers from William Randolph Hearst (George Hamilton) to Stephen Crane (Adam Storke), Frederick Remington (Nick Chinlund) to Edward Marshall (Williamt Katt). From the military perspective, we see Gary Busey and Dale Dye (a Marine Corps veteran) in power positions trying to lead the Cuban expedition. 'Riders' more than justice to the times, tackling a lot but doing a good job across the board in setting the stage for our historical story. It could have been easy for it to all slip away, but Milius helms it all nicely.

This is an ensemble cast -- a pretty strong one at that -- but I thought Tom Berenger stood out from the rest as future President Teddy Roosevelt. You read about Roosevelt, and it sounds like a caricature but no. This was one fiery, lively, opinionated, fun-loving man with some wide-ranging interests. Berenger brings him to life from his unique speech patterns to his very physical movements and non-stop energy. He makes Roosevelt more though, a human being, not just a caricature. We see Teddy with his wife (Illeana Douglas) who he misses to an extreme level, how he bonds with his men around a campfire during training, how he's emotionally distraught at seeing his men killed in battle, the exhaustion that sets in after a costly battle. Big and boisterous but never overdone, Berenger does an excellent, scene-stealing job as Roosevelt. I also learned something from the film, finding out Roosevelt wasn't always the commander of the Rough Riders. He became the commander but no spoilers.

Okay, a movie about the Rough Riders so let's talk about Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. Milius uses a familiar, well-worn and effective formula here; the unit picture. Assemble a group of men from different backgrounds, put them together, let them train and bond and then throw them into battle. There's a lot of characters so there's not always a ton of development but who stands out from the rest? Brad Johnson plays Nash, an outlaw (with partner Buck Taylor) who joins the outfit to escape a posse. Sam Elliott brings his tough guy swagger to play Capt. Bucky O'Neill, an Arizona lawman turned drill sergeant. And also, Chris Noth plays Craig Wadsworth, an upper class New Yorker looking to prove himself in battle. It's a very solid cast, and that's just the start. The rest of the group isn't necessarily big names, but there's familiar faces playing some cool characters.

Who else to look for? Joining Noth as the upper-class NYC gentlemen are Holt McCallany, Mark Moses, Titus Welliver and James Parks. As for the less-gentlemanly among the Rough Riders, watch for Geoffrey Lewis, Francesco Quinn, Eric Allan Kramer, Bob Primeaux, and in an excellent supporting part, Marshall R. Teague as a young Black Jack Pershing, commander of a regiment of Buffalo Soldiers fighting alongside the Rough Riders.     

Nothing too fancy here, just a good, entertaining movie with a throwback kind of feel. The first 90 minutes sets up the background, assembling the regiment and introducing the characters, and then throwing them into training. By the end of the first half, we're thrust into the fighting in Cuba. The centerpiece of the second half of 'Riders' is not surprisingly the attack on San Juan Hill, the battle that made the Rough Riders an instantly recognizable name and regiment. There are some slow moments building up to the battle, but the actual assault on the heavily fortified hill is a gem of an extended sequence. An excellent flick on all accounts. History buffs will especially enjoy it so it gets an easy recommendation from this guy.

Rough Riders (1997): ***/****

The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing

If I know a movie is based off a book, I typically try to find that book before jumping into a viewing. Some are easier than others -- in terms of film and literature -- to track down so you take them when you can. I stumbled across The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing several years ago at a local library knowing it was also a feature length film. I didn't especially care for the book, but there was some potential. Now as for the movie....that proved difficult tracking it down. That is until TCM aired it recently. Here we are with the film adaptation, 1973's The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing.

Having pulled off a successful train robbery at an isolated part of the desert, outlaw Jay Grobart (Burt Reynolds) and his gang ready themselves to ride off with thousands of dollars in their saddlebags. The gang is in for a surprise though. A woman, Catherine Crocker (Sarah Miles), has accidentally ridden up and witnessed the entire robbery. With no alternative, the gang brings her along as a hostage of sorts, knowing a posse will be along soon enough. Jay and Co. put some miles between them, but they're right. A posse is following their trail, a Wells Fargo agent, Lapchance (Lee J. Cobb), and Catherine's worrying husband (George Hamilton), leading the way. With Catherine in tow, Jay continues on the getaway as planned. That route takes them right into Indian territory where Jay has a to this point unspoken plan he intends to bring about.

I can't say I went into this flick with high expectations with a pretty decent memory of the novel from author Marilyn Durham. Still, I'm having more and more trouble tracking down westerns from major studios I haven't seen before so I wanted to give it a fair shot. The cast was impressive enough. The story had potential, even if I felt like the novel wasted much of that potential. So clean slate going in, 'Man' still didn't do it for me. It isn't quite the ultra-dark vision of so many other revisionist westerns of the 1970s, but it does try for some sort of reality. The west as presented is violent, unpleasant, gritty and dirty where survival is as much about luck as anything else. What is this western from director Richard C. Sarafian missing then? While there are performances that are worth mentioning, the movie itself simply isn't interesting.

One of my pet peeves in westerns is unnecessarily jamming a love story into an otherwise good story that doesn't NEED a love story. Well, sticking to the Durham novel, 'Man' rides along with the love story that develops between Jay and Catherine. The odd thing isn't that the love story there. It's how it develops. Catherine is actually running away from her husband, and we find out she is a lady at basically all times. How's that? Yeah, she doesn't like sex to the point she's embarrassed by it. Does her husband abuse her? Could be although it's never spelled out. Naturally, Catherine gets some Stockholm Syndrome for Jay who is rough with her and doesn't baby her. She falls madly in love with him even when we find out about Jay's rather checkered past, especially with his dead wife, an Indian woman named Cat Dancing. It plays out in odd fashion and seems like an odd fantasy to have, like something you'd see in a schmaltzy romance novel.

So beyond that, the performances are pretty decent. It's cool to see Reynolds sink his teeth into a meatier performance, a heavy dramatic part. He's always good in lighter comedy roles, but give the guy credit. Reynolds was a solid dramatic actor when he wanted to be, and the anti-hero good guy turned bad guy in a western with a checkered past is a familiar western archetype. Miles does her best with what I found to be a poorly written character. Her chemistry is good with Reynolds, and she has a memorable moment here and there, but the character's intentions and motivations float all over the place. Lee J. Cobb is underused as the Wells Fargo agent while Hamilton is kept in the dark with another poorly defined character. He's shown as a bit of a dandy, a gentleman more interested in what people think of him than actually getting his wife back, but like so many characters we don't find out enough about him. As for Jay's gang look for Bo Hopkins and Jack Warden as despicably bad outlaws with Jay Varela playing Charlie, the one decent member of the crew. Also look for Robert Donner and Jay Silverheels in supporting parts.

A disappointing end result. At 123 minutes, it is far too long, possibly in an effort to be dreamlike and.....nah, just slow-moving. The soundtrack isn't memorable in the least, and while there is some beautiful on-location shooting, the movie just dreary-looking from beginning to end. The finale could have saved the movie some, but even there the brakes are tapped in a big way to make things a happy Hollywood ending. A meh movie in the end.

The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973): **/****

Jack of Diamonds

Turner Classic Movies devoted Tuesdays in January to one of my favorite sub-genres; the heist film. For the most part, I had seen most of the flicks that popped up on the schedule, and the ones I hadn't seen, I at least recognized them. Well, most of them. I'd never seen or heard of 1967's Jack of Diamonds, and away we go!

An infamous thief with police and law enforcement agencies around the world searching for him, Jeff Hill (George Hamilton), dubbed the Jack of Diamonds, has pulled off countless jobs, usually stealing rare jewels and diamonds. After one particularly successful job, Jeff heads on a skiing vacation with his friend and mentor, Ace (Joseph Cotten), but instead he stumbles into another job. They meet an old friend of Ace's, Nicolai (Maurice Evans), who presents a job that will net them the rarest of blood-red diamonds. There's a catch though. Always working on his own no matter the job, Jeff must conspire with Nicolai's daughter, Olga (Marie Laforet), to pull off the job. The heist itself -- robbing a well-guarded vault -- seems impossible, and that's if the quartet can actually work together to pull it off.

The 1960s were the decade of spy flicks, espionage thrillers, and heist capers. For all the serious entries in those three films though, there were probably just as many spoof and/or comedic takes on the genre. In a lot of ways, this 1967 caper reminded me most of the Matt Helm series starring Dean Martin. Goofy, tongue-in-cheek and very stylish, 'Diamonds' succeeds because it doesn't take itself too seriously....at all. At the same time, director (and former actor) Don Taylor knows not to make it outright stupid. As far as capers go, it sticks to the basics; likable, roguish thief pursued by cops. What shenanigans will he get into this time around? Pretty meat and potatoes, although there is a good twist in the final 10 minutes that breathes some new life into a familiar formula.

'Diamonds' has a very distinctive 1960s style from its cheesy-looking indoor sets to its odd musical score from composers Bob Harris and Peter Thomas. The music is good and bad, some reviews comparing it to a psuedo-Ennio Morricone score. When it works, that's a fair comparison. Much of the time though, it's just odd vocals that are annoying more than appropriate. Other reviews pointed out the style here in 'Diamond' is similar to the generally odd Danger: Diabolik which I think is fair too, if in a measured way. How best to describe it? A mix falling somewhere in between American, European and low-budget B-movie style that works because it is so random and eclectic. It's hard to describe this 1960s style in detail or pin-point fashion, but throw all that weirdness together, and it just works. And in the random department, stars Carroll Baker, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Lilli Palmer all make cameos as themselves, all victims of the Jack of Diamonds.

My first thought at hearing George Hamilton's name is not 'dramatic actor' so with that said, this is the perfect part for him! He gets to be charming, suave and cool, delivering basically all his lines with a kind of cheesy charm....and a whole lot of guy-liner. From the word 'go,' he's clearly having a lot of fun. I especially liked the dynamic between Hamilton's Jack and Cotten's Ace, the mentor-student relationship producing some pretty funny, cool scenes. Cotten does a solid job with a smaller part. Evans too is a scene-stealer as Nicolai, possibly suspicious partner in crime to Jack and Ace. Playing his daughter who's got a love-hate rivalry with Jack, Laforet is okay as Olga, but she doesn't have a ton of chemistry with Hamilton. In another solid supporting part, WWII movie vet Wolfgang Preiss plays Von Shenk, the Interpol agent on Jeff's trail.

For a movie with a pretty jokey, spoofish tone, I was surprised then when the actual heist comes along. I'm figuring it would be something ridiculous and completely out of left field that would make no sense. Well, I was wrong. It's the complete opposite in a sequence that runs about 15 minutes as Jack and Olga make their way into a heavily-guarded building via some Paris rooftops. The extended sequence is basically wordless, letting the silence mess with our heads as the tension gets ratcheted up. It's a great sequence with a surprising conclusion, but still an exciting one. The reviews are almost uniformly down to below average for this flick, but I liked it a lot. Watch Hamilton and Co. traipse across Paris, New York City, and Munich and have fun with them.

Jack of Diamonds (1967): ***/****

Viva Maria!

Other than the name recognition, I know little about French actress and all-around beauty Brigitte Bardot.  I've seen her in only one movie -- 1968 Euro-western Shalako -- and nothing else. All I do know about her? Not to sound sexist, but it's her looks.  She wasn't in a ton of movies to begin with before retiring from the movie business in 1973, and more than that, she wasn't in many American-made movies.  Hurting her cause is that Netflix doesn't think I'll enjoy some of her more existential works in French films.  But there's got to be something to her, and I'll take what I can get so that's why I looked into 1965's Viva Maria! 

I went in to this movie with one minor misconception.  Call it miscommunication, or just my head making a transition where there wasn't a transition.  I read that it was a Euro-western with touches of a spaghetti western, but neither really applies.  It is one of the more off-the-wall movies I've watched in recent memory with a surreal edge to the story, and a general feeling of the absurd, the crazy.  Viva Maria is neither good nor bad. It's just weird.  Plus, Bardot and co-star Jeanne Moreau performing a handful of stripteases is never a bad thing.

It's 1908 in the tiny Central American country of San Miguel, and Maria 1 (Bardot) is fending for herself after her father, an Irish revolutionist, is killed trying to sabotage a bridge. On the run, she latches on with a traveling stage show touring the country, joining another Maria 2 (Moreau) in an act that has them singing and dancing for the audience.  The act is a bust until Maria 1's clothes start ripping on-stage, and a hit is born.  Audiences come out to see them in droves.  But on one stop, the Marias and the stage show/circus end up mixed up in a revolution.  Both women end up at the front of the charge, leading the population of San Miguel in a desperate effort to overthrow the dictator and the ruling families.

If you can think of a movie that does a bigger 180 than this one, you're better than me.  Take out the obvious bonus of Bardot and Moreau performing stripteases through the first hour, and we're talking one of the most incredibly dull movies I've ever seen.  Long, uncut shots of the stage show caravan are thankfully interrupted by the duo on-stage.  Then when you think the story is going one way, BAM, they get involved and end up leading a revolution?  Yeah, I can't say I saw that one coming.  In a weird way, it does work just because it is all so bizarre.  At other times, I just shook my head that I was sticking with this movie.

The very beautiful Bardot and Moreau are the main reasons to see this oddity of a flick.  No question about it, Bardot is easy on the eyes, but as an actress (here at least), she's stiff and not always very convincing.  Maybe her character is supposed to be a tad awkward, but it's a little much at times.  Still, no matter what I thought of her acting the image of Bardot with her strawberry blonde hair and gorgeous eyes blasting away at waves of soldiers with a machine gun is worth watching.  It just is. No explanation needed, and I won't be providing one.  Of the few movies I've seen of Moreau, she's always been a sort of plain Jane, her looks dulled down.  Boy, was I wrong.  She's beautiful, and shows off some comedic and her always on-point dramatic ability.  Watch their first striptease HERE if curious.

Throwing so many elements into one movie, Viva Maria certainly has the potential to be good.  Claudio Brook is a scene-stealer as Rodolfo, ringleader of the stage show circus obsessed with building a curved rifle that can fire around corners.  Seeing his circus in a large scale battle is hilarious too with a strongman, acrobats, and a magician all helping the cause. The action scenes in the movie's second half are something else too, highlighted by a running battle with Bardot gunning for a hidden artillery battery and the finale, the attempted overthrow of the dictator in a scene reminiscent of the end of 1954's Vera Cruz.  Composer Georges Delerue's score is a highlight too, memorable without being over-powerful, especially the main theme.

For the positive, there's also the negatives.  I'll start with George Hamilton as Flores, a revolutionary caught up in the fighting who falls for Moreau's Maria.  Did he get blackmailed into this bizarre part? It's the tone of the second half of the movie that feels so odd, like an existential, surreal dream on LSD.  Sight gags galore around every corner, and a sense of humor that falls flat.  A group of monks/priests prepare for torture straight out of the Spanish Inquisition, and I'm wondering again, "What the hell am I watching?!?" I just don't know what to make of this movie. When it's not weird, it's slow and even boring at times. When it's full of action, it's everywhere.  A mess of a movie, one I'll give a slightly positive recommendation.

Viva Maria! <---trailer (1965): ** 1/2 /****

A Glenn Ford double feature

Glenn Ford doesn't get a lot of credit as a major western star like a John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, or Randolph Scott. Maybe it's because he was only in one western that is considered a classic, the original 3:10 To Yuma, but Ford turned out a strong list of quality westerns especially later in his career in the 1950s and 1960s. TCM did a Glenn Ford Day as part of their Summer Under the Stars recently, and I was able to catch two westerns I'd missed in the past both from the second half of his career.

1967's A Time for Killing is a good example of how American westerns tried to respond to the cynical, darker spaghetti westerns from Italy. It's the closing days of the Civil War when a group of Confederate prisoners led by Captain Dorrit Bentley (George Hamilton) escape from a Union stockade near the U.S./Mexico border. Heading south, they ambush a supply train and take a prisoner, Emily Biddle (Inger Stevens), the fiance of the Union major, Wolcott (Ford), tracking them.

Bentley's Confederate escapees are a pretty slimy bunch, not too say that Wolcott's Union patrol is any better. It's the end of a long, bloody war, and these men on both sides are exhausted and just want to go home. I was caught off guard by how far the movie went to show those depths. Even when Bentley finds out the war is over, he keeps the news from the men, and Walcott disobeys orders and follows the fugitives into Mexico. The movie was filmed in Old Tucson and Utah and looks great, appropriately gritty and dusty.

While Ford is good as Major Tom Wolcott, the officer trying to rescue his fiance, it's Hamilton who leaves the deepest impression. His Bentley is an ultra-patriot who refuses to believe the war is over and will continue to take that war to the Yankees. Before her tragic death that was ruled a suicide, Stevens made a string of quality westerns late in the 60s, and she's very good here, holding her own with both Ford and Hamilton. The background players include Kenneth Tobey, Max Baer in a role slightly different from Jethro on Beverly Hillbillies, Timothy Carey, Harry Dean Stanton, Todd Armstrong, and for all you trivia buffs out there, Harrison Ford in just his third movie.

Made two years later, Heaven With a Gun is a more traditional western, but it does make efforts to change with the times when dealing with sex and violence. How many westerns have started with a stranger riding into a town and no one knows who he is or what his motives are? It'd probably take quite a few posts just to list all those movies, but that's how 'Heaven' begins with Jim Killian (Ford) riding into Vinegaroon, a town divided between cattle ranchers and sheepherders. Looking to make up for his violent past, Killian sets up a church in town with hopes of uniting both sides.

His main opposition is Asa Beck (John Anderson), a cattle rancher who with his son, Coke (David Carradine) will have nothing to do with sheepherders and refuses to even listen to Killian's ideas. On the other hand, Killian gets help from everyone else in town including Madge (Carolyn Jones), the saloon/brothel owner, Leloopa (Barbara Hershey), a young Indian girl Jim cares for after her father is killed, and Bart Patterson (William Bryant), a local ranch owner. Also worth mentioning are two supporting parts for J.D. Cannon as a hired gun, Mace, and Noah Beery Jr as Garvey, one of Beck's most trusted hands.

The script calls for some random nudity that feels just thrown into the script for the sake of some topless saloon girls, and the violence is pretty vicious even if it's not shown. Much of it is off-screen, but it's pretty grim whether you see the results or not. The sex and violence then makes the ending seem a little off for me. Killian is trying to stop Beck and his gunhands from massacring the sheepherders and cattle ranchers who are now working together. It doesn't work overall and comes across as too forced, like the money just wasn't there to set up a shootout.

The constant through both movies is Ford's steadying influence on the story. He was usually cast as the good guy, but later in his career they added a wrinkle to that old standby, the good guy who used to be a bad guy and is looking to repent. It's hard to judge Ford as an actor because in roles like this he didn't have to show a lot of range. But like John Wayne did in his later years, Ford nails these parts. He's likable on-screen with a very natural presence. I liked both movies, Time for Killing a lot and Heaven With A Gun despite the ending.

A Time for Killing <---fan-made trailer (1967): ***/****
Heaven With a Gun (1969): ** 1/2 /****