If bestselling Scottish writer Alistair MacLean and American superstar
Charles Bronson appear like a difficult match to imagine, even more so is the “Where
Eagles Dare” author penning a murder & mystery set in the Old West on an
Army transport train with lots of suspicious characters. Indeed, like “Where Eagles Dare,” MacLean wrote
the screenplay and the novel. According
to Jack Webster’s biography of Alistair MacLean, producer Elliot Kastner rescued
MacLean from the ravages of a bad marriage and alcoholism, and--quoting Webster--“gave
him an idea for a film (“Breakheart Pass”) and told him, in his own inimitable
way, to get on with it.” It seems that
Kastner had been the spur for MacLean writing “Where Eagles Dare,” too. Veteran stunt coordinator Yakima Canutt wound
up his long career with this western.
Canutt had served as a stunt man for John Wayne in the Duke’s early Hollywood
B-oaters, and he performed the hair-raising stunt for Wayne in John Ford’s
classic western “Stagecoach” (1939) where he leaped onto a team of horses,
lowered himself beneath them, and slid under the galloping steeds as well as
the coach itself, seizing the rear of the coach, and then crawling back atop
it. Terry Leonard recreated this iconic
stunt for Harrison Ford in Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in 1981.
"Breakheart Pass" (**1/2 OUT OF ****) opens with scenic shots of a steam locomotive pulling
a string of cars through the towering mountains set to Jerry Goldsmith’s
terrific orchestral score. Presumably, the
grainy look of the credits must have been done to imitate the use of wood carvings
in the old West. This effect looked
better on the big-screen than it does for the small screen. The mustached Bronson heads an all-star cast
of seasoned actors: Richard Crenna, Ed Lauter, Jill Ireland, Ben Johnson,
Charles Durning, David Huddleston, Bill McKinney, Rayford Barnes, and Robert
Tessier. The craggy-faced star makes his
entrance about seven minutes into this yarn wearing an impressive looking black
coat and matching black hat with a sloping brim. Literally, he seems like the odd man out in
this epic. A diphtheria epidemic has broken
out at the frontier Army outpost of Fort Humboldt in the 1870s, and a train hauling
medical supplies is in route to the beleaguered garrison.
This relief train has to thread its way through inhospitable mountainous
country to deliver the supplies. Although
the train consists largely of Army personnel only, a luxurious private car carries
Nevada Governor Richard Fairchild (Richard Crenna of “Catlow”), and his fiancée
Marica Scoville (Jill Ireland of “Death Wish 2”) who turns out to be the daughter of the
camp commandant. At the small whistle
stop settlement of Myrtle City, Deputy U.S. Marshal United Nathan Pearce (Ben
Johnson of “Hang’em High”) explains that he wants to catch a ride with them
because he must pick up a prisoner, Levi Calhoun (Robert Tessier of “Hard Times”),
being held at Fort Humboldt. Major
Claremont refuses to take him until a stranger, John Deakin (Charles Bronson of
“The Magnificent Seven”), is accused by another player of cheating at cards. The Reverent Peabody (Bill McKinney of “Deliverance”)
shows Pearce a wanted poster for Deakin. Aside from a two-thousand-dollar bounty on his
head, Deakin is also wanted for arson, murder, and blowing up a consignment of
weapons bound for the Presidio. Now,
Pearce argues that he has Army business.
Reluctantly, Claremont allows Pearce and his prisoner to board the
train. Before the train is scheduled to
leave after tanking up it boiler with water in Myrtle City, two Army officers, Captain Oakland
(Read Morgan of “Fatal Beauty”) and Lieutenant Newell (Robert Rothwell of “El
Dorado”) vanish without a trace. Earlier,
Major Claremont (Ed Lauter of “The Longest Yard”) had given Oakland a message
meant for the governor that the major wanted deciphered. Murderous things begin to happen once the
train resumes it journey; the first passenger to die on board is Dr. Molyneux (David
Huddleston of “McQ”), and Deakin asks to examine the body. He discovers that Molyneux was murdered. Later, something even worse happens when the
two coaches housing the troops and the caboose come uncoupled from the train. Before he dies with his men, Sergeant Bellew blasts
his way out of the locked car with his revolver and is shocked to see the
brakeman in the caboose dead with a knife in his back. The cars and caboose plummet into a gorge and
disintegrate! Of course, we don’t see
any bodies tumble out. Eventually, we
learn that not only John Deakin is no outlaw, but an undercover government
agent, but also the epidemic is a conspiracy between a homicidal maniac Levi
Calhoun and a renegade tribe of Native Americans lead by Paiute Chief White
Hand (Eddie Little Sky of “The Professionals”).
As it turns out, Deakin discovers that the medical supplies are in fact repeating
rifles stolen from the factory along with crates of dynamite.
“Will Penny”
director Tom Gries, who had collaborated earlier with Bronson on modern-day escape
opus “Breakout,’ which Bronson played for laughs, where he flew a helicopter into
a Mexican prison and rescue an American citizen, maintains a firm hand throughout
this rugged horse opera that takes place primarily on the train. Predictably, the characters that you think
are villainous in fact are not villains.
Bill McKinney is an example. The
train wreck is spectacular despite absence of dead bodies. Presumably, the filmmakers didn’t resort to a score
or more of dummies because it would have been either too gruesome or too phony. Incidentally, those railroad cars that plunge
down the mountain side are real, not fake toy models. What is really strange is the decision to dub
Robert Tessier. Presumably, the producers
didn’t like the twangy sound of Tessier’s voice, so they hired perennial narrator
Paul Frees with his deep voice to voice him. Not exactly one of Charles Bronson’s
most memorable westerns, but this sturdy, above-average, outdoor adventure boasts
plenty of action.
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