FILM REVIEW OF ''ADVANCE TO THE REAR" (1964)

"Destry Rides Again" director George Marshall's lightweight, hilarious, comedy "Advance to the Rear" (*** OUT OF ****) takes place during the American Civil War, but it exploits the conflict more for humor than history. The critical issues of slavery and state's rights are never dealt with in the Samuel A. Peeples and William Bowers' tongue-in-cheek screenplay based on William Chamberlain's novel "Company of Cowards." Furthermore, nobody talks about why they joined up to fight the Civil War. Like most Civil War movies that occur on the frontier, Union and Confederates are fighting each other over a shipment of gold from western mines that both sides desperately want to replenish their coffers. Basically, the story follows the misadventures of a bumbling West Point Academy graduate and his company of misfits that ironically wind up saving the day. Think of "Advance to the Rear" as a predecessor for "F-Troop," and you can put it into greater perspective for film and television in the 1960s.  Peeples and Bowers do a commendable job of foreshadowing action and furnishing the leading men with interesting dialogue. Too many critics have dismissed this hilarity as hokum.  One conversation between Melvyn Douglas's stuffed shirt superior and Glenn Ford's common sense subordinate officer establishes the absurdity of war. Composer Randy Spark's provides a first-rate soundtrack bristling with jaunty music that reinforces the film's farcical qualities. The New Christy Minstrels do a splendid job of warbling the title tune "Company of Cowards," and you want to get up and dance a jig to it.  The cast is stocked with big names, not only Glenn Ford and Melvyn Douglas but also familiar faces galore such as Alan Hale, Jr, Jim Backus, Whit Bissell, Michael Pate, and James Griffith. The production values for this MGM release are reasonably polished, despite the decision to make Oscar winning Technicolor lenser Milton  Krasner shoot this widescreen laffer in black & white. Krasner's elegant pictorial compositions are a treat for the eye.

Glenn Ford maintains a straight face throughout this nonsense as Captain Jared Heath who is later demoted to lieutenant owing to an unfortunate circumstance over which he had no control but for which is culpable. Life is serene in the spring of 1862 for career officer
Colonel Claude Brackenby (Melvyn Douglas of "Ninotchka") who has his troops fire a barrage from his thirty cannon at the Confederates. The Southerners retaliate with thirty rounds from their artillery. This stalemate of sorts concludes abruptly when the overzealous Heath, Sergeant Beauregard Davis, and a couple of other men abduct three Confederate
soldiers and bring them back to their camp for interrogation. Colonel Brackenby is livid with indignation. "Who told you to go out after any prisoners," Brackenby demands. "Take them back." Brackenby constantly reminds Heath that he graduated from West Point. "And how
many times have I warned you about showing any initiative?" Heath is surprised at Brackenby's rebuke. "We've got a nice, quiet, well-regulated sector here," Brackenby explains. "Every morning at six o'clock, the Rebs fire thirty rounds of ammunition at us. Then at six thirty, we fire thirty rounds at them. Their generals are happy and it keeps our generals happy, and nobody much gets hurt. But now you have to go out and capture prisoners and upset the whole status quo. They're not going to like that. It's going to make them mad. Real mad." A confused Heath replies, "If you'll forgive me, Colonel, I thought the
purpose of this war was to have both sides mad at each other." The Confederates launch an attack on Brackenby's men. Heath has to contend with some pretty hopeless soldiers like Private Owen Selous (Andrew Prime of "The Devil's Brigade") who suffers from a perpetual case of hiccups, and Corporal Silas Geary (Jessie Pearson of "Bye, Bye, Birdie") who explains that something about him drives horses crazy. Heath orders Geary back to the rear to serve as Brackenby's courier. Later, after Geary receives orders from Brackenby, the corporal rides off, and Brackenby's horse carries the colonel off as it follows Geary. Everybody is dumbfounded by Brackenby's questionable tactics, and they believe that they must retreat and follow the example of their commanding officer.  The gimmick with the horses that cannot resist Geary is simple but effective in precipitating comedy.  Peeples, who penned an episode of virtually every western television show in the 1950s and 1960s, and Bowers--best known for Burt Kennedy's "Support Your Local Sheriff," trot out this amusing gimmick later on again toward the end.

Predictably, the Union High Command isn't happy with this turn of events. Brackenby finds himself and his regiment the subject of a court-martial. "I damn well intend to get to the bottom of his miserable fiasco and determine what or who is responsible for an entire
regiment turning tail and running before the first shot had even been fired," vows General Willoughby (Jim Backus of "Rebel Without a Cause") as he convenes a board of inquiry. "That damned horse ran away with me," Brackenby defends himself. Not even Corporal Geary can convince the fatuous Willoughby that his peculiar relationship with horses triggered the retreat. "Now, my first warm and generous impulse was to have the whole bunch of them taken out and shot at dawn," Willoughby proclaims to his staff, "but President Lincoln has a phobia about mass executions." One of Willoughby's officers suggests they send Brackenby's men somewhere where the newspapers cannot contact them. Ultimately, they send them so far west that they hope they will never be heard from again. Another officer describes this as "a dirty trick on the Indians." Willoughby recites General Sherman's quote about "War is Hell." Brackenby takes command of Company Q and heads west by river boat to relieve a detachment of the 11th Cavalry. Company Q contains the worst misfits in the Union Army. These include a kleptomaniac, an arsonist, and a compulsive fist fighter. The same time that they are embarking on their journey, they are joined by prostitutes who are being run out of town by a crowd of wives. One of the women is a Confederate spy, Martha Lou Williams (Stella Stevens of "The Poseidon Adventure"), dispatched to keep track of Brackenby's men because the Confederate High Command suspect that this handpicked force of specialists has something to do with guarding a long awaited shipment of gold. They also send in their own renegade officer, Hugo Zattig (James Griffith of "The First Texan") to steal the gold, but they aren't entirely certain of his loyalty.  As one officer points out, Zattig "combines the worse features of Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson."  The use of barrel spars to ski into the Confederate camp is imaginative. Griffith makes a sinister villain. This Civil War western is rather funny, and Marshall makes sure that nobody behaves as if they were in a comedy.

FILM REVIEW OF "3:10 TO YUMA" (1957)

"Destination Tokyo" director Delmar Daves' "3:10 to Yuma" (1957) qualifies as one of the classic suspense westerns of the 1950s. Furthermore, in the larger context of westerns, this frontier drama follows in the boot falls of "High Noon" since it concerns a showdown between hero and villain based on a time deadline. Everything about this oater is solid and realistic with strong acting by a competent cast. Composer George Duning's haunting score heightens the tension in scenarist Halsted Welles' spartan screenplay. Welles' also penned another big western "The Hanging Tree" (1959) with Gary Cooper. Welles does an exceptional job of capturing the ironic essence of Leonard's short story, the first of the bestselling author's work to reach the big-screen.

"3:10 to Yuma" opens with a close-up of parched earth somewhere in the Arizona territory. The camera tilts up to show a stagecoach crossing the landscape in long shot and then the stage swings around toward the camera and its galloping six-horse team hauls the vehicle past the camera trailing a plume of dust. Daves concisely establishes in this one take the inhospitable nature of the surroundings. One of the themes is then man versus nature. Later, we learn that a drought has devastated the area. Seasoned lyricist Ned Washington's words--as sung by vocalist Frankie Lane at his most doleful--enhances this western. An entire sub-genre of sagebrushers emerged in the 1950s that opened with images of horsemen riding through the opening credits with singers such as Frankie Lane or Tex Ritter warbling an atmospheric theme song.

Glenn Ford makes a memorable entrance as ruthless but sardonic outlaw Ben Wade. The notorious Wade gang hold up a stagecoach. During the robbery, the stage driver gets the drop on the Wade gang member atop the coach and shoves a gun into his back. The brave driver threatens to kill the Wade gang member if the outlaws don't cease and desist. No sooner has he delivered his ultimatum than Wade himself rides up and guns down his own man and the stage driver.

The hero of "3:10 to Yuma" is a small potatoes rancher, Dan Evans (Van Heflin of "Shane") who is waging a losing battle against nature for lack of rain. Dan's cattle are dying, and all our hero requires is $200 dollars so he can obtain six months water rights from a nearby rancher. Unfortunately, Dan is dirt poor. Furthermore, he is stubborn and self-reliant and balks at the idea of seeking a loan from the bank. There is nothing flashy about Heflin's performance or wardrobe. Truly, he is a hero behind the 8-ball.

After the Wade gang rob the Butterfield Stage Company of a gold shipment, they gallop brazenly into Bisbee, Arizona Territory, to alert the local constabulary about the hold-up. In the saloon, where they are drinking, they explain that they couldn't thwart the thieves. The marshal (Ford Rainy of "Flaming Star") gathers a posse, but one of them, the town drunk Alex Potter (Henry Jones of "Vertigo"), is late and rides out after the posse has left. Meanwhile, Wade disperses his gang across the border and tells them to rendezvous with him in Nogales. Wade hangs around the saloon to sweet talk young beautiful Emmy (Felicia Farr of "Charlie Varrick") and they get romantic. During this interval, the posse run into Dan and the Butterfield Stage owner. They describe the gang and the marshal realizes then that the cattle drovers back at the saloon were the Wade gang. Alex rides up and tells them that the drovers left town but one of them stayed. The posse heads back to town. Dan distracts Wade in the saloon while the marshal sneaks up behind him and arrests him. The Butterfield Stage owner (Robert Emhardt of "The Stone Killer") offers $200 to anybody that will help escort Wade to the train station for the titular three-ten to Yuma. Initially, Dan refuses but decides that the $200 dollars is worth the risk. Nobody else wants to get in on the money except Henry Potter. For the remainder of the movie, Dan and Wade share the upstairs bridal suite in the hotel while they await the train. Wade's second-in-command Charlie Prince (Richard Jaeckel of "The Dirty Dozen") rides off to prepare a reception for our hero and Wade. Eventually, the gang capture Henry Potter and string him up in the hotel. During the suspenseful wait in the hotel, Ben Wade begins to have a grudging admiration for Dan Evans. When they make dash for the train, Ben actually helps Dan out and they get aboard the train unscathed. Although this ending has been called implausible, I don't think it is anything of the sort. Ben Wade is a dangerous, egotistical killer who has the attitude of a cat playing with a mouse. He is so confident of himself that he plays along with Dan, helps him against his own gang, but ultimately you know that Ben Wade is never going to serve a day in jail. He proved at the beginning that he was willing to kill one of his own men.

"3:10 to Yuma" isn't the first time that Glenn Ford played a villainous killer. He portrayed a corrupt, maniacal judge in "The Man from Colorado," and before that he specialized in bad guys that turned good in westerns, like "Texas" and "The Desperados." Charles Lawton's stark black and white photography combined with striking camera angles that thrust us into the vortex of the action go a long way toward making the action palatable. Eventually, this drama boils down to two men shut up in an upstairs hotel room as they wait for the arrival of the "3:10 to Yuma" train. Daves and Lawton generate a lot of suspense throughout this western but none more tangible than at the end when our hero and villain approach the puffing train and are obscured by clouds of the steam while the outlaw gang stalk them