FILM REVIEW OF ''DRUMS IN THE DEEP SOUTH" (1951)

Although the South lost the war, the Confederates win the battle in “Drums in the Deep South!”  Oscar-winning art designer William Cameron Menzies helmed this Civil War yarn based on a screenplay by “Whistle Stop” scribe Philip Yordan and Sidney Harmon from a story by Hollister Noble.  Later, Yordan collaborated with “Talk of the Town” writer Harmon on "Battle of the Bulge," but Harmon was now a producer.  One of the best B-movie directors in the business, B. Reeves Eason of “The Phantom Empire” handled the second-unit action.  Menzies treats us to a glimpse or two of slaves in the fields and those who worked in the houses.  As many commentators have written, movies about the Civil War are few in number and the good ones even fewer.  Guy Wilkerson has a bit part as a Confederate sentry, while Denver Pyle is cast as an obnoxious Union guard.

The explosive action unfolds in Georgia in 1861.  The first scene occurs at an antebellum mansion.  Colonel Braxton Summers (Craig Stevens of “Peter Gunn”) has returned from Atlanta.  According to Summers, the South has been planting too much cotton.  Uncle Albert cannot believe Braxton’s news.  “Cotton is king.  The whole south is built on it.  And the world is knocking down our doors for more.”  Braxton tells his beautiful wife, Kathy (Barbara Payton), Atlanta is a powder keg.  Furthermore, the militia has been called up.  He adds all West Pointers are being called back for duty.  Like Uncle Albert, Kathy believes the storm over succession will abate. Brax lacks her confidence.  Meantime, he shows Kathy a black scarf he purchased for her.  She isn’t overjoyed when he tells her about encountering two of his former roommates from West Point.  The soap opera component of “Drums” rears its amorous head.  Kathy refuses to see Clay Clayburn (James Craig of “Flying G-Men”) who has never stopped loving her.  She assures Brax anything she felt for Clay has passed.  Brax tells Kathy that Clay has changed.  As it turns out, Clay and Will Deming (Guy Madison of "Seven Winchesters for a Massacre"), lie about their thriving shipping business.  They ship cotton from New Orleans to Liverpool and then take wool to Boston.  At dinner, Brax reveals he is experimenting with a new cotton seed for export.  After Brax and Will excuse themselves to discuss his experiment, Clay confronts Kathy.  He admits he is not a ship captain but a common seaman.  Moreover, he has neither repaid his father’s debts nor bought back the family plantation.  Outside the mansion roars a storm that possesses all the fury of Armageddon.  Later, Albert forsakes his chair and proclaims amid thunder and lightning that the South has bombarded Fort Sumter.  

Menzies stages a timeline as the years march past to an artillery barrage.  By 1864, the Union Army has compelled the Confederacy to retreat.  General Sherman's Army is threatening Atlanta.  General Joseph Johnston (Lewis Martin of “Operation Pacific”) selects Major Clayburn for the mission.  Johnston orders Clayburn to sneak twenty men with four cannon through occupied lines and position them atop Devil's Mountain to blunt the Federal advance.  Johnston’s closest officers have doubts about Clayburn’s qualifications.  “Clayburn is reckless beyond all risk.  He exposes himself to enemy fire on all occasions.  How he has come through this war and still be alive . . ., one officer cannot understand Clayburn’s incredible luck.  Another officer observes, “The man seems to be seeking death.”  “A good soldier,” Johnston points out, “dies only once.  And death is someone he knows.” 

When Clayburn enters the headquarters tent, Johnston informs him he has “a difficult job for him.”  Johnston explains, “Sherman’s whole army poured out of Chattanooga three weeks ago.  They are moving straight along this single railroad and heading for Atlanta.  If he takes Atlanta, we’re doomed.  Our only chance is to draw him deep in Georgia, cut off his supply lines, and destroy his army bit by bit.  The bulk of his supplies are pouring through this same railroad and as fast as we destroy it, his men rebuild it.  What we’ve got to do is find a weak link in this railroad so we can keep destroying it faster than Sherman’s men can repair it.”

Clayburn is familiar with the terrain since he grew up there.  Johnston indicates Devil’s Mountain dominates the railway where it swings through Snake Gap.  The General believes this constitutes “the weak link in Sherman’s supply line.”  Johnston wants Clayburn to blast the railroad until the Confederate Army can regroup and counter-attack.  “General, Devil’s Mountain is a sheer cliff,” Clayburn warns. “I might be able to get twenty men up there, but four cannon that’s another question.”  Johnston relieves him when he tells him about a scout who can guide them from inside the cave to the top.  “General, if I can get the cannon on top of Devil’s Mountain, I could fight there until doomsday,” Clayburn vows with a gleam in his eyes.  “You may have to, Major,” they warn him.  No sooner have they embarked on their mission than things turn sour.  When our protagonists rendezvous with their guide, they find him swinging from a noose.  

Menzies never shows the Confederates whistling Dixie as they trundle their cannons across rugged terrain through enemy country to Devils’ Mountain.  Once they get inside the mountain, it’s quite a chore getting the artillery up to the top.  Menzies does a competent job of driving the action along without sacrificing g momentum.  It takes him approximately 26 minutes to get the Southerners to their objective.  Devils Mountain resembles the “Close Encounters of a Third Kind” mountain.  This is a rare Civil War epic with an interesting premise that anticipates the blockbuster 1961 World War II mission movie "The Guns of Navarone."  The music is excellent! Composer Dimitri Tiomkin provides an atmospheric orchestral soundtrack.  “Drums in the Deep South” is an entertaining epic.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THIS MAN CAN'T DIE" (Italian-1967)

Writer & director Gianfranco Baldanello's "This Man Can't Die!” (**1/2 out of ****) with Guy Madison qualifies as an above-average spaghetti western. Baldanello penned the screenplay with “Three Dollars of Lead” writer Luigi Emmanuele and “Atlas against the Cyclops” scribe Gino Mangini. Actually, Baldanello, Emmanuele, and Mangini have written a rather formulaic but entertaining oater that relies on the literary use of foreshadowing to tell its tale of greed, redemption, and justice. Watch the box of guns & gun belts that are given to the hero in the first scene and you’ll see what I mean.

Baldanello, Emmanuele, and Mangini do a good job of establishing the action in the first scene at a cavalry fort. The army captain (Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia of “Kill and Pray”) tells our hero, Martin Benson (Guy Madison), “So far you’ve done a good job, Martin. But obviously you won’t be able to continue undercover any longer, their friends will be after you like a swarm of bees.” Benson gauges his payoff, “Instead of ten pieces of silver, I get paid in gold.” Martin Benson is a lean, mean, tall, unshaven, cigarette smoking specimen of humanity. In other words, he is a standard Spaghetti western protagonist.

Three felons that Benson brought in swing from the gallows outside the captain’s office. The captain complains, “Damnit, even with death staring them in the face, they won’t talk. The smuggling of firearms certainly won’t end with a rope around the necks of those devils outside. I don’t care how you do it but we’ve got to find out who’s in charge of this operation and where the new hide0ut is. Washington is never going to get off my back until rifles and rotgut are off the reservation. You know, Martin, I’m up for promotion.”

Benson refuses to take the assignment. “If I keep fooling around with those gun runners my hide isn’t going to be worth a damn.” The captain demands that Benson handle the job and he manages to convince him with more money that he --rather than Tony Guy (Steve Merrick) -- isn’t appropriate for the mission. “I’ve just been bought,” Benson agrees as he accepts the money. Before Benson leaves, an army sergeant enters headquarters with the guns and gun belts of the three outlaws that were hanged outside. Benson tells the captain to sent the hardware to his father and he rides out. No sooner does Benson hit the trail that two horsemen and a couple of riflemen lay an ambush for him in the sagebrush. Benson blows the two horsemen away while on horseback him wielding his Winchester repeating rifle with one hand. This doesn’t keep the bad guys from pursuing Benson. Meanwhile, at the Benson ranch, Martin’s father has disowned his oldest son because of his criminal record. This is one plot point that the scenarists never resolve. Earlier, the army captain told Martin that he could have his record wiped clean by discovering the identity of the man behind the contraband whiskey and rifle trade. Anyway, the same gang that are tracking Martin strike his parents ranch while his two brothers and oldest sister are gone to town. The gunslingers kill Martin’s mother and father; one outlaw rapes his youngest sister, Jenny (Rosalba Neri of “Lion of Thebes”), and traumatizes her so that she cannot talk.

When Daniel Benson (Pietro Martellanza), his older sister Susy (Lucienne Bridou of “Black Jack”) and their youngest brother arrive at the ranch, they find their horses have been stampeded and a wounded man is lying on their property. Initially, Daniel believes that the wounded man is one of the brigands that killed his parents. He takes the man to a cave and brings the doctor to attend to him. Meanwhile, Vic Graham (Rik Battaglia) lusts after Susy, even though she refuses to have anything to do with him. The action shifts back to Martin who discovers the rendezvous point between the Indians and the gun runners. He uses his skill with a Winchester to blow up two wagons filled with rifles. The bad guys wound him, a mere flesh wound, but he escapes and rides to the ranch to learn about the massacre of his family. The bad guys never give Martin a moment of respite. Eventually, they capture him as well as Daniel and trap them in their ranch house while they pile trees outside before they torch the structure. In the wagon that Susy drove to town to fetch the mail is the box of guns from the gun runners that were hanged at the fort in the first scene. Not only does Martin discover the ring leader of the rotgut and rifles outfit, but he also kills him during a fight in the upper story of a building.

Although this horse opera has been clearly dubbed, especially Guy Madison, the words do match the mouths even though the voices seem incongruous. The scenery isn’t as spectacular as the terrain in most Euro westerns. The dialogue isn’t as clever or catchy nor are the gunfights staged with the ostentation of those in either a Sergio Leone or Sergio Corbucci oater. On the other hand, “This Man Can’t Die!” is largely believable and pretty straightforward with its linear narrative and shuns the use of flashbacks. The performances, especially “Since You Went Away” actor Guy Madison, who earlier rode the range in 112 episodes of “The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok,” are credible. Rik Battaglia of “The Mysterious Island of Captain Nemo” makes a suitable nemesis, while Pietro Martellanza of “Kill Them All and Come Back Alone” is good as Guy Madison’s younger brother. Composer Amedeo Tommasi contributes a good orchestral score and a James Bond style theme song, but often Baldanello borrows (or steals depending on your point of view) cues from Ennio Morricone’s “Fistful of Dollars.” The use of mixed soundtracks with a number of themes from other movies without the composer’s permission is standard operating procedure for most low-budget kung fu movies, but this is the first time that I’ve heard of this done in a Continental western. “This Man Can’t Die” draws its title not from its tough guy protagonist but from its second string hero, Tony Guy, who is mistaken for one of the marauders that murder Benson’s parents.