Review of Horse Soldiers, The

Introduction

The Civil War was the darkest chapter in US history, the country torn asunder, brother fighting brother, millions killed and leaving scars in a nation`s psyche that have yet to heal. It also provides limitless material for movies even today, with Cold Mountain poised for Oscar glory/destined for Oscar ignominy (delete as appropriate.) You wouldn`t expect the king of the Western, the Duke himself to miss out on Rebel-Yankee action, and indeed in 1959 John Wayne donned the blues and sallied forth to raise some hell down south, in the John Ford movie The Horse Soldiers.

The war isn`t going well for the North, the rebels have them on the back foot and everything hinges on the town of Vicksburg. Take Vicksburg and the North will be able to turn the whole war around. To that end, the supply lines to Vicksburg need to be cut, and Col. John Marlowe, is given a brigade to do just that. Before the war he used to be a railroad engineer, and he is the perfect man to put the Confederate railroad to Vicksburg out of commission. To that end his brigade is stripped down to the essentials, to travel light and fast. At the last minute though, he`s saddled with a Dr Kendall, a man who follows the Hippocratic oath prior to any other. Marlowe`s natural antipathy to doctors causes friction, especially when the doctor insists on treating friend and foe alike. But they don`t get far across enemy lines when the force has to split for a diversion. Marlowe leads the smaller force onward, until they encounter Hannah Hunter, a Southern Belle who insists on showing the enemy every courtesy and hospitality that the South has to offer despite their enmity, while following her own agenda.

Video

Oh Dear! MGM back catalogue titles are more often than not straight transfers. Take the most convenient print, slap it on the disc and Bob`s your uncle. More often than not, that means an acceptable, no frills transfer. But on occasion, something like this gets released. The Horse Soldiers is actually an effort to watch. A 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, cropped from the original 1.66:1 ratio though this is hardly noticeable, the picture is soft to the point of blurry, very grainy and with terrible resolution. It`s hardly worth mentioning the print damage, when compared to the lack of contrast and the fact that the film actually looks like colourised B+W footage. There are one or two moments of camera judder and the layer transfer is poorly placed to boot.

Audio

DD 2.0 mono in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. Marks off for a bit of background hiss.

Features

A trailer and plentiful subtitles for the Eurozone.

Conclusion

The Horse Soldiers teeters between a bleak war movie, and a light-hearted John Wayne vehicle, and just about carries it off. Those who expect the typical John Wayne movie will be more than satisfied at the level of action and excitement, and the dialogue is pure John Wayne. But the film has something to say about the horrors of war too, with the rough and ready nature of battlefield medicine, while not graphically depicted, certainly harrowingly implied. The incongruity of civil wars, with friends on opposite sides is also touched upon, and one scene of a massacre certainly seems more suited to a contemporary film rather than a film made in the late fifties.

John Wayne`s character Marlowe is a well-drawn and rounded one, and he gives an admirable performance as a rather reluctant warrior, hating what he has to do, but determined to do it to the best of his ability. William Holden`s Doctor Kendall is a little more two dimensional, portraying the typical doctor turned soldier, holding on to his oath as an anchor despite the horrors he experiences, but the two characters of Marlowe and Kendall certainly work well together and the friction between the two drive the story. Unfortunately, the third point of this triangle, Constance Towers as Hannah Hunter doesn`t quite live up to the level of her co-stars. While she gives a good performance as a Southern Lady, and fits in well with the light-dark duality of the story, she doesn`t quite spark with either Wayne or Holden and as such, the potential romantic side to the film doesn`t come off. One wonders what the film would have been like with someone like Maureen O`Hara or Katherine Hepburn in the role.

The Horse Soldiers is a good enough film, if a little uncertain in tone. It`ll certainly pass the time, and is entertaining enough. Unfortunately it`s let down by the presentation on the disc.