An Incomplete Review

Since I missed the first half hour and last half hour, I decided to due the incomplete review here. I hope to find an see this movie in full, but I was only in a position to watch half of the movie on AMC. Although this movie is a typically patronizing Hollywood film of the era where they tried to turn a brutal outlaw into an "aw shucks, good guy", one has to understand at the time before the 60s Hollywood was trying to present model, almost godlike moral pillars of virtue.

If you overlook this facet, it is an interesting film. Brian Dunleavy is about the most likeable rogue ever. He is a colonel in the Confederacy who is likeable and admireable. However, he is essentially a rogue leader of southern soldiers bent upon looting rather than engaging the enemy. James (Audie Murphy) tries to resist this every step of the way, confused that the man he so admires, the Colonel, allows his men to be so cowardly and depraved. It is the magnimatism of the Colonel, which Dunleavy creates so well, that keeps James on board.

If this is even a bit historically accurate (not an expert on this phase of James' life by any stretch), it is interesting. Could James have been like a young coyote, naively initiated by a leader who claimed to be the enemy of those who slew his parents (Union renegades), and who was corrupted into his later life of depravity? It makes one think about how important the Civil War was in shaping James' career.

All in all this a better than average movie. Look for Tony Curtis. He plays a member of his later gang. It probably was one of his first big roles. It is funny that this movie was made in 1950. It looks like it was made in the early 60s. It seems to have a far more cynical view on war than was common in this ultra patriotic time in American history.