The Horse Soldiers (1959)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Just perfect...

Admirable film.

A lot of fun.

The premises of this movie are hokey Hollywood nonsense. No medical staff would be insubordinate like Holden portrays, and in the field he'd be required to keep to his assignment and jump to when ordered. Nor would his commanding officer be fetching his bag upon orders, etc. Utter nonsense. The female lead, knowingly spying, if not shot would have been tied up and gagged and never gotten away with the rubbish she carries on in this movie. And the politician was so overly bad as to be something from a Laurel and Hardy slapstick comedy. Ugh.

Made in the period between two John Ford masterpieces, The Searchers and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", it lacks the completeness of both as well as that wonderful, overarching grandness of a larger theme that enriches Ford's finest efforts. I think this movie works in many of its parts, even if the sum is less than we've come to expect from the director. The "Horse Soldiers" of the title are a Union cavalry company under command of Col. John Marlowe (John Wayne) who have to venture deep into southern territory to cut off confederate supply lines. Since they are our titular characters and because of the traditional slant of history on the war between the states, we would assume all our sympathies are supposed to be with the boys in blue. But Ford, a lifelong student of civil war history and a Yankee married to a flower of the southern aristocracy, does not ever really give either side the satisfaction of triumph (there are no decisively won battles in the film, only skirmishes and constant fight-and-flight) because he knows that there is no real victory in systematic destruction. Defeat, as usual in Ford films, is where more richness is to be found and by putting the Union army inside southern territory potential for casualties both mortal and moral is escalated. Neither side emerges unsoiled by their descent into what Col. Marlowe calls "this insanity". Southerners are often depicted as alternating clowns and gallant heroes; genteel (Russell Simpson) and degenerate (Strother Martin & Denver Pyle); compassionate and sadistic. The Union soldiers under Marlowe's command are a ragtag bunch, some out for personal glory (the politician, played brilliantly by Willis Bouchey who seemed made for such roles); misfits that found themselves in uniform while doing what comes most naturally to them: wreaking violence and killing (Judson Pratt);ordinary men who will do whatever their fellows do and will follow most anyone who leads; and Bill Holden's doctor - doctors being a tribe hated by Marlowe because of his own wife's death at their hands. Holden was perfect for the part of Dr. Kendall. No one may have played cynical like Holden and he does it well for the entire film.John Wayne's Col. Marlowe has to keep this disparate bunch in line, deal with his own disgust at being forced to destroy what he spent his whole life building up (the railroad--and by extension, his country)and on top of everything, he has to escort a most unwilling and uncooperative enemy lady and her servant. Needless to say, Marlowe has enormous pressures to pursue his objective, keep his temper and above all, keep these people alive. This tension fills the movie and along with the constant movement, keeps it from ever being static. This film is somewhat long but it moves. Nobody in the company likes Col. Marlowe much at all until deeper into the film when both Hannah and Holden's Dr. Kendall come to appreciate him and his paradoxes in their respective ways.

THE HORSE SOLDIERS is yet another pairing between western star John Wayne and western director John Ford, the pair who made some of the most memorably macho movies in American cinema. The plot, set during the American Civil War, is a little different from the usual for these guys, although fans of the Duke will be pleased to hear that his character is typically brash and full of bravado.This is a film less about action than it is the intricacies of the plotting. It also has a greater breadth of characterisation than expected for the genre, with William Holden excelling as the conscience-wracked doctor and Constance Towers affected as the southern spy. The cast is rounded out by the usual character actors you see appear in Wayne films. Some parts of the film are action-packed and exciting, with the men-on-a-mission aspect of the story working well, and the emphasis on pain and injury gives it a grittier edge than usual.

Grant needs to win Vicksburg but the south is fighting him to a draw. Colonel John Marlowe (John Wayne) leads an Union cavalry brigade to destroy a rail supply depot at Newton Station behind the confederate lines. Major Henry Kendall (William Holden) is the newly attached surgeon who is constantly at odds with Marlowe. Marlowe distrust all doctors after his wife was killed in an unnecessary surgery. Plantation mistress Hannah Hunter (Constance Towers) and her slave Lukey (Althea Gibson) overhears their plans and Marlowe takes them prisoner. They plan to fight all the way to Baton Rouge.William Holden is good as the questioning doctor. He could have been played as some pacifist idiot but he shows more depth than that. I do want John Wayne to be harder and darker. His moral superiority keeps bumping against the gritty ugliness of the situation. The kids from the Jefferson Military Academy are a perfect opportunity to up the ante on the war action. Instead, the movie takes the safest route. The action is big but not always the most impressive. I actually like the bending of the rails but that's not really action. It's just something different. For the action, I want it to be grittier and darker. This is fine but not anything superior.