Ulzana's Raid (1972)

Character actor Joaquin Martinez plays the title role in this pursuit-Western, a story of a fierce Apache war chief who flees a reservation with his comrades, determined to institute a reign of terror. A wet-behind-the-ears Cavalry officer, Lt. DeBuin (Bruce Davison), is put in charge of the pursuit, and while he will have the final say in military matters, he will also need to defer to the judgment of McIntosh (Burt Lancaster), the veteran Indian scout who will be used for tracking. Also along for the ride is an Indian named Ke-Ni-Tay (Jorge Luke), and DeBuin will have his doubts as to where Ke-Ni-Tays' loyalty lies.Filmed against some beautiful countryside, this is an overlooked item on the resume of accomplished filmmaker Robert Aldrich, better known for such films as "Kiss Me Deadly", "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?", and "The Dirty Dozen". Some viewers may take exception to the portrayal of Indians in this narrative, as most of them are true savages, but director Robert Aldrich and screenwriter Alan Sharp ("Night Moves") make sure to drive home the point that there will be atrocities committed by both sides. The two parties are not really that different. Lending his expert advise and wisdom is McIntosh, who always has something interesting to say to the impassioned but somewhat naive DeBuin. Aldrich and Sharp pull no punches in terms of violence, which would cause them to lose some more audience members. And yet everything plays out with a refreshing lack of sentimentality. The Cavalry endures in their mission, despite the fact that these particular opponents always seem to be more than one step ahead of them.The performances are first-rate, with Lancaster scoring in one of his most matter-of-fact, low key portrayals. Davison is just right in his part. Luke has some scene-stealing moments, especially when he says, "His wife, ugly. My wife, not so ugly." As played by Martinez, Ulzana remains something of an enigma; the character has few major scenes and not much dialogue to utter. Richard Jaeckel, Lloyd Bochner, Karl Swenson, John Pearce, and Richard Bull comprise an excellent supporting cast; among the Cavalrymen are Ted Markland, Nick Cravat, and Richard Farnsworth.Designed as a Vietnam war allegory, the picture does have a clearly stated message warning against demonizing ones' opponents, and plays out in a reasonably realistic fashion. Recommended.Seven out of 10.

An idealistic young officer teams up with an experienced scout to track down a group of murderous Apaches in this popular western drama written by 'Night Moves' screenwriter Alan Sharp and directed by Robert Aldrich. Burt Lancaster has the lead role of the old scout, Richard Jaeckel can be found among the supporting cast and the film is shot by Oscar winning DOP Joseph F. Biroc. With such strong talent both behind and in front of the camera, 'Ulzana's Raid' is a classy production and refreshingly grisly and graphically violent for a western of its era. The crux of the story though is the young officer's growing disillusionment with his quest and gradual realisation that some people out there are simply sadistic and evil - a character arc a little too trite and formulaic to click. Bruce Davison is a solid actor in general (very effective in 'Last Summer' and 'The Strawberry Statement' only a few years earlier) but he is simply grating as the young officer here, constantly preaching his religious beliefs and constantly asking rhetorical questions in a non-rhetorical way. He seems like a child at times with his apparent oblivion to evil existing in the world and frequent claims of good existing in everyone. The film almost makes up for this with a nice subplot involving Jorge Luke as an Apache helping Lancaster and Davison in their quest with some very pronounced internal dilemmas. Some apparently regard the film as a Vietnam War allegory, but it can be appreciated allegorical connections aside, even if it is hardly a flawless production.

Pretty much up until the extreme political and social upheavals of the 1960s, whenever Hollywood wanted to deal with Native American issues, it did so with extreme prejudice, particularly in any Western in which the U.S. Cavalry, usually led by the ultimate patriot John Wayne, saw it as their mission to rid the plains, deserts, and mountains of the virgin West of what it saw as "savages" in the name of Manifest Destiny, and the name of God.But the actual history is quite a bit different from the way we had gotten around to looking at it. One such film that did a lot to right, as opposed to merely "rewrite", that history was ULZANA'S RAID.This 1972 Western film from legendary director Robert Aldrich (THE DIRTY DOZEN; FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX) is set in the 1880s in the territory of Arizona and New Mexico. A vengeful Apache named Ulzana (Joaquin Martinez) has jumped the designated San Carlos Indian Reservation, having become understandably inflamed by the mistreatment of his people by the U.S. Army, and is now on his own violent spree along the border. Assigned to track and hunt him down is one Lt. Garnett DeBuin, a fairly inexperienced officer only six months removed from West Point well played with the right amount of naivete and curiosity by Bruce Davidson, and with a detachment aided by the Apache scout Ke-Ni-Tay (Jorge Luke) and an extremely experienced White scout named MacIntosh, more than ably portrayed by Burt Lancaster. But in their long struggle to track down and apprehend Martinez and his band of rampaging Apache, a lot of atrocities are committed. Davidson is at a loss to describe how he feels about what the Apache are doing to the new inhabitants of the land, including the hideous scene of a farm family (led by Karl Swenson) who are victims of the rampage, even though this land was Apache territory first and foremost. And when Davidson asks Lancaster's scout why he doesn't hate the Apache so much as tries to empathize with them, Lancaster's reply is so direct and to the point: "It would be like hating the desert just because there ain't any water in it." Like quite a few Westerns from the mid-1960s on, ULZANA'S RAID is a very complex film on the nature not of, say, White Men and Red Men so much as that of Man, period—the good; the bad; and, too often, the ugly as well. Given the time it was made, it was very easy to read this as an allegory for the Vietnam War, although Aldrich and screenwriter Alan Sharp (NIGHT MOVES; THE HIRED HAND) don't make it so in a flashing neon sign sort of way. If there's any film that ULZANA'S RAID resembles, it would probably be director Sam Peckinpah's 1965 Civil War-era Western MAJOR DUNDEE, which also dealt with a punitive hunt of a rampaging Apache by a rag-tag regiment of U.S. cavalry soldiers, though in that case the titular character played by Charlton Heston was obsessed with his own glory, whereas here Davidson's flaw is merely being naïve. In both cases, however, people do get killed in prodigious numbers, sometimes quite needlessly.Aldrich doesn't shy away from the atrocities on either side; even by the standards of 21st century filmmaking, there is a fair amount of violence and bloodshed, some of it hard to stomach. It is, however, a violence of a qualitative nature far removed from, say, Quentin Tarantino and closer to (though without the slow-mot or montage editing) that of Peckinpah, who had always been a fan of Aldrich's work. Davidson, who made a memorable debut in the 1972 horror film WILLARD, does a very good job in his role as DeBuin; and Lancaster, unsurprisingly, gives a solid performance as MacIntosh. Richard Jaeckel, who had been in THE DIRTY DOZEN, manages a good turn as well as a cynical sergeant; and Martinez conveys a scary power to his role as Ulzana.Shot largely on locations in Nevada and southern Arizona, and with veteran cinematographer Joseph Biroc's superb depiction of the parched landscape, ULZANA'S RAID remains one of the most unsettling and subversive Westerns ever made of any era, particularly its own; and while the violence is likely to unnerve and perhaps still repel a few people, the very nature of the story makes it a hugely insightful film even to this day.

It gets off to a talky start, as it takes too long to assemble the search party to hunt down the Indians. The main battle between the troupes and the Apaches is pretty exciting. Lancaster is fine as an aging scout and so is Luke as an Indian guide. Davison, however, is rather annoying as the callow young officer, a pompous and whiny "good Christian" charged with leading the raid. His repeated questions about why the Apaches are such savages becomes so tiresome that one roots for one of the Indians to do him in. No attempt is made to portray the Indians as anything but one-dimensional savages. The violence is brutal and gratuitously repulsive.