Movie review - "Ulzana's Raid" (1972) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

The reputation of this movie has shot up in recent years - like a lot of 70s cult classics I feel it's overpraised (eg Get Carter) though I can recognise it's quality. Despite being directed by Robert Aldrich, who I'm a big fan of, I didn't feel it was particularly well put together - it was made by Universal, and has that horrible Universal backlot studio scenes, and tinny Frank de Vol music, with musical stings all the time that make it seem like a TV show, and it feels and smells cheap. (This may not have been Aldrich's fault - I don't know that much about the making of the movie).

But there's a remarkable script by Alan Sharp. It's a tough, nihilistic movie - some claim this is an allegory for the Vietnam War but I can't see that at all. It's about an Apache leader and some mates who bust out from the reservation and go on a rampage, and the soldiers track them down. How is that allegorical? There's a hell of a difference between Apaches and the Viet Cong/NVA, and the Vietnamese and European settlers in the east.

Rather, it's a tougher take on the Western. The Apaches are ruthless and sadistic - they rape, torture, steal (it's a very bleak look at Apaches); the cavalry people aren't as bad but still heavily flawed - racist, penny pinching, prone to revenge acts of sadism.

Bruce Davison is very good as a decent officer trying to do the right thing, struggling to come to terms to the nasty nature of his job. Burt Lancaster is superb as the wise, tough but worn out scout, who has seen far too much death and is afraid of dying. The third lead, refreshingly, is an Indian character - a scout who knows Ulzana well.

Some of the scenes in this are remarkably shocking - the one where the scout flees the woman and child as the Indians approach, comes back to seemingly help them and kills the woman, then is killed and disemboweled; the settler who thinks he is safe when tricked by a bugle only to die horribly. The action became less tense when it was about the soldiers and Indians and there were no settlers - I think this would have added an extra element. But it's worth it when Lancaster gets a tragic ending, mortally wounded and wanting to die alone.