Robert Aldrich1918-1983
Although not as highly thought of in western circles as John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and Raoul Walsh , Robert Aldrich certainly deserves to be up there with the masters of the oater.
He made his debut in 1953 with a baseball movie which didn't do much at all for the young director. But in 1954 he made two strong westerns - Apache starring Burt Lancaster showed a new way for Hollywood to deal with native Americans but there was some studio interference and Aldrich was never happy with the movie. More successful was Vera Cruz - starring Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper as a pair of immoral anti-heroes the film anticipated the spaghetti western boom.
His next western was 1961's The Last Sunset but the film was far too deep and ponderous and fails to satisfy on any level. This was followed by Four for Texas, a comedy western vehicle for Dea
n Martin and Frank Sinatra. Suffice to say it sucked.Aldrich didn't return to westerns until 1972 with Ulzana's Raid which was his masterpiece. Again starring his favourite actor, Burt Lancaster the film was a shocking a gritty western that alluded to the Vietnam war.
His next western, The Frisco Kid (1979) was another flop despite a good performance by Gene Wilder.
After that Aldrich never made another western but his legacy to the western are the three brilliant movies Apache, Vera Cruz and Ulzana's Raid - each of them are intelligent westerns with great performances and direction that on times makes the desert landscapes look almost alien.
3 comments:
The Last Sunset is underrated. The story is straight forward Kirk Douglas's character kills Rock Hudson's brother. Rock Hudson plays a lawman who goes to bring in Douglas. Both sign on to drive a herd from Mexico to Texas. Once across the border Hudson can take Douglas in. In the meantime the two leads bond showing the thin line between friendship and hate. And there is a surprise in the final showdown. I like the movie which was based on a book by Howard Rigsby called 'Sundown At Crazy Horse'. Again this is a movie that appears on TCM - there is not a dvd that I know off.
I had the good fortune of seeing Vera Cruz on a big screen at Harvard back in the 1990s. It is a massive film both in terms of location and the machismo on display by Cooper, Lancaster, Borgnine, Bronson, etc. It strikes me as a transitional film, with traditional stoic hero Cooper defeating charismatic antihero Lancaster, but the future was on Burt's side.
Ulzana's Raid is one of my favourite westerns of all time.
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