Although Burt Lancaster did make at least one great comedy (the British-made "Local Hero" towards the end of his career), he is not generally regarded as one of the screen's great humorists. Indeed, by the mid-sixties he had become one of Hollywood's most serious stars after his thoughtful, intelligent roles in films such as "Birdman of Alcatraz" "Seven Days in May" and "The Train". "The Hallelujah Trail" was therefore presumably an attempt to broaden his range by branching out into comedy.
The film is a spoof version of the sort of large-scale epic Western that was very popular at the time. Lancaster plays Colonel Gearhart, a US cavalry officer who has the duty of trying to ensure the safety of a consignment of whisky bound for the miners of Denver, a consignment threatened not only by marauding Indians but also by a militant group of female temperance campaigners. The film copies the look and feel of big epic Westerns such as "How the West Was Won" with their sweeping photography of the Western landscapes, thundering musical scores and portentous voice-over commentary (here deliberately exaggerated for comic effect).
There were a number of humorous Westerns in the sixties and seventies, of which Mel Brooks's "Blazing Saddles" is perhaps the best-known. "The Hallelujah Trail", however, is not a film of the same calibre. Besides imitating the look of the big-scale epic, it also, fatally, tries to imitate it in length. A serious adventure film generally needs a longer time to tell its story than a humorous version of the same tale. Exciting action can hold the viewer's attention for a longer period of time than can humour, which is best put over in a shorter, more compact form. Brooks, whose film is little more than half the length of "The Hallelujah Trail", realised this; it is a pity that John Sturges failed to do so. The film came as a great disappointment to me, as I have always been a great admirer of Lancaster's work, and also what I have seen of Sturges's such as "The Great Escape" and "Bad Day at Black Rock". The film drags interminably in places, and many of its attempts to be funny (such as Donald Pleasance's drunken visionary) fall very flat. There are a few flashes of wit, mostly arising from the verbal duels between Gearhart and Cora Templeton Massingale, the pretty young widow who leads the teetotallers, and from Brian Keith's pompous businessman ("A taxpayer and a Republican") who is trying to get the liquor through to the thirsty miners. Unfortunately, these tend to get lost in the middle of a seriously overlong, flabby and mostly unfunny film. 4/10
The film is a spoof version of the sort of large-scale epic Western that was very popular at the time. Lancaster plays Colonel Gearhart, a US cavalry officer who has the duty of trying to ensure the safety of a consignment of whisky bound for the miners of Denver, a consignment threatened not only by marauding Indians but also by a militant group of female temperance campaigners. The film copies the look and feel of big epic Westerns such as "How the West Was Won" with their sweeping photography of the Western landscapes, thundering musical scores and portentous voice-over commentary (here deliberately exaggerated for comic effect).
There were a number of humorous Westerns in the sixties and seventies, of which Mel Brooks's "Blazing Saddles" is perhaps the best-known. "The Hallelujah Trail", however, is not a film of the same calibre. Besides imitating the look of the big-scale epic, it also, fatally, tries to imitate it in length. A serious adventure film generally needs a longer time to tell its story than a humorous version of the same tale. Exciting action can hold the viewer's attention for a longer period of time than can humour, which is best put over in a shorter, more compact form. Brooks, whose film is little more than half the length of "The Hallelujah Trail", realised this; it is a pity that John Sturges failed to do so. The film came as a great disappointment to me, as I have always been a great admirer of Lancaster's work, and also what I have seen of Sturges's such as "The Great Escape" and "Bad Day at Black Rock". The film drags interminably in places, and many of its attempts to be funny (such as Donald Pleasance's drunken visionary) fall very flat. There are a few flashes of wit, mostly arising from the verbal duels between Gearhart and Cora Templeton Massingale, the pretty young widow who leads the teetotallers, and from Brian Keith's pompous businessman ("A taxpayer and a Republican") who is trying to get the liquor through to the thirsty miners. Unfortunately, these tend to get lost in the middle of a seriously overlong, flabby and mostly unfunny film. 4/10