Horse Soldiers [Blu-ray] [1959] [US Import]

Colonel John Marlowe (John Wayne) is asked to take his Union calvary troop deep into Confederate territory to destroy the railroad and depot at Newton Station. Much to Marlowe's chagrin, regimental surgeon Major Henry Kendall (William Holden) is also along for the mission. With both men completely at odds with each other as regards adherence to duty and the execution of war. Things are further complicated when the brigade rests at Greenbriar Plantation, because Miss Hannah Hunter (Constance Towers), the plantation's mistress, and her slave Lukey (Althea Gibson) eavesdrop on a staff meeting thus hearing the plans about the raid. To protect the mission, Marlowe is forced to take the two women with him.

John Ford's venture into the American Civil War is adapted from Harold Sinclair's novel of the same name. The story is based around the true story of Grierson's Raid and the climatic Battle of Newton's Station, which was led by Colonel Benjamin Grierson who, along with his men, rode hundreds of miles behind enemy lines in April 1863 to blow up the railroad between Newton's Station and Vicksburg, Mississippi. Thus giving Confederate General John C. Pemberton a whole heap of problems.

What is at first the most striking thing about The Horse Soldiers is the chemistry between Holden and Wayne, friends in real life they were and my how does it show here. It gives the film a real sense of believability, the characters may be at odds as the ideological conflict between the military and the medical professions shows its hand, but a respectful, almost friendly rivalry shines thru from the two icons of machismo. Tho often described as one of the lesser lights in the John Wayne/John Ford partnership, The Horse Soldiers contains all the stock features that make up the best of Ford's Oaters. The Duke, Holden and bright eyed Constance Towers are obviously well framed in gorgeous settings, William Clothier working his photography magic in Louisiana and in and around Natchez, Mississippi. The lead song is a rousing one as Stan Jones warbles 'I Left My Love,' and the piece is chocked full of interesting characters fleshed with Ford thematics. Respect, strength, a love of your country, all given an observational, and customary, sheen from the master director. Ford even takes time to vent his spleen at cowards, courtesy of an engrossing sequence involving Strother Martin, while a running theme of surgery, particularly the legs, gives the piece a dramatic and honest historical core. The battle scenes are as to be expected, handled with skill, with a poignant moment as Confederate Cadettes are sent out to fight by the besieged superiors being as sad and indicative of the War as it is important in the context of Ford's story telling.

Off camera the shoot was not without problems, Ford was battling the bottle and was making everyones life a misery, particularly The Duke. Things were further darkened when Ford's friend, Fred Kennedy, a retired stuntman, asked for a job in the film on account of being broke financially. Reluctantly agreeing he allowed Kennedy to perform a basic stunt of falling off a horse. But tragically, Kennedy broke his neck during the stunt and was dead before reaching the hospital. Ford was shattered, closing down the location site and returning home. The final battle scenes were eventually finished at San Fernando Valley, from where Ford headed to Hawaii and hit the bottle big time. 7.5/10

The Horse Soldiers represents the 11th outing of John Ford and John Wayne. Having created the seminal Westerns Stagecoach, buy the Criterion Blu Ray it's wonderful, and The Searchers some of the other collaborations are a little below par, unsurprising when we have the aforementioned films as benchmarks!
The Horse Soldiers sits comfortably in the upper bracket without ever really reaching the heights of it's predecessors to call it an out and out classic. The story is fast paced and laced with a good dose of underlying humour, most through Constance Towers (slightly miss cast in the role IMO), " Care for some more leg or breast? as she leans over the table with the lowest cut top. Wayne replies "No thank you mam, I've had quite enough". It's a solid Wayne Western.
Onto the Blu ray itself: The colours are vibrant but unfortunately that is where the Blu ray transfer seems to stop. The picture quality is no better than the DVD with the exception of 40% of the close-up scenes which suddenly burst into life and looks great. It is a travesty given the importance of these films and how good transfers can be. If you compare this to How the West was Won, another Ford and Wayne collaboration, albeit John Wayne is only in it for a few minutes, you will see the difference. The Cinerama version of How the West was Won is truly breathtaking and a wonderful transfer. The Horse Soldier alas has been give a cheap update; the film deserves better.
Having said all of the above this version is the best currently available so it's better than not having it at all. We can only hope that maybe a special edition, similar to The Comanchero's digibook a must buy!, may be released in the future. If you can look past the average quality mixed with nice hi def scenes its' an enjoyable film and one which deserves more credit out of the Ford/Wayne collaborations.
4 stars for the film, 3 stars for the transfer

The Horse Soldiers is usually damned with faint praise as one of John Ford's lesser Westerns, especially compared to his famed cavalry trilogy. It's not hard to understand why: despite the big budget and substantial resources it's more an okay film than a particularly good one, hobbled by a clumsily manufactured central conflict that simply doesn't ring true and a few too many plot turns that go nowhere. John Wayne is the ex-railroad engineer turned Union colonel sent behind Confederate lines to destroy their railroad tracks to disrupt their supply lines, which should be enough for a decent Western, but the film takes an early turn into the desperately contrived by having him take an instant dislike to William Holden's surgeon who has been foisted upon him - not because of a clash of personalities, which might make sense, but because he thinks doctors are charlatans using soldiers to experiment on... You can guess why he has that view long before he drunkenly reveals it, but the only way that it could have generated any real dramatic sparks if is Holden had been the doctor concerned instead of a nice guy who just rubs the Duke up the wrong way.

You know they'll eventually learn to respect each other but the scriptwriters can't really build any real drama out of such shaky foundations, and since they're also the producers there's no-one to tell them to go back and think about it some more, reducing Wayne to the usual default by-the-numbers grumpy and obstinate persona of his lesser pictures and Holden an amiable figure more bemused than frustrated by him. So to up the ante a little they have Wayne forced to take Constance Towers and her faithful slave Althea Gibson prisoner after they learn his plans, with the inevitable romance slowly brewing. In fact, much of what happens in The Horse Soldiers takes it's time to brew and it certainly never really comes to the boil. There are some good moments, like the battle at a railway depot, but others, like the threat of having to fight against children from a local military academy, are dodged because everyone just behaves too gallantly for this particular war. (The final battle sequence was also scaled down after the death of stuntman Fred Kennedy in a horse fall.) Still, you do get to see Hank Worden made up to look like Abe Lincoln's cousin and cinematographer William C. Clothier makes it look good, especially when Ford is filling the screen with men and riders, though it doesn't look quite as good as it should on a rather disappointing DVD transfer that's a definite step down from the old laser disc release and will hopefully have been remastered properly for Bluray. There are a few bits of print damage too, while the original captions identifying the locations have been removed and replaced with computer generated ones for the Region 2 DVD, which does at last include a brief trailer as an extra. MGM/UA's region-free Bluray apparently only has a longer trailer as extra with only marginally improved picture quality.