THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL

US, 1965, 156 minutes, Colour.
Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton, Pamela Tiffin, Donald Pleasence, Brian Keith, Martin Landau.
Directed by John Sturges.

The Hallelujah Trail is a big, long brawling western. Originally filmed in Cinerama, it took a very irreverent attitude towards the West and western conventions. Critics tended to take the film more seriously than it intended itself to be. Directed by John Sturges, who had made such films in the preceding years as The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape as well as The Gunfight at the O.K. Corra1, the film shows most of the expected situations of the western and has a tongue-in-cheek humorous look. An energetic Burt Lancaster is at home in this kind of film and Lee Remick is a vigorous heroine. Very entertaining western of the spectacular variety.

1. How enjoyable a western? Comedy? The tone of the title and its meaning?

2. How much did the film rely on its length, Cinerama photography, colour, scenery, signature tunes for each of the main characters?

3. How clever was the comedy? The nature of the jokes? Heavily done or lightly done?

4. Comment on all the conventions of the western the film used. How well?

5. The contribution of the maps as an indication for the plot. for the humour?

6. How did the film use the various persons seen in the west: the cavalry, the Indians, the gunfighters, the women etc? How well did they all converge into a unified plot?

7. Comment on the drink situation: the satire, the indications of title? The drink as a symbol focus for all the ingredients of the west?

8. How was the cavalry presented? Standard type? Dear heart as a type? Slater as the heroic young man doing his job? The visual presentation of the cavalry and their skill?

9. The presentation of the women? Cora and her style? Her processions and demonstrations? Her feelings and romantic entanglement? The satire on women? Louisa as the young heroine? The satire on young heroines? Such sequences as their being captured?

10. The presentation of the Indians - as the butt of jokes? the satire on the Indian of western films?

11. The satire on the citizens militia The various personalities involved? Their principles and their earnestness?

12. What did the characters of Wallingham and oracle Jones add to the film? The ending?

13. Audience response to the various set pieces of a western, the towns, the riding, the clashes, the battles?

14. How enjoyable are light western and what comment do they make on more serious westerns?