ULZANA'S RAID
US, 1973, 100 minutes, Colour.
Burt Lancaster, Bruce Davison.
Directed By Robert Aldrich.
Ulzana's Raid is a Robert Aldrich film. Well respected as a very competent movie maker who puts entertainment above all, his films are usually interesting for the message discerner as well. This western seems to be one of his best efforts, shorter, tighter, more direct than some of his blockbusters of the late sixties - his range is wide: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte, Flight of the Phoenix, The Dirty Dozen, The Killing of Sister George, Too Late the Hero.
Usually his films have a tough, even too violent streak, and the same caution is applicable here. The film explores the savagery of both white man and red man, and the impossible situations that men are put into because of this heritage of savagery. Some have criticised the film for being only an average savage western - others have said it is pretentious in its portrayal of its messages.
Burt Lancaster gives one of his subdued performances. Bruce Davison looks, perhaps, too boyish for his role.
1. Was this a good western and did it have more to offer than usual? Why?
2. First impressions of the men at the Fort, and the responsibility of the Army for marauding Indians?
3. Why did Ulzana go on his raid? Why did life at the Agency force Indians to go out raiding? How were white attitudes of authority illustrated in the film? the Apache mentality as presented by the screenplay?
4. Were the Apache marauders presented in any way as sympathetic? Why?
5. What kind of man was Mclntosh? Why did he not hate the Apaches yet still fear them? Did he understand them? Was he a worthy opponent for them?
6. How important for the film was the contrast between Mclntosh and De Buin? Was it significant that De Buin was a minister's son?
7. How 'psychological' was the film in its presentation of the chase, each group anticipating the other?
8. How clever was the final strategy - how sad and wasteful of men; the impact of all the deaths, and that of the sergeant?
9. What significance had the death of Mclntosh? Why did he choose to die?
10. What effect did Vienna's death have on De Buin?
11. What did the film offer on Indians, racism, human nature? Was it optimistic or pessimistic?
12. Thematic sequences - the conversations about power and an Apache's killing a man to gain his power: 'the Apaches are like the desert, they are there'; the talk about man's equality in good and bad (including white and red torturers) and Christ and Christians?
13. Technical aspects: the convention of the chase structure; the Fort - basketball, the rider and De Buin's eyes, the emptiness of Arizona; the massacres: mother shot by the officer who killed himself, terrorising of the farmer, the raped woman, Apache brutality on the dead officer, the death of Ulzana's son and the soldier's savaging the corpse; the discussions of torture?
