Ulzana's Raid
With Burt Lancaster, Bruce Davison, Jorge Luke.
US, 1972, 35mm, color, 103 min.
Print source: HFA
Robert Aldrich situates the senseless, relentless carnage of the Vietnam War onto the stark stage of the American Western. Enlisted to hunt down a rampaging Apache leader and his gang, Burt Lancaster’s wizened scout clashes with the young Christian cavalry lieutenant whose simplistic idealism is easily confused upon confronting extreme racism and violence on both sides. Well aware of the convoluted contradictions of war and an impassable cultural chasm, McIntosh lives between the white and Apache worlds—judging no one, yet suffering no fools. As the allegoric action coils into a taut, bloody ring, the greater complexities within the subsequent confrontation perish unceremoniously amid a barren atmosphere of death, disillusion and indifference.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Four Star Playhouse: The Squeeze, The Witness and The Hard Way
The Southerner
