Ulzana’s Raid (1972)
Universal DVD (region 2, 4)
d. Robert Aldrich; pr. Carter DeHaven; scr. Alan Sharp; ph. Joseph F. Biroc; m. Frank De Vol; ed. Michael Luciano; cast. Burt Lancaster, Bruce Davison, Jorge Luke, Richard Jaeckel, Joaquin Martinez, Lloyd Bochner, Karl Swenson, Margaret Fairchild (103 mins)
Director Robert Aldrich initially treated the plight of the Native American Indian in his 1954 film Apache, with Burt Lancaster, at a time when depictions about Native Americans in terms other than villainy were rare. Some 18 years later, with such disparate critical and popular hits as Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and The Dirty Dozen behind him, he returned to the subject, and again with Lancaster. The intervening years, however, had seen many social upheavals. Although America’s involvement in Vietnam was paramount amongst such forces of change, American film had been reluctant to directly address the War. Nevertheless, there were efforts to re-shape other familiar genres into wryly disguised comments about Vietnam. These Vietnam allegories were partially inaugurated by Aldrich’s brutally violent, harsh and uncompromising Western Ulzana’s Raid. Indeed, it was the film’s evident statement about American cultural and military imperialism that attracted Lancaster to the project. Although the film was not a hit, it is frequently considered one of the best American films of the 1970s and one of the more unsentimentally self-critical, Aldrich here having made his personal best work of a decade that would see him in something of a critical slump, despite his return to group dynamics in the excellent prison football drama The Longest Yard and his fine, late political thriller Twilight’s Last Gleaming.
Ulzana’s Raid is a Western set in the midst of the US Indian Agency’s attempts to contain the Apache Indians by force and implicit coercion. Feeling compromised (emasculated?) and their power drained, Apache leader Ulzana (Joaquin Martinez) and several of his loyal braves leave the reservation, stealing several horses in order to go on a raiding party, intending to kill and/or rape any white settlers they find. New Army officer Bruce Davison is assigned to track these renegades and is advised to follow the recommendations of his experienced scout (Burt Lancaster) and his Indian tracker (Jorge Luke). Davison is a deeply religious man, a devout Christian who wants to understand the Apache but when confronted with evidence of their horrendous atrocities resorts to racism and seeks only to catch and kill them. Accordingly, he even begins to resent the Indian tracker whose presence is nonetheless invaluable. The tracker is aware of such resentment and associates primarily only with his friend Lancaster. The pursuit continues, with each side trying to outsmart the other until Lancaster comes up with a bold plan. However, the Indians also have a surprise tactic intended to divide the army force and expose their most vulnerable side. When Lancaster finally sees an opportunity to bring the Indians out from their concealment, it is at great risk to the soldiers involved, maybe even needing the older man’s sacrifice. read more