Ulzana's Raid

Shown in part as a tribute to Burt Lancaster, one of Hollywood's greatest stars, Ulzanza's Raid is often cited as one of a number of 70s Vietnam allegories and follows a cavalry platoon's mission to capture a band of apaches who have escaped from their reservation.

Watching the opening credits, you may get the feeling that you're watching an episode of Bonanza. However, a cheesy horse-opera Ulzana's Raid is certainly not. Mainly thanks to Alan Sharp's excellent script, Robert Aldrich's game of cowboys and Indians is played out with an admirable avoidance of cliché and a great deal of intelligence. Ulzana and his apaches are neither casually condemned as bloodthirsty bandits nor patonised through Tonto-type portrayals of noble savages, the motivation for their actions never being simplistically explained away. Aldrich also employs several brilliant reworkings of generic conventions which deliberately defy audience expectation, constantly refusing to indulge any sense of optimism or triumph in the completion of the army's task.

A further point of interest is the relationship between the scout Macintosh, Lancaster's world weary, unorthodox realist, and Bruce Davison's youthful Lieutenant De Buin, a Christian idealist commanding his first assignment; Macintosh's independence permitting him the freedom to make insightful observations about De Buin's attempts to resolve the conflict between his beliefs and growing racial hatred.

It should be mentioned that Ulzana's Raid contains moments of extreme violence which, thankfully, are not gratuitous and actually retain the power to shock.

You'll never trust the sounding of the cavalry charge again.

Review by Iain Harral
Taken from EUFS Programme 1995-96