Journey to Shiloh

source: Journey to Shiloh

The book by Will Henry is absolutely terrific. A joy to read; the laconic dialog is realistic, hilarious ... and poignant. The book is available for cheap on eBay and other sites and I recommend it. Of the seven Concho County boys, Buck is drawn most fully; the others are tantalizing sketches. I saw this movie on TV years ago and I'm amazed at its unavailability on video/DVD, esp. given the "future-star" status of its cast. I most remember the stoic Buck soldiering on as each of his friends/comrades met his fate. The naive perception of war by the young finds itself face to to face with reality in this story. It is believable to think that many of the kids who fought in the Civil War marched off with these kinds of notions in their minds.

"Journey to Shiloh" (1968) details the story of seven youths from Concho County in near-West Texas who travel across the Mississippi to join the Confederate Army and kick some Yankee arse. While they intend to ride to Richmond, Virginia, they end up hooking up with Braxton Bragg's Gulf Coast outfit and fighting in Shiloh, Tennessee. The male ingénues learn a lot on their long journey and their introduction to soldiering and war. Who lives and who dies? James Caan plays the main protagonist, "Captain" Buck Burnett, while the other six "teens" (all well into their 20s) are Michael Sarrazin, Don Stroud, Jan-Michael Vincent, Michael Burns, Paul Petersen and, believe it or not Harrison Ford, a full nine years before his breakthrough with Star Wars, but don't get too excited as he gets the least screen time of the bunch. On the downside, Universal was huge on TV movies at the time and so "Journey to Shiloh" looks like a TV movie; in fact, it was directed by one of their TV movie directors. So don't expect the cinematic scope of contemporaneous Westerns, like "Duel at Diablo," "Bandolero!," "Hang 'Em High" and "Shalako." It looks serviceable, but also phony and stale. A big part of the phoniness is due to the fake Southern countryside, as the movie was shot in Agoura and Thousand Oaks, California, but takes place in East Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and adjoining regions. No matter how you slice it, California doesn't look like the deep South, not to mention the studio sets. Another issue is the movie's cartoony vibe. Things that would ordinarily take much longer occur with the quickness of a comic book. Despite these glaring flaws, I found myself ignoring them in favor of the story, particularly as it moved along. You feel like you get to know most of the gang by the end of the movie, Harrison's character being the biggest exception. The "boys" grow from wide eyed youngsters to hardened men over the course of the movie, the biggest rude awakening of course being their baptism into soldiering and war. Speaking of which, I really enjoyed the last third of the film that involves the youths joining up with Bragg's brigade, the ensuing warfare, deaths, injuries, possible desertion and aftermath. Although decidedly comic booky the movie offers a unique glimpse of being a Confederate soldier. The film features no less than four beauties, albeit all relatively short roles: Tisha Sterling as Airybelle Sumner; the un-credited Susanne Benton as the blond saloon girl, Lucy; Brenda Scott as the brunette saloon girl who falls for Buck; and a nurse (Eileen Wesson). FINAL WORD: Someone criticized "Journey to Shiloh" for its obvious low-budgeted faults by pointing out that it's no "Magnificent Seven" or "The Wild Bunch." While this may be technically true I found myself enjoying "Journey to Shiloh" more than these heralded Westerns. Yes, the movie has the unmistakable gloss of one of Universal's factory-made television movies, but it's strong in characters and story, cartoony or not. This is likely because the movie's based on Henry Wilson Allen's excellent novel (aka Will Henry). Some call it an "anti-war movie," but this isn't really true; it's simply a "showing-soldiering-and-war-the-way-it-really-was" movie. The film runs 101 minutes. GRADE: B

I believe this movie was made to be bad on purpose. The Vietnam War an unmentionable except for the John Wayne, feel good about war flick, the "Green Berets". This terrible western had seven dumb and dumber young Texans go of to play soldiers in the God awful killing fields of the Civil War. They find that war to be just that, and anything but an heroic adventure. It says war is not a kids game, not back then and more importantly, not now. The film shows what an old fashion heroes film might have said if it were as honest. This is perhaps the most misunderstood film ever made. Most people thought it was just a piece of silly junk. I think the author wanted it that way, so his anti-war theme was told, while no one was any the wiser to it, but a young targeted audience. It had a message folks, it really did. No heroes, only death and pain paid in full for nothing, sheep to the slaughter theme. "Brilliant" Amen

A handful of Texas cowboys make the journey a thousand miles east to fight at the Battle of Shiloh. They're a varied lot. The most mature of the bunch is James Caan who has an easy smile, a cowboy hat with a white feather sticking out of the band, and he always says "Yes, sir," and "No, Ma'am." There is some talk of who is the fastest gun. There is the occasional outbreak of some abrasive feelings in the group but on the whole they're a good old bunch. I found it predictable, unimaginative, and boring. The men wear the long, carefully groomed styles of long hair found among the hep cats of 1968. The women folk have long hair too, and even longer eyelashes, some as long as the marquees that stretch out over the lawn at a fancy outdoor wedding. A good thing there was no wind. I winced when the character said over a man dying of a gunshot, "Get that preacher in here. He purely could use some readin' over." The script defies anything resembling credibility. During a stop over in a small town, Caan meets the uber-yummy Brenda Scott, who practically salivates over him and invites him to stay with her overnight because she ain't never met nobody as nice as him before. This happens to me all the time, but I have this cloud of pheromones I carry around with me and it's clear James Caan doesn't. It's true. A beautiful woman once fainted while walking past me in Julius's in the Village before it went gay. Couldn't take my molten hotness, I guess. I have a good deal of respect for hastily assembled and inexpensive Westerns but this one has no poetry. You know what this movie would have been good for? You take your girl to the drive in movie theater in 1968 Sweetwater, Texas, and then you turn down the volume, roll up the windows, and roll around in the back seat until the windows are all fogged up. Once having gotten that out of the way, you clamber back into the front seat, turn the volume back up, and doze off. But you can only do that if you're under twenty-one.

This film may be as flawed historically as it can be, but it is well acted and very believable and the story-line is great! The one BIG flaw in it is that all of the rifles are 1879 Trapdoor Springfields, which of course weren't made until 15 years AFTER the end of the war, but other than that, it is a very good film, and as I said, the story line, especially the ending, is very nice. A film well worth seeing, if it comes on cable or network TV. A GOOF- Watch for the scene where Paul Petersen's character wants to leave the group, and he confronts James Caan. He pulls out an 1873 Colt Revolver-you can tell by the side-unloading gate- Only problem was that this pistol wasn't invented until 1873, and the movie takes place in 1861-He should be using a cap & Ball revolver.

This was a great western that included a great cast. James Caan did a wonderful job in this leading role. There was a great aura around all seven of these "boys" . If you like westerns and this time era please watch this film. You will fall in love with all seven. When I was a child I fell in love with the theme song. I wish they would put this movie on DVD or VCR tape. It would make a wonderful edition to any library. Micheal Zarrin , Harrison Ford ,Jan Micheal Vincent , and the rest did a great job. Although it was made in the late 60's I still consider it an all time favorite. So if you haven't seen it please try and watch it. I really enjoy this movie.

This movie was well disguised as just another fun, well made action packed Western, but it gave a lot more to the viewer while the viewer wasn't watching. Seven Texas boys, led by James Caan, mean to join the Confederacy. The basic reason is because they are young, and they are relatively naive to war, and they think of it as what you might call a "rumble". In this, they are even more naive than Sheen in "Platoon". And why not. They didn't have radio or TV. They probably never read a paper. They know how work with horses, and their idea of war is probably what a lot of boys thought of war. Along the way they have a lot of misadventures, and one even dies before they get to enlist. They are awakened to other horrors when they meet an escaped slave, and a "kindly" old gentleman persuades them to turn the runaway in. I don't think there's a spoiler here. It's evident what will happen. Without being very graphic about the war scenes, they do make it clear of the horrors of war. Many are killed. I won't say how many. All suffer greatly. Other realities not often listed even in modern movies are amputations and disease. Not everyone dies cleanly. You don't even realize you are being given this message during the action. It is cleverly written and directed. On a lighter note, I heard the theme song in the movie before I ever heard "Yellow Rose of Texas," and I thought the actual words were the movie words. Imagine my surprise when someone told me it was taken from a song called "Yellow Rose of Texas", which I still have never heard.

I had the impression that Universal pushed this out in Australia before anywhere else. They had no printing on it and I hadn't heard of the film when it hit the city grind house. The people I saw it with were gobsmacked. As JOURNEY TO SHILOH rolled on, we kept on seeing things that we hadn't encountered in the thousands of westerns we'd seen run through this system - the gamblers with identical pistols under the table, pointed at the kid, the Southern blacks urging the Confederate troops on and the way the plot gets stuck into fatuity of gung ho youngsters rushing into the military. It took a long while to get from here to BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY. It also ran to some nice pieces of dialogue - the saloon hoons telling the kids they should have scraped the meat off their leather jackets. I thought William Hale was going to be a major player, saw his shorts GRAND CENTRAL MARKET and THE TOWERS and contacted him, learning that the dodgy stock footage was forced on the production by the producer, who Hale thought wanted to impose bogus scale on it. The bonus is that all those faceless juveniles turned into movie stars and one of them stayed one. This one surfaced the same time as Wadja's POPIOLI/ ASHES, which also deals with young men going to war. Hale's film was not outclassed.

I literally hadn't seen this film since my teenage years (when it originally aired) until now (2006), when it replayed on cable TV. The main cast included some of the most popular young actors of that time (the late 60's) -- and though the acting, direction and script aren't the finest work you'll ever see, it spoke to the youth of that day. The United States was fighting an unpopular war in Vietnam -- and this film focused on the confusion and waste that surrounded the Civil War. The result was to create a direct parallel between that historical war and the (then) current situation. And believe me, we got it! The deaths of six of the seven young men who went to war was found tragic by the audience -- who immediately compared it to deaths of friends and family. My sister and I just reflected on how popular the theme of desertion was in the 60's and 70's -- while men ran to Canada to avoid the draft. It seems odd now to watch a Civil War film where the protagonist deserts, but it was perfect in 1968! An interesting movie that's certainly worth seeing -- it features a young (pre-Godfather) James Caan. And another then unknown young actor by the name of Harrison Ford!