Reeling Backward: "Sergeant Rutledge" (1960)

"Said the private to the sergeant, 'Tell me, Sergeant, if you can,
Did you ever see a mountain come a-walking like a man?'
Said the sergeant to the private, 'You're a rookie, ain't you though?
Or else you'd be a-recognizing Captain Buffalo.'"

A few years before he made "Cheyenne Autumn," which was widely perceived as his apology to Native Americans for their barbaric portrayal in his films, director John Ford made another movie that attempted to nudge the Western genre a little closer toward modern sensibilities -- this time on America's treatment of African-Americans.

Released a month before the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" was published and two years before its iconic cinematic adaptation, "Sergeant Rutledge" has surprisingly similar themes and storytelling structure.

It's about a black U.S. Cavalry sergeant played by Woody Strode who is accused of raping and killing a young white girl. The accusations rile up the community in and around the military fort, many of whose members demand an immediate lynching.

As with "Mockingbird," the story is framed around a heroic white protagonist defending him at trial -- in this case Jeffrey Hunter as Lt. Tom Cantrell. All of the film's posters and other publicity materials featured Hunter with Strode in a secondary role, with Constance Towers as Cantrell's love interest often overshadowing the titular character.

It's a well-meaning film that's often a bit stiff and predictable. Rutledge's innocence is never really in doubt, and his exoneration arrives in the last minutes in a twist so out of left field it registers as a deus ex machina resolution.

Still, "Rutledge" actually bests "Mockingbird" in one regard in that 1st Sergeant Braxton Rutledge manages to stand on his own as a flesh-and-blood character, whereas Tom Robinson remains little more than a vessel for racial injustice, a conveyance mechanism for allaying white guilt.

"Rutledge" represents the pinnacle of Strode's unlikely acting career, which was largely defined by his herculean physique and stoic presence. For those who don't know, he was an Olympic decathlete, starred on the same UCLA Bruins football team with Jackie Robinson and was one of the two first black NFL players.

His arresting appearance lent him to many villainous roles -- including famously fighting Tarzan on three occasions. He and Ford remained personally very close from the 1950s onward, and Strode even served as Ford's caretaker during the great director's final years, sleeping for months at a time on his floor.

(An anecdote that only underscores uncomfortable racial power dynamics in some observers' eyes, I'm sure.)

Like other actors who came from the sports/bodybuilding sphere -- Steve Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc. -- Strode was not the most subtle or emotive performer around. His career was largely defined by the polarities of intimidating stillness and energetic action -- one often preceding the other. Strode was rarely asked to speak a lot of words or convey a great deal of nonverbal information; his mere presence spoke enough.

His limitations as an actor do pull "Rutledge" down somewhat, particularly during his early scenes where Rutledge rescues Mary Beecher (Towers), a young woman returning to the Arizona frontier after a dozen years away. They're waylaid by Indians at the lonely train depot, and Rutledge is injured while protecting Mary. He strips off his uniform -- why hire a chiseled bod if you're not going to show it off, the thinking must go -- in a scene that is intended to heighten white audiences' discomfort about miscegenation. The whole sequence is just clanky and odd.

Later it's revealed that Rutledge was running AWOL from his post after killing his commanding officer. The officer's teen daughter (Toby Michaels) was found naked and dead next to him, leading to the presumption that Rutledge assaulted and murdered the girl, her father stumbled upon the scene and was killed himself.

Most of the story -- screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck -- takes place during Rutledge's court martial trial with flashbacks to the events. Lt. Cantrell, as Rutledge's immediate superior, is charged with defending him while the slimy Capt. Shattuck (Carleton Young) is the bloodthirsty prosecution. Shattuck is ostensibly a cavalryman but is really -- *shudder* -- a career attorney.

The various testimony, including a stint where Cantrell himself takes a turn on the witness stand, establishes that after being captured by Cantrell and his squad, Rutledge heroically defends his fellow buffalo soldiers during skirmishes with Indians. After initially riding off when given the chance, he returns to the ranks to warn the cavalry about an ambush awaiting them.

The other black soldiers of the 9th U.S. Cavalry -- part of the storied Buffalo Soldiers -- absolutely revere Rutledge as the highest-ranking NCO among them, referring to him as "Top Soldier," even after his disgrace. The high point of the film is when the unit, bloodied and fearing further attack, sings to Rutledge as he stands watch over them, likening him to the mythological "Captain Buffalo" who is their ideal and patron saint.

They act as a sort of Greek chorus, not unlike the black townsfolk witnessing Tom's trial from the balcony in "Mockingbird."

Willis Bouchey plays Otis Fosgate, the Cavalry Colonel overseeing the court martial. He's portrayed as a bumptious figure, sneaking gulps of whiskey during the trial and calling for recesses so he and his fellow officers of the court can smoke and play whiskey in the adjoining room. Still, he seems committed to affording Rutledge a fair trial, or at least a fair as one as a black NCO can receive in 1881.

Billie Burke has the comic relief role as Fosgate's wife, Cordelia, a presumptuous old biddy who manages to ensconce herself in the front row during the trial, even after the colonel has ordered the courtroom cleared. The pair seem to be having their own offscreen war going on, with little peeks of how the conflict we see will lead to further contretemps behind closed doors.

The other notable supporting role is Juano Hernandez as Sgt. Matthew Luke Skidmore, the oldest member of the cavalry regiment and the highest-ranking NCO after Rutledge. He leads the reverential lionizing of Rutledge, while being more realistic about his chances for justice. During his testimony it's revealed that Skidmore must be over 70 years of age, though he doesn't know for certain himself, given his birth as a slave.

"Sergeant Rutledge" is a decent film and certainly a well-meaning one, but it's repeatedly undermined by the awkward introduction of humor, seemingly for no other reason than to keep things light, and the intrusion of a completely unnecessary romance. Cantrell and Mary are destined to wind up together, if for only the reason that he repeatedly refers to her as "the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."

Stiff as he is, Strode does get to deliver one great speech as he takes the stand and breaks down about why he ran away twice, and why he chose to return, knowing the almost certain fatal punishment he would face. He calls the Cavalry the only place he's ever felt like more than the freed slave that he is:

"It was because the Ninth Cavalry was my home, my real freedom, and my self-respect, and the way I was deserting it, I wasn't ... nothing worse than a swamp-running nigger, and I ain't that! Do you hear me? I'm a man!"

It's a great moment, and I'm glad Woody Strode got to have at least one like it during his long career.

Reeling Backward: "The Professionals" (1966)

Regular readers of this column will know that I am endless fascinated by the life cycle of movies -- how some films see their reputations wax with the passage of time, while other worthier pictures end up largely forgotten. Ensconced firmly in the latter category is 1966's "The Professionals."

The movie, written and directed by Richard Brooks, was a big commercial hit at the time, revived Burt Lancaster's career and helped propel Lee Marvin into mainstream stardom. It was also a critical success, and earned three Oscar nominations, including two nods for Brooks' screenplay and direction.

And yet, it's not a film that your average movie-lover would know by name. Thematically, it's very similar to the iconic Western "The Magnificent Seven," about a bunch of disparate group of experts rounded up for a near-impossible mission -- a trick Marvin would repeat next year, this time in a World War II setting in "The Dirty Dozen." So it's possible it got lost in a crowd of similar flicks.

There's that title, which is rather generic and unmemorable. And Brooks is one of those filmmakers who doesn't get the respect he deserves, leaving behind an oeuvre -- "Blackboard Jungle," "In Cold Blood," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Elmer Gantry" -- as impressive as any other mid-century writer/director.

Still, why has this Western "oater" fallen so low that even I had never heard of it until recently?

It's certainly a strong picture, with a mildly to moderately revisionist take on the genre. Four over-the-hill mercenaries take a cold-blooded job, going after one of their old compadres, no less. They include an African-American among their number, which causes no discernible ruckus. And they see the job through to the end, only to double-cross the employer who had misled them about the true nature of the mission.

It's not quite "The Wild Bunch" in terms of turning the Western on its head, but Brooks certainly took a little-known novel by Frank O'Rourke and made it into something grim and ironic.

There's also an unsettling subtext of sexual barter at play. Sometime in the 19-teens, the boys are hired by a rich oilman named Gates (Ralph Bellamy) to rescue his young Mexican wife, who was kidnapped by a revolutionary/bandid named Jesus Raza (Jack Palance, equipped with makeup and accent to make for a sufficient representation of a Latino). One of his henchmen (-women?) is Chiquita (Maria Gomez), who reputedly never turns down an offer for sex, and is seen topless from a three-quarter vantage point.

The crew used to fight with Raza in the Mexican Revolution, and are dismayed that he would have turned to kidnapping (and, presumably, raping) innocent women as a means of earning a living. As Dolworth (Lancaster), the explosives expert and most amoral of the adventurers puts it, I'll happily steal, lie and kill for money, but not that.

They eventually realize Maria Grant (Claudia Cardinale) is not a hostage, but an active participant in blackmailing her husband to support the revolutionary zeal of Raza, whom she has loved since childhood. Nevertheless, Fardan (Marvin), the taciturn leader and weapons master, insists they honor the contract and bring her back across the border. The busty, haphazardly clothed Maria even offers herself to Dolworth in exchange for her freedom, though both are too cagey to consummate the exchange.

The other, lesser members of the gang are Woody Strode as Sharp, the tracker/scout, and Robert Ryan as horse wrangler Ehrengard, who in a modern setting would be the wheel man.

I don't think Strode utters more than a few sentences throughout the entire picture, and is mostly around as a reliable presence, buttressed by Strode's famous physique. He was a decathlon competitor in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, player in the nascent NFL and still cut an imposing figure in 1966 when he was in his early 50s. Sheriff Woody from the "Toy Story" movies was named after him.

Ryan is the resident team member laden with distemper, who always seems to be at odds with the others, especially over the treatment of the horses. When they kill a group of Raza's scouts and bury the bodies, Dolworth advocates shooting the horses since, let free, they might run back home and give warning. Ehrengard convinces the group against that course of action, and in the end the horses do lead them right into trouble. After he is shot in the ensuing standoff, Ehrengard is more or less sidelined the rest of the movie.

Although, I should point out, the seriousness of wounds in "The Professionals" is somewhat tenuous, depending on the necessities of the plot. Ehrengard is shot through the shoulder, at one point appears to be dying, and Fardan talks of him slowing them up from Raza's pursuit. By the next day, though, he's lifting Maria into her saddle with little ill effect.

In perhaps the film's most memorable sequence, Dolworth lags behind to hold off Raza's group in a mountain pass to give the others time to make good their escape. Single-handedly, he out-guns Raza and six others, getting shot himself in the process -- "in the ass," he brassily informs an also-shot-up Raza, as the men exchange pleasantries from behind cover. Dolworth also survives a shoot-out with Chicquita, with whom he has exchanged amorous attentions in the past, granting her a dying kiss. Hours later, though, Dolworth and his punctured hindquarters will jump on and off horses with no problems.

I quite enjoyed "The Professionals," though I don't think it's quite the masterpiece it's made out to be. It's an action-heavy picture, with the planning and assault of Raza's fortress taking up most of the first hour, and actually being rather on the dull side.

Still, it's superior to "The Dirty Dozen" and probably "The Magnificent Seven," too, which enjoy far richer reputations. Cinematic posterity, earned or otherwise, is a twitchy little sumbitch.

Reeling Backward: "Spartacus" (1960)

"Spartacus" should have been a disaster. The original screenwriter, director and cinematographer were all fired off the project -- the latter two a week into filming.

It was more or less a vanity project for Kirk Douglas, who was angry he didn't get the lead in "Ben-Hur" and ordered up his own sword-and-sandals epic. Novelist Howard Fast was in over his head trying to adapt his novel about the Third Servile War of Rome for the screen, so Dalton Trumbo was brought in. Unfortunately, Trumbo was blacklisted at the time, and had to work under a pseudonym.

Douglas bravely insisted that Trumbo receive an onscreen credit, which led to the breakdown of the McCarthy-era blacklist.

But Douglas clashed with director Anthony Mann, and canned him after a few days of shooting. A 30-year-old Stanley Kubrick, who previously directed Douglas in the wonderful "Paths of Glory," was brought in.

Kubrick largely disavowed "Spartacus" later in his career, but mostly, I think, because of entering the project as a hired gun rather as the primary and unquestioned author of the film. The dark genius preferred to work in relative isolation, and to write and shoot his movies himself. (Russell Metty, pushed out by Kubrick, retained his credit for legalistic convenience, and thus won the cinematography Oscar for "Spartacus," even though he only worked on the film a little longer than Mann did.)

Far be it from me to call Stanley Kubrick stupendously wrong, but I think "Spartacus" is one of his finest films, and one of the true giants among the mid-century epics.

I won't belabor talking about the plot, since the story of the man who led a slave revolt against the Roman Empire is well-known.

What most interested me in watching the 50th-anniversary Blu-ray edition -- which is a marvel, with crisp lines and bold colors courtesy of the 1991 film restoration -- is the film's pace. At 3¼ hours, the film is certainly not in a hurry. And yet, it never feels like it's draggy or fat ... just taking its time.

It's amazing to watch simple establishing shots, or montages of marching armies. Or just the slow pan of the camera as it enters a Roman bath. It gives the audience a chance to breathe, soak up all the Oscar-winning sets, and sets the tone for the coming scene.

Nowadays editors would chop these moments by half or more. The movies have sped up in the last few decades, and have not improved in their quickness.

The fight scenes have held up fairly well, both the gladiator matched pairs and the huge battle featuring 10,000 extras. Content-wise, "Spartacus" was quite daring in the waning days of the old Production Code, before the Motion Picture Association of America starting giving out ratings. There's even a brief flash of Spartacus severing an arm, complete with twin arterial blood spurts.

The film was also bold sexually. Jean Simmons, playing Spartacus' slave wife Varinia, appears nude twice, although both times shot with a careful angle to avoid showing her breasts. There's a thrilling moment where they're cavorting in a meadow, and he is tracing her face with a bit of plant, and she opens her mouth to accept it. For 1960, this was pretty yowza stuff.

One of the most famous scenes did not make the cut, however. This was the bath scene where the Roman general Crassus (Laurence Olivier) asks his new slave Antoninus (Tony Curtis) if he prefers oysters or snails, calling it a question of taste rather than morality, and declaring that he eats both oysters and snails.

The barely-concealed reference to same-sex coupling was cut out of the original film, and only later restored. According to one account, the audio track for this scene had been lost. Curtis was still around to re-record his lines, but Olivier was dead by then. So Anthony Hopkins, once Olivier's understudy and a fearsomely good mimic, recorded the dialogue.

The cast is simply a marvel, although some of the smaller supporting performances (including Curtis) are a bit stiff. Peter Ustinov is a delightful scene-stealer as a mercenary slave trader -- he won the Academy Award, the only person to do so for a Kubrick film -- but the performance I keep coming back to is Charles Laughton as Gracchus, a Roman senator and political opponent of Crassus.

In less than perhaps 10 minutes of total screen time, he paints an indelible presence as a figure of integrity buried beneath a mound of corruption. Gracchus is a man of the people, both their virtues and their faults, and represents the last dying voice of democracy against the coming dictatorship of the emperors. Only an actor of Laughton's wit and weight (figurative and otherwise) could pull it off. I love this piece of dialogue in a scene between Laughton and Ustinov:

"You and I have a tendency towards corpulence. Corpulence makes a man reasonable, pleasant and phlegmatic. Have you noticed the nastiest of tyrants are invariably thin?"

Douglas of course is great, playing a powerful man of destiny who still seems full to the brim with a distinctive humanity. I love the scenes where Spartacus is at the hands of some evil Roman or another, his limbs in chains and his life on the line, and he stares at them with an impudence that could enrage even an emperor.

4 stars out of four