Dir. John Ford
120 Minutes
USA
1959
Starring: John Wayne, William Holden, Constance Towers
***/*****
While entertaining and full of several wonderful touches, The Horse Soldiers at times feels like John Ford is going through certain motions, working within the confines of several of his usual themes and motifs but never branching beyond the routine. The narrative follows a Northern cavalry outfit led by Col. John Marlowe (John Wayne) that is sent behind Confederate lines to destroy some enemy railroads. The unit is joined by Major Henry Kendall (William Holden), a war-weary surgeon who is committed to his duty but has had enough of carnage, and Hannah Hunter (Constance Towers), a plantation mistress who Marlowe essentially kidnaps along with her slave Lukey (Althea Gibson, fresh off two years winning Wimbledon!) after she eavesdrops on their plans.
The first hour of the picture is full of terrific detail as Ford, as usual, gives a real life and chemistry to his ensemble. As the men gather around maps and diagrams, their rhythm is defined by the puffs of their cigars, pauses for them to sip their whiskeys, and, a personal favorite, a light dangling from the top of a tent that keeps getting in the way. As the group moves on the road and pick up Hannah, things feel a bit less focused and more like Ford on autopilot, with fewer lived-in character details as the drama escalates. Tension between Wayne and Holden is a highlight, and these earlier scenes even frame the two in such perfect contrast to each other, with outfits, gestures, and performance all operating on opposite spectrums. Through Marlowe and Kendall, Ford is able to very comfortable pivot towards his fascination with the struggle of masculine expression, though Wayne and Holden elevate the rather tepid material with the nature of their celebrity and all the expectation that come from their respective stars.
While the film is consistently entertaining, it is light on memorable sequences with the scene in Hannah’s plantation perhaps the strongest in the whole picture, an unfortunate instance considering there remains still well over an hour. Ford’s proclivity for staging such sequences, especially with the soldiers around Hannah’s dinner table, is, unsurprisingly, fantastic, though less impactful knowing that he is working well within his element. Too much of the project feels “safe”, which is a slight shame considering how all of the pieces are there to push it just a little bit further. Even Ford’s usual ability to excel with community and ensemble is a bit lackluster, and after a point the film settles into a relatively mundane set of plot points over attention to detail. Nicely done is the early depiction of the Confederate threat, with Ford magnifying the gravity of the units danger by having the South be an almost unseen, but very much heard, cluster of soldiers, marching through the woods with their patriotic chants acting as a shark fin of their presence, the shared experience of fear that allows for these characters to start shedding their discordant behavior and start to operate as a group. Ultimately The Horse Soldiers is a minor work for Ford, but one that is not without its charms.
Viewed on July 31st, 2020
Part of an ongoing John Ford Project with notes from selected films.