Review of The Horse Soldiers (1959) by Grant S — 06 Aug 2012

Incredibly lame, and not representative of the genius of John Ford. Very unrealistic and contrived. Just about everything is wrong, militarily. Subordinates question just about every order of their commanding officer, the CO gets drunk in the middle of a raid, US Grant gets called by his nickname by subordinates, after doing well to disguise their intentions the Union soldiers give it all away by showing the towns people the direction they are headed.

Then there are the sappy sentimentalities that devalue the movie even more. The doctor who doesn't seem to realise there is a war on, the irritating Southern woman who is just there as a very contrived love interest (and who should have been shot as a spy), the successful attack by a regiment of kids.

Add in a few overblown characters that are there just to represent the types of people who fought in the Civil war: eg the politician-officer.

Usual one-dimensional swagger-filled performance from John Wayne. William Holden is incredibly irritating as the doctor. Even more irritating is Constance Towers as the Southern woman. Hardly a good performance in the whole movie.

The saddest thing is that the movie is loosely based on a real event, the Grierson Raid. Though the characters and many details have been changed, this movie is an insult to the memories of the men who took part in that raid.