Charley MacLeod junior, an American living in Paris with his French wife, is persuaded by his mother to return home to the family ranch because his father, Charley senior, is dying from some unspecified disease. Charley junior is reluctant to return, because he and his father have been estranged for many years, but he is eventually won over by his mother's entreaties. We are initially given to understand that the cause of the estrangement was some difference of opinion over the Vietnam War; we eventually learn that Charley junior went to fight in Vietnam but deserted from the Army because he was horrified by the bloodshed and cruelty of war. Charley senior, who still considers his son's conduct dishonourable, almost treasonable, is far from happy to see him. Moreover, Charley junior finds out that many people in the area feel the same way about him, including his childhood friend Brian, who has taken his place on the ranch and is regarded by Charley senior virtually as an adopted son.
It is significant that the title of the film is "Proud Men", not "A Proud Man". For all their political differences, father and son are in many ways alike in their personalities. Both find it difficult to admit that they were wrong or to see any merit in an opposing point of view. An element in Charley junior's pride is the need to justify himself to his father. If he cannot win Charley senior over by verbal arguments, he feels the need to demonstrate that he is not a physical coward. He does this by repeated attempts to ride a dangerous horse which repeatedly throws him and by allowing Brian, a heavier and more powerful man, to provoke him into a fight which inevitably ends with Charley being beaten to a pulp.
One reviewer calls the film "On Golden Ranch", and I can certainly see the similarities with "On Golden Pond". At the centre of both films is an elderly man who has become estranged from a child, a son here and a daughter in the other film. In both cases they gradually learn to accept one another under pressure from other members of the family, especially the old man's wife. In both films the old man forms a close bond with a grandson he has not previously met. (OK, it's a step-grandson in "On Golden Pond", but the principle is the same). The main difference is that "On Golden Pond" we never really learn the causes of the estrangement between Norman and Chelsea, and there is no reason to believe that political differences, over Vietnam or anything else, had anything to do with it. He clearly dislikes her fiancé Bill, but it is implied that the difficulties in their relationship started long before Chelsea and Bill ever met.
Another similarity between the two films is the strength of the acting. "On Golden Pond" can, at times, be rather sugary, but it is lifted above mere sentimentality by two Oscar-winning performances from Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn and an Oscar-nominated one from Henry's real-life daughter Jane. (This was Henry Fonda's only Oscar, coming in his final film a few years before his death). There was to be no Oscar for Charlton Heston for "Proud Men", but then Oscars are not handed out for TV movies. If "Proud Men" had been released as a feature film, he might have provided serious opposition to Michael Douglas in "Wall Street", because this is a fine performance, balanced by an equally good one from Peter Strauss as Charley junior.
"Proud Men" formed part of what I think of as Hollywood's second Vietnam cycle of the late eighties and early nineties, which also included the likes of "Full Metal Jacket", "Good Morning Vietnam", "Hamburger Hill", "Casualties of War" and Oliver Stone's trilogy of "Platoon", "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Heaven and Earth". (The first Vietnam cycle- "The Deer Hunter", "Coming Home", "Apocalypse Now"- had come about a decade earlier. Like most of those, "Proud Men" has been described as an "anti-Vietnam War" film, but actually I find its stance more nuanced than that. There would have been little dramatic tension if the film-makers had taken the straightforward position that Charley junior is in the right and his father in the wrong, end of argument. (And if they had taken that position I doubt if they would have persuaded the famously conservative Heston to star). Charley senior points out that he saw as much horror during his service in the Second World War and although he was afraid he never considered deserting; when his son tries to claim World War II as "the Last Good War", he retorts that there are no good wars. In his view soldiers are not fighting for abstractions like patriotism, freedom and democracy, but for their comrades, which is why he regards desertion as such a heinous wrong. (Draft-dodging, by comparison, is a lesser offence because it does not involve a betrayal of the men who have fought alongside you). I see the film as being more about America's need for reconciliation after the conflict, reconciliation between the generations and between those who had taken opposite political positions. 7/10.
