Le Rocher du diable

The film deals with an old rivalry between two former West Point Academy roommates , under the present circumstances are on opposite sides in Georgia 1861 during the American Civil War (1861-1865) . War breaks outs , both of whom are Officers from Union (Guy Madison) and Confederation (James Craig) , besides they compete for the same woman (a gorgeous and blue-eyes Barbara Payton) and wind up in a military showdown . The film is a historical drama based on true facts which narrate the Sherman campaign over Georgia . The general established his reputation as a successful and relentless ruler , an advocate of total war he believed in bringing hostilities to a quick end inflicting the hell of war on the civil population , destroying goods , crops , public buildings and factories . On his 'March to the Sea' through Georgia , Sherman burned and destroyed on a sixty-mile-wide front . In the movie , Confederates put cannons in the Mountain of the Devil for attack supplies trains lead towards Atlanta and the Union soldiers use a big naval cannon .

This historic drama takes parts from ¨Gone with the wind¨ , it packs a loving triangle with action , shootouts and suspense . The film is starred by Guy Madison , an usual Western actor as American as Spaghetti Western . Principal protagonist is Barbara Payton (she formerly acted in important films as ¨Dallas¨, ¨Only the valiant¨) as one of the saddest stories from dark chronicle Hollywood . Attractive blonde sexpot and her life eventually disintegrated , mostly for her own doings . She was the subject of a spread in Confidential Magazine in the early 1950s when then fiancé Franchot Tone allegedly caught in bed with Guy Madison . Tone later married her , despite of the indiscretion , in addition she had a tempestuous relationship with Tom Neal . But happened the downfall , her once enticing countenance now blotchy and once sensational figure now bloated , Barbara sank deeper into the bottle and had several brushes with law , among them public boozy , bad checks and ultimate prostitution . The 39 years former star was found on the bathroom floor . The picture is rightly directed by William Cameron Menzies , rather known as production designer such as ¨The thief of Bagdad¨ and ¨Gone with the wind¨ , and realized two Sci-fi classics as ¨Invasors of Mars¨ and ¨Things to come¨ .

I had a really hard time figuring out whether to give this a 5 or a 6. The film has a few things going for it but on the other hand it has some definite problems. I finally settled on a 6. I gave it a point for quirkiness.

The casting of James Craig was obviously intended to evoke Clark Gable and Rhett Butler. Too obviously. Craig's vocal performance seemed to indicate that he also wanted to play up the Clark Gable angle. It was a bit distracting during the love scenes but he seemed to, thankfully, drift away from it during the action sequences.

Guy Madison was cast because he was easy to look at. But his performance was anything but easy to look at. His character gyrated wildly from manic damnyankee enemy to soft hearted friend of the family. I couldn't tell if he was possessed or just in serious need of some mood stabilizing drugs.

I never developed an empathy with the leading male and female characters. Every time they passionately kissed I kept thinking about her poor naive husband off surrounded by Sherman's Army while she played footsie with his alleged old best West Point friend.

The special effects were very interesting and quite well done. But its hard to imagine that anybody ever grew any cotton in the rocky scrub that looked remarkably like Southern California during wildfire season. If you are going to spend the special effects money to matte in a giant plantation house you can at least matte it into a rich green landscape rather than a rocky gulch.

I won't even mention (well actually I will) the fact that the main geographical feature of the movie is a hollowed out, honeycombed, Devil's Tower from Close Encounters. Only this one is smack dab in the middle of Georgia! The makers of this movie would have had better luck just using the real Stone Mountain and pretended it was hollow. I kept expecting the mother ship to hover over the mountain.

The explosive ending seemed to be the result of the writer suddenly realizing that he had to finish his script in the next two sentences. I can't say I've seen a film that only needs 2 seconds to wrap everything up and turn off the lights.

But there are a few good things that made this movie appealing. Your generic Civil War movie has a smashing good Cavalry charge in it and lots of dashing guys on horses waving swords and flags. You know they do. This film went WAY off the beaten path. The heroes of this film are the artillery.....yes....you heard it right.....the heroes are exclusively the Confederate Artillery. That deserves a rating point right there. They even got the Confederate artillery uniform colors right. Its not often you see a Civil War film where the difference between a Dahlgren gun and a Brooke's Rifle is essential to the plot. The artillery battles were handled quite skillfully.

This is essentially a fifties matinee action picture. But the makers did manage to insert a couple of quite beautiful moments into the film. For a moment, a hard-hearted, oppressive, damnyankee skulker becomes human when he presents a photograph of his two babies and thinks wistfully of his family and his farm. More than one character mentions that he didn't start the war, that he was just playing the role assigned to him on the great stage. A few quiet moments about the war's real meaning and effect in this odd little shoot 'em up.

Make no mistake, Guy Madison invented the word "cool". Any dictionary dated before his birth that has the word "cool" in it, is a forgery.

Knowing this helps to cast him in the correct role. He was meant to be the "cool" character who makes sense out of situations in which lesser characters lose their heads.

Here, he is perfectly cast. He is the fourth character, actually, in the love triangle, which is where he does best.

The southern belle's husband appears only briefly, and is afterwards only spoken of in his endeavors in this Civil War adventure.

The other member of the triangle is an artillery officer for the South, who resembles Gable in looks, but in character is more like John Wayne.

Guy Madison plays the Union artillery officer opposing him. He is also a friend of all three of the other characters.

The story is a familiar one, one that has been made many times since, of Confederates on a mountain, trying to buy time for their army.

What really makes this film special is that it could have been cliché, but it avoids all of the clichés. The characters are probably much too believable and three dimensional for the modern beavis or butthead, but easy for most people to relate to and feel some empathy for. This is not for the IMDb bubble boy.

The soldiers are especially three dimensional. One Union soldier whom we expect to be the usual cliché jerk, actually becomes a very sympathetic character in this drama.

The events seem to be written as they occur. Nothing looks contrived, so when we find the coincidence of the friends meeting in battle on opposite sides, it becomes the only coincidence, making it quite credible, as in a world where there are a million possible coincidences an hour, one is sure to happen.

It is the natural flow and non judgmental occurrences, where the chips land wherever they may land, that make this special.

Excellent war Western.

I usually don't hold out much hope when it comes to movies about Mr. Lincoln's War. Hollywood seldom gets it right on all things Southern and/or Confederate. I think the leading lady's contempt for the Yankees was accurate. And I believe that the movie generally portrayed the Yankee attitudes accurately. The most I had a problem with in this movie was the liberal propaganda garbage at the end about us becoming a unified and indivisible nation. The reconstruction and the general attitudes for the South following the war contradict that concept completely.

I did notice a chronological error toward the beginning of the movie. When it is announced that war has been declared. Clay states that he is going to report to Richmond. At the beginning of the war a capital had not been established for the Confederacy, not to mention the first one was in Alabama. And even more importantly, Virginia had not yet seceded.

As a whole the movie was okay and I would give it an overall recommendation.

Other than moving quite slowly at times, especially in the beginning, this Civil War feature is not bad. The story is interesting, and eventually it has a fair amount of action and tension. The cast and characters are adequate, if nothing more, and while the settings and details sometimes stretch history and/or credibility, in a more general sense the situation rings true with the kinds of things that happened during the conflict.

The beginning sets up two potential conflicts, with a romantic rivalry intersecting with a friendship that will be tested by the fighting between north and south. It takes rather longer than necessary to establish things, but it moves at a better pace when the main story starts. The main plot, which concerns the desperation effort of a small band of Confederate soldiers to break up a crucial Union supply line, produces some interesting drama and is told with generally interesting details. It's a solid feature with enough to make it worth seeing.