This Savage Land

A routine Western made in TV style, in fact it turns out to be the pilot for the television series 'The Road West ', originally aired in two episodes. At the end of the American Civil War, the Pride family decides to leave their native Ohio and begin a new life in the eastern part of the country. The family is made up of Ohio widower Ben Pride (Barry Sullivan) and children: youngsters Timothy Pride (Andrew Prine), Margaret 'Midge' Pride (Brenda Scott), little boy Christopher 'Kip' Pride (Kelly Corcoran) and grandparents (Charles Seel, Katherine Squire). Things go wrong, when they arrive in Lawrence (Kansas). There, the veteran widower patriarch falls in love with a young girl called Elizabeth (Kathryn Hays), the daughter of the town doctor (Roy Roberts). Ben ask her to marry him and build a new home, but Ben's daughter (Brenda Scott) is not so happen about her new mother in-law. Furthermore, Elizabeth Reynolds wants to leave town and move back East and while the marauders raid the town, resulting in fateful consequences. There takes place the looting and burning of Lawrence , Kansas , actually occurred on 21 August 1863 also known as Quantrill's Raid -although the film is apparently set just after the Civil War (19861-1865) .

This ordinary, functional Western contains run-of-the-mill plot , intrigue , thrills , shootouts and results to be entertaining enough. Dealing with the typical conflict in which a family shortly after the Civil War moves to a new savage land and is really harassed by Confederate marauders. Regular Western balances action, intriga, romance and drama. Partially based on historical events just after the Civil War happened in which the Bushwhackers use guerrilla warfare to destroy Yankee targets and led by men set on revenge, make a raid into Lawrence, Kansas. The picture efficiently describes the atmosphere of violence in which Women and Blacks have few rights, confrontation among bands and bloody battles. The highlights of the film are the climatic raids on the little town Lawrence (Kansas), and, of course, the final confrontation. The traditional story and exciting screenplay was middlingly written by Richard Fielder though clichés run through-out, there're also some distinguished events and dramatical attitudes. The enjoyable tale is enhanced for interesting moments developed among main characters and especially on the relationship between Barry Sullivan and Kathryn Hays. The film features several fine supporting actors, such as Glenn Corbett, 'John Drew Barrymore' of the prestigious Barrymore family of actors, playing a vicious, sadistic sociopath who take advantage of the frightened townspeople, and the always great George C. Scott before he went on to the pantheon of fame with his 'Patton'; George C Scott performs a truly good/bad role and he is an awesome expert in the art of conjuring sensational acting .

It contains an evocative cinematography regularly caught by cameraman William Margulies, being really necessary a perfect remastering. As well as atmospheric and lively musical score by Leonard Rosenman. This is another costumary Western being averagely directed by Vincent McEveety , son of director Bernard McEveety. Vincent was an expert craftsman filmmaking occasionally for cinema such as ¨Herbie, Torero¨ , ¨Amy¨ , ¨The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again¨ , ¨Gus¨, ¨The Strongest Man in the World¨ and usually directed several TV episodes such as: ¨Diagnosis murder¨, ¨Colombo¨, ¨Pensacola¨ , ¨Perry Mason¨, ¨T. J. Hooker¨, ¨Airwolf¨ , ¨Dallas¨ , ¨Cimarron¨ , ¨Gunsmoke¨ and ¨Star Trek ¨ . His best film was : ¨Firecreek¨ a star-studded Western with James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Gary Lockwood, Barbara Luna, Brooke Bundy and Morgan Woodward; it's a classical recounting about an unexperienced marshal in charge of a village full of cowards and frightening people; being probably one of the best Westerns in the fifties and sixties. ¨This Savage Land¨ rating: 4.5/10. A simple and plain Western without much interest except for hardcore fans of the genre.

Widower Barry Sullivan takes his parents and children out west to make them a new life. Along the way they encounter such hardships as bandits led by George C. Scott, an obdurate land, and lovely Kathryn Hays.

It's a TV movie, edited from THE ROAD WEST, the series that ran for a single season in 1966 and 1967. This turned up as a two-part show a couple of years later on NBC. It offers itself as an ambitious effort, with some interesting talent, but it looks like a typical effort of the era, a family saga like THE BIG VALLEY, part soap opera, part western. With the visuals and music by Leonard Rosenman,filled with the standard sounds of the era, when the movie western was all but dead and the TV western in decline. In the end, if you enjoy this sort of thing, you'll enjoy this a lot. Me, I found the racketing from action to love story uneven; the editing of more than 22 hours of showtime down to a hundred minutes made the plot seem rushed and uneven.

I spotted this film in a very brief listing of the day's TV, which gave only George C Scott's name. It turned out that he was a "special guest star" with not so many lines as several other actors, but his was the most dominant screen presence.

The whole film turned out to be a reasonable way of filling in 90 minutes after a hard day in the garden, but I wouldn't want to watch it again. I groaned a little when the cute kid complete with piglet appeared, but he turned out not to be too much of a pain. I did wonder why the bad guys, having burned one of the Pride family's wagons and giving them until next morning to clear out, then allowed them to stay long enough to build a sod hut - which seemed to go up very quickly, given the lack of labour! What jarred the most was the instant attraction between Barry Sullivan (in his late 50s) and Kathryn Hays (looking far younger than her mid-30s. Gary Cooper, Randolph Scott and Cary Grant could get away with such an age difference, but not Sullivan, who looked his age in some of the close-ups. And he may have been wearing a toupee, but he needed a lot of work on his teeth! In contrast Kathryn Hays looked pretty good, especially when she was responding to Sullivan's romancing.

Quite why the township was called Lawrence I don't know; the real Lawrence was the victim of a ferocious attack by Quantrill's Raiders, whereas in the film the bad guys seemed only to want to put out of business a critical newspaper and were under orders not to kill anyone.

I found this TV movie a quite satisfying one, albeit somewhat disjointed. It is what it is. A 60's low budget TV western with a surprisingly good cast. Barry Sullivan looks older than his years but plays his part well. The rest of the cast are decent too although second billed Glen Corbett only turns up near the end. Why George C Scott agreed to appear in this I don't know. The one real saving grace in this is the performance of John Drew Barrymore as Stacy Daggart. He has a real presence!!

Ohio widower Ben Pride (Barry Sullivan) moves to Kansas with his parents and children shortly after the Civil War. When they arrive in Lawrence they are harassed by Confederate marauders led by Jud Barker (George C. Scott). Ben also has matters of the heart to contend with as he starts to fall for Elizabeth Reynolds (Kathryn Hays), the daughter of the local doctor.

This is basically a TV movie that was spliced together from a TV series in the 60s called The Road West. It's a bit uneven and certain character factors are hard to swallow - such as the 21 year gap between the Sullivan and Hays romance, and the underuse of Scott's complex character - yet it's well performed and has the requisite Western staples to please fans of the genre. 5.5/10