Les orgueilleux

Chuck Connors is featured in this western about a group of American civil war veterans traveling in South America. After being run out of one country they wind up as the "guests" of a Columbian General intent on conquest. In a situation where they don't have a lot of choice, they agree to go to the town of San Carlos to spy out the city and report back to the General. While in San Carlos they wind up being the "guests" of the mayor played by Cesar Romero. Two subplots unfold involving women and the group, leading to predictable conflict and violence, with a surprising twist for the group's leader, played by Connors. Ultimately battle breaks out with elements of treachery and surprise. Marred by some dumb dialog, this film is recommended only for die-hard western lovers.

"The Proud and The Damned" is a western that should be seen by any big western fan. You know the good guys from the bad guys by the way the dress (Good guys wear different clothes and the bad guys wear a funny-looking blue uniform with a red scarf around their necks). This film should have won an award for "best costume design" because every time i saw the bad guys running around in those unique, blue, western leisure suits, I laughed my head off and was immediately blown away with the artistic talent and creative efforts in thinking of those uniforms. We all know mexicans didn't wear those kind of clothes. The film has it's "shoot-outs" with cannons, it's original dialogue ("Hey Will, do you think they'll be waiting for us over by that hill of mud?...."You bet your tail!"), and it's daring anti-climax (The good guys lose) that makes it a very realistic piece of american/mexican cinema. Watch for Cesar Romero's final scene as he demands that Chuck Connors pays for the food that he and his men has eaten in a mexican whorehouse....( Cesar Romero)- "Pay for your food mister!" (Chuck Connors) - "The women and the sex we pay for but the food's free, Mr. Mayor cuase I say so." Marvelous

The Proud and the Damned is an historical-fiction western starring Chuck Conners and a relatively unknown, but not bad, cast. The film appears to have been filmed in the Chihuahuan Desert, though the setting is inexplicably identified as South America early-on.

Conners leads a group of refugee confederate soldiers traveling through a country in the middle of its own civil war. Apparently, Conners' boys have taken a few odd jobs as mercenaries en-route, and both sides in the present conflict want their help.

The film is essentially an American-made spaghetti-western, without the plot convolutions and tension (or Clint Eastwood) that made this genre so interesting. About mid-way through the story, the film meanders and seems fated to fizzle into oblivion rather than going out with a bang, but it does eventually wander back to its track. The script is occasionally bloated, but not bad. Once in a while, the film actually presents some interesting anthropological points. The acting is surprisingly OK. And the sets, scenery and cinematography are good.

It won't kill you. This is a much more entertaining western than I had anticipated. However, I will limit my recommendation to fans of western movies.

Chuck Connors, Aron Kincaid, Smokey Roberds, Henry Capps, and Peter Ford, play the title roles in The Proud And Damned. Probably this film's only distinction is it's the only film I've seen and reviewed that was shot in Colombia. Fitting as the location for the action is some unnamed South American country.

These five are Confederate veterans who've gone south and have kicked around selling their military experience as mercenaries and now just want to go home. But time and circumstance force them to get involved in a local war between a would be dictator in Andres Marquis and Cesar Romero the Alcalde of a medium size town who is not happy about Marquis challenging his hegemony.

Our cast looks distinctly unhappy in their roles and deliver the perfunctory performances to prove it. Even Jose Greco merely recycles only a part of what he gave to his role in Ship Of Fools as a gypsy whore master. We do however get to see Greco the great flamenco dancer in a number in the film.

This whole crew looks like it's waiting for their salary checks to clear.

It is so obvious that Ferde Grofe Jr was more than inspired by Sam Peckinpah's WILD BUNCH and John Sturges' MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. It kas place in mexico where former Confederate soldiers, outcasts, cross the Mexican border before being tragically involved with a Mexican renegade geeral, brutal, blood thirsty high rate officer. Then our bunch will decide to save a poor village from the villain....Even a dumb could see what I am talking about. A typical seventies western. Counter culture best example. Melancholy, gloominess, lost ideals, friendship in bitterness....Everything I have always craved for in a movie. Ferde Grofe has never been a great not even a good director, but let's be indulgetnt and fair, he is not the worst ever either.