Les orgueilleux

"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 odd, zero-budget western that was filmed in Colombia. That novelty value is about the only thing this has going for it as otherwise it's a completely routine oater that feels like a low-budget, low-effort riff on THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. The storyline involves a group of rather dull mercenary types who hole up in a small village during a revolution and soon find themselves getting involved in the action.

Although there's plentiful action in this movie, none of it is very good. It doesn't help matters much that the quality of the print I saw was absolutely pitiful, one of the worst-looking westerns ever. The Colombian locations are effective but the direction is very poor and this feels like an old 1930s-era film rather than a '70s movie. Chuck Connors and Cesar Romero co-star.

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.

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.

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.