Western Sky and Western Memory
Rocky Mountain (1950)
directed by William Keighley
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Errol Flynn was the right man to play the Southern ideal of Confederate chivalry when it was still okay for Hollywood to openly glorify the Lost Cause. Or maybe it still is, but not in a way that ignores the principal historical argument for secession: slaves. Flynn excelled at the part of a beaten man with his head held high; unlike Duke, who rarely died onscreen, Flynn died routinely, and well.
I don't know if the premise of Rocky Mountain - a run-down group of Rebel soldiers attempt to lead an uprising of Confederate sympathizers in "California" - is true. But when Flynn's Captain Lafe Barstow (CSA) reminisces about his plantation with a view of the river, I just don't believe him. The movie was filmed near Gallup, New Mexico, on a hill so true you recognize the unmistakable click of boot heels on sandstone.
Most of the second half takes place at night, with war drums beating in the background. A slim Slim Pickens, in his first role, corrals his fellow stuntmen/actors to their own slaughter, when the mission to save the Confederacy inevitably becomes a mission to save a girl. One speaks a love letter to eating oysters, and one tells a story of serving Robert E. Lee a plate of food post-Gettysburg. The cook apologized for the lack of greens, but Lee, gazing into the distance, responded with only "It's elegant."
Elegiac, he meant, at the press conference for Rocky Mountain, but too explicit in its loyalties for me. A late-1940s sedan pulls up to a historical marker as the movie begins, before the camera cuts back through time. The desert looks exactly the same.
directed by William Keighley
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Errol Flynn was the right man to play the Southern ideal of Confederate chivalry when it was still okay for Hollywood to openly glorify the Lost Cause. Or maybe it still is, but not in a way that ignores the principal historical argument for secession: slaves. Flynn excelled at the part of a beaten man with his head held high; unlike Duke, who rarely died onscreen, Flynn died routinely, and well.
I don't know if the premise of Rocky Mountain - a run-down group of Rebel soldiers attempt to lead an uprising of Confederate sympathizers in "California" - is true. But when Flynn's Captain Lafe Barstow (CSA) reminisces about his plantation with a view of the river, I just don't believe him. The movie was filmed near Gallup, New Mexico, on a hill so true you recognize the unmistakable click of boot heels on sandstone.
Most of the second half takes place at night, with war drums beating in the background. A slim Slim Pickens, in his first role, corrals his fellow stuntmen/actors to their own slaughter, when the mission to save the Confederacy inevitably becomes a mission to save a girl. One speaks a love letter to eating oysters, and one tells a story of serving Robert E. Lee a plate of food post-Gettysburg. The cook apologized for the lack of greens, but Lee, gazing into the distance, responded with only "It's elegant."
Elegiac, he meant, at the press conference for Rocky Mountain, but too explicit in its loyalties for me. A late-1940s sedan pulls up to a historical marker as the movie begins, before the camera cuts back through time. The desert looks exactly the same.
posted by NPK at 11:44 AM
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