Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

bkoganbing Journey To Shiloh has several young players in its cast who were either big names on TV already or would attain greatness on the big screen. Playing the seven who are young west Texans who are eager to join up and fight for the Confederacy are James Caan, Michael Sarrazin, Harrison Ford, Jan-Michael Vincent, Don Stroud, and Paul Petersen. A budget would be busted if you tried to get all of them in the same film a decade.Caan leads the group of them who are bound for Virginia to join General Hood's Texas brigade. But they manage to get as far as Vicksburg where they find the war they're looking for. On the way these kids and they are really kids learn some life lessons. Most don't make it back from the Battle of Shiloh, some don't even get that far.For one thing they're all from West Texas where the cowboys are and know nothing from slavery. Had they been raised in East Texas they would have been thoroughly familiar with the cotton culture of the Confederacy. They run into slaves trying to be free and slave catchers trying to catch them. Albert Popwell stands out here as a runaway slave.Paul Petersen is a revelation. He plays a young fast gun with a hair trigger temper. Totally unlike all American Jeff Stone on the Donna Reed Show.John Doucette plays General Braxton Bragg whose performance does not ring true in terms of what I know of Bragg. In fact the whole ending does not ring true because of the character of Bragg for the film.Still this is a pretty good film and timely in terms of the Vietnam War and people being disillusioned with war and what it brings.

eklund-par As a political anti-war statement it has its points but as a western, it's quite awful. The acting is cheerful and jolly in the same way as in Bonanza or High Chaparral. The main characters remain smiling and optimistic even when all their friends are getting killed in the war. The guys have 60's style hair and the gals are made up in the same fashion. In fact you feel like you are watching the musical Oklahoma and everybody will start to sing soon, but alas. The film is mostly set in a studio and the battle scenes seem to be from another movie, or a documentary of some sort. It's low-budget all over. James Caan is solid even with the funny hair and Harrison Ford couldn't act even then. It's actually hard to believe that this was made during the same time as Once Upon a Time In the West. I give it a 4 just because I'm a sucker for westerns. Silly.

Spikeopath Journey to Shiloh is directed by William Hale and adapted to screenplay by Gene L. Coon from the novel written by Will Henry. It stars James Caan, Michael Sarrazin, Brenda Scott, Albert Popwell, Harrison Ford, Jan-Michael Vincent, Robert Pine and Noah Beery Junior. Music is by David Gates (supervision Joseph Gershenson) and Technicolor cinematography by Enzo Martinelli.Seven young Texans journey east to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Full of ideas of noble glory for the war effort, the group have their eyes rudely opened by the prejudice and snobbery they encounter along the way.Rock of Ages.Film is bookended by a cheesy song that first tells of the young men setting off for the journey, then latterly of what became of them upon their final destinations. Throw in some pretty wooden acting away from the lead player and mix in a score that sounds like it belongs in the Pink Panther cartoon show, well you would naturally expect the film to be something of a disaster? Yet there is much to recommend here for the discerning fan of Civil War yarns.The Pensacola Light Blues.Picture gets its strength from the interest garnered by the source story and the lead performance by a youthful, wig wearing, Caan. Story is potent as an anti-war piece, the parallels with the then current Vietnam War, and the feelings running high at that time, are hard to ignore. Here the lads have their ideals punctured by events that happen out on the trail. Firstly some in fighting upsets the equilibrium and this sets the tone for the rest of the picture. An encounter with a runaway slave, and the aftermath of said encounter, really puts a serrated edge on the plotting. Young men off to be brave and fight the good fight, do they know what for? They then are surprised by public resistance to their bravado, you see not everyone wants a war, lads.Cos we're fixin to shove that there General Grant and them blue bellied soldiers of his-plum into Lake Erie.A pointless romantic interlude threatens to derail the picture, but the makers overcome it by dropping in some good action. A bar room brawl at Munroe is most enjoyable, and then once the guys find themselves enlisted into the Pensacola Light Blues, with Beery Junior arriving and putting his mark on the picture, we move onto the horrors of war. Here we lurch onto The Battle of Shiloh (AKA: Battle of Pittsburgh Landing) which is resplendent with artillery galore and much flinging around of stunt men. It's well constructed but sadly too short in length. Filmed out of Agoura in California, the scenery is an extra bonus and an enjoyable character accompaniment as story unfolds.All told it's a mixed bag of a viewing, but the good far outweighs the bad to make this a sleeper of an Oater worth seeking out. While future stars of film and TV taking tentative steps in the acting world also holds a high interest factor here. 7/10

zardoz-13 "Gunfight in Abilene" director William Hale's "Journey to Shiloh" qualifies as a fair to middling anti-war western set during the dawn of the American Civil War. "Star Trek" writer Gene L. Coon runs the protagonists through a gauntlet of predicaments that reveal their naivety. Furthermore, he relies on a healthy dosage of literary irony to score points for this downbeat oater. "Laredo" producer Howard Christie, however, missed the mark with "Journey to Shiloh." The heroes are cannon fodder and Hale doesn't depict them in any remotely memorable way.Buck Burnett (James Caan of "The Killer Elite") leads six wild and woolly lads from West Texas eager to get into the fighting. Miller Nails (Michael Sarrazin of "The Film-Flam Man"),Todo McLean (Don Stroud of "Joe Kidd"), J.C. Sutton (Paul Peterson), Eubie Bell (Michael Burns of "The Raiders"), Little Bit (Jan-Michael Vincent of "Airwolf"), and Willie Bill Bearden (Harrison Ford of "Raiders of the Lost Ark) ride together with Buck as their self-appointed captain. These well-meaning fellows are clueless about the Civil War and its causes. They've never laid eyes on an African-American slave, and they've never seen a Yankee soldier. Nevertheless, they are determined to get to Richmond, Virginia, to join Confederate General John Bell Hood and his celebrated Texas Brigade. Like the tragic, message-laden adventure it is, our heroes are destined to have their dreams shattered. By the time that everything is over, only one survives, and he loses a limb. Our heroes do get to participate in the historic battle of Shiloh that appears to consist largely of stock footage borrowed from Andrew V. McLagen's "Shenandoah." The cast is strong with a couple of future stars in the ranks, chiefly Harrison Ford and Jan-Michael Vincent. Veteran heavy John Doucette is hopelessly miscast as the martinet Confederate General Braxton Bragg, while the ever dependable Noah Beery Jr., plays a savvy CSA sergeant.Essentially, this Civil War western is a tale initiation. It doesn't take long for everything to go literally South for our protagonists. After they wear their horses out, they sell them to get tickets to ride the stagecoach. They encounter a runaway slave (Albert Popwell of "Dirty Harry") and they are appalled at the treatment he receives because they were obeying the local laws. Indeed, "Journey to Shiloh" exploits this opportunity to impunge Southern racial intolerance and show how naive our heroes are about slavery. Popwell attained fame as the black bank robber that Inspector Callahan pulled his Magnum 44 on in "Dirty Harry" and gave his lecture about his gun. Between the time that these footloose hellions—experts with horses—pull up stakes from West Texas and head out for Mississippi, they tangle with crooked gamblers in Shreveport, take on the entire southern army in a saloon brawl with a loud-mouthed corporal (Bing Russell of "The Magnificent Seven") and eventually get to Corinth wearing Confederate gray uniforms.Scenarist Gene L. Coon and Hale carefully avoid presenting the Confederacy in a derogatory light. Instead, they give the antebellum slave-owning Southerners a black eye. The wealthy, upper-class, plantation-owning Southerners refuse to let our heroes participate at a cotillion because Burnett and company look, smell, and act like ruffians. In reality, Burnett and his followers are just a bunch of ignorant, unwashed fools that should have stayed in West Texas. Nothing good comes from their act of volunteering to join the Confederacy. The comparison between "Journey to Shiloh" and West Germany anti-Nazi movie "The Bridge" is appropriate. Actually, "The Bridge" was better. However, the convention of all Nazi World War II movies is that the enemy kill their own, and "Journey to Shiloh" replicates this with the Confederacy. The Caan hero is shot by his own Army. This smattering of irony enhances the plot but not enough to overlook its numerous flaws.Universal Studios filmed this western on their back lot so none of the scenery appears authentic. James Caan looks miscast with long hair. Harrison Ford gives a good account of himself while Jan Michael Vincent oozes youthful vibrancy."Journey to Shiloh" ranks as nothing memorable, just a polished potboiler with a little sizzle to it. The story is relentlessly depressing without any sense of poignancy. The dream of joining the Confederacy becomes a nightmare. Worse, some of our heroes perish off camera, such as Willie Bill, so we don't see their valiant deaths. The ballad is atrociously corny, too. As far as American Civil War movies go, "Journey to Shiloh" doesn't belong in the same league with "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" or "Gods & Generals."