ALVAREZ KELLY

At first glance, ALVAREZ KELLY (1966) looks like a standard mid-'60s Western. But calling it a "Western" isn't exactly accurate. Oh sure, it's got cowboys, cattle, gun battles and other genre tropes but the the film is more aptly described as an "Eastern".  Set in 1864 during the Civil War, the majority of the action in KELLY takes place in Virginia, the Richmond area to be specific and last time I looked at a map of the United States, Virginia is definitely not a western state. 

Still in all, ALVAREZ KELLY is a handsomely mounted production, ably directed by Edward Dmytryk from a screenplay by Franklin Coen and Elliott Arnold. Loosely based on an actual incident during the war, KELLY is the story of one Alvarez Kelly (William Holden), an American ex-patriot living in Mexico. He makes a living selling Mexican cattle to any one with the money to meet his price and at the beginning of the film, that means the United States Army. General Grant has ordered the purchase of a large herd of cattle to be transported to Richmond to feed the Union troops who have the Confederate capitol surrounded and under siege. The Army officer in charge of the operation is Major Steadman (Patrick O'Neal) and no sooner does Kelly deliver the cattle to Steadman's command, than he's captured by the one-eyed Confederate Colonel Tom Rossiter (Richard Widmark). Rossiter plans to rustle the cattle right under Grant's nose in order to feed the starving rebels under his command. Kelly is forced to co-operate because only he has the cattle herding knowledge and expertise to pull off the daring raid.

A sub-plot finds Kelly romancing Rossiter's girlfriend, Liz Pickering (Janice Rule) before helping her to escape from Richmond on board a Confederate blockade runner captained by Angus Ferguson (Roger C. Carmel, who played Harry Mudd in two episodes of the original STAR TREK television series). Major Steadman senses that something is up and begs his commanding officer, General Kautz (Barry Atwater, who played the Vegas vampire in the original made-for-television movie, THE NIGHT STALKER) for more troops.

Everything comes to an explosive climax when Kelly and Rossiter steal the cattle and drive them towards a small bridge held by Steadman and his troops. The action in this sequence is well staged although the same shot of Holden riding past the camera, slapping his hip with a coiled rope, is used over and over and over and over again. 

Filmed on locations in Louisiana and the Civil War battlefield areas around Richmond, ALVAREZ KELLY is an entertaining film, the kind of fare that Hollywood turned out by the hundreds in the 1950s and 1960s. The shock waves set off in the Western genre by the films of Sergio Leone were just beginning to be felt while Sam Peckinpah's revolutionary THE WILD BUNCH (1969 and also starring William Holden), was still a few years off.

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