"Journey to Shiloh" (1968) details the story of seven youths from Concho County in near-West Texas who travel across the Mississippi to join the Confederate Army and kick some Yankee arse. While they intend to ride to Richmond, Virginia, they end up hooking up with Braxton Bragg's Gulf Coast outfit and fighting in Shiloh, Tennessee. The male ingénues learn a lot on their long journey and their introduction to soldiering and war. Who lives and who dies?
James Caan plays the main protagonist, "Captain" Buck Burnett, while the other six "teens" (all well into their 20s) are Michael Sarrazin, Don Stroud, Jan-Michael Vincent, Michael Burns, Paul Petersen and, believe it or not Harrison Ford, a full nine years before his breakthrough with Star Wars, but don't get too excited as he gets the least screen time of the bunch.
On the downside, Universal was huge on TV movies at the time and so "Journey to Shiloh" looks like a TV movie; in fact, it was directed by one of their TV movie directors. So don't expect the cinematic scope of contemporaneous Westerns, like "Duel at Diablo," "Bandolero!," "Hang 'Em High" and "Shalako." It looks serviceable, but also phony and stale. A big part of the phoniness is due to the fake Southern countryside, as the movie was shot in Agoura and Thousand Oaks, California, but takes place in East Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and adjoining regions. No matter how you slice it, California doesn't look like the deep South, not to mention the studio sets. Another issue is the movie's cartoony vibe. Things that would ordinarily take much longer occur with the quickness of a comic book.
Despite these glaring flaws, I found myself ignoring them in favor of the story, particularly as it moved along. You feel like you get to know most of the gang by the end of the movie, Harrison's character being the biggest exception. The "boys" grow from wide eyed youngsters to hardened men over the course of the movie, the biggest rude awakening of course being their baptism into soldiering and war.
Speaking of which, I really enjoyed the last third of the film that involves the youths joining up with Bragg's brigade, the ensuing warfare, deaths, injuries, possible desertion and aftermath. Although decidedly comic booky the movie offers a unique glimpse of being a Confederate soldier.
The film features no less than four beauties, albeit all relatively short roles: Tisha Sterling as Airybelle Sumner; the un-credited Susanne Benton as the blond saloon girl, Lucy; Brenda Scott as the brunette saloon girl who falls for Buck; and a nurse (Eileen Wesson).
FINAL WORD: Someone criticized "Journey to Shiloh" for its obvious low-budgeted faults by pointing out that it's no "Magnificent Seven" or "The Wild Bunch." While this may be technically true I found myself enjoying "Journey to Shiloh" more than these heralded Westerns. Yes, the movie has the unmistakable gloss of one of Universal's factory-made television movies, but it's strong in characters and story, cartoony or not. This is likely because the movie's based on Henry Wilson Allen's excellent novel (aka Will Henry). Some call it an "anti-war movie," but this isn't really true; it's simply a "showing-soldiering-and-war-the-way-it-really-was" movie.
The film runs 101 minutes.
GRADE: B
