It is appropriate that the title character is an undertaker for this final film from William Wyler feels like a mass funeral for all hopes of racial reconciliation in the America of 1970, (not that it's gotten any easier now). The last shot of the two white liberals and the lone black radical sitting on opposite sides of the train as it flees the benighted region of bigotry and violence says it all. You certainly do not expect that these thee will come together once the train passes from Kentucky to Ohio! A powerful, somber image to end a powerful, somber film. Somber but not dull. Sure the proceedings can get lurid at times, even semi trashy. But I prefer this to the heavy handed, messagey treatment Hollywood has often employed when dealing with black/white conflict. (See the ouevre of Stanley Kramer and his students). Indeed, had the screenplay, by Stirling Silliphant (revisiting racial bleakness after "In The Heat Of The Night") and Jesse Hill Ford (the novelist upon whose work the film is based and himself a tragic figure), been better, with a fuller examination of the white liberals' characters and their relationship with the white patrician lawyer, wonderfully played by Lee J Cobb, then this film would have approached greatness, in my opinion. As it is let us give it a B for a solid end to one of Hollywood's most distinguished directorial runs, as well as the performances of Cobb, Anthony Zerbe and Arch Johnson, playing two of the more despicable redneck cops you'll ever see, a young and intense Yaphet Kotto and, above all, Roscoe Lee Browne as defiant, unbending LB Jones. Haven't seen enough of this fine actor's work to say whether it's his best but it has to rank fairly high, one would think.
PS...I regularly excoriate TCM on its programming choices (like devoting an entire day to the work of Arlene Dahl or repeatedly showing "Wait Until Dark" and "Alice In Movieland") but I have to congratulate whoever came up with last month's spotlight on final films from great directors. A total blast. At the very least, (as in "Ambush"), interesting and at best, (as in "Madadayo"), eye opening.
