Yellowneck

An interesting plot premise is killed with poor direction and a lot of overacting with Yellowneck. There's also a distinct lack of characters who you really root for to get out of the Everglades.

Republic released this film in 1955 about five men who are Confederate Army deserters and not some of the greatest specimens of manhood you'll ever want to encounter. Lin McCarthy, Billl Mason, Harold Gordon, and Berry Kroeger are the deserters and from some of the names you know that by the type of roles they've played. Later on they're joined by Stephen Courtleigh, a colonel who deserted the Star And Bars. He's got pretensions, but deep down he's no better than the other four.

For the one and there is only one who makes it there is then the minor problem of crossing 90 miles of ocean to Cuba. Still it is an achievement to have survived the Everglades and all that inhabit it.

If you care to watch you can find out which one survives.

What this really needed was a star... He needn't have been an A-lister, but it really required a lynch-pin character to hold it together. As it is, it hasn't, so is little better than a mediocre swamp adventure film that follows a band of fleeing Confederate soldiers trying to escape the war and traverse the treacherous Everglades heading for Cuba? The photography is colourful but that's about it. None of the characters are interesting, likeable or remotely engaging; the plot and the dialogue are weak and by half way through I found myself wondering if they could even swim! Not good, sorry....

Five Confederate soldiers go AWOL, and risk the swamps of the Everglades to head to Cuba, as opposed to what they've been through already.

If you get the feeling not all of them will survive, you'd be correct.

A movie like this tries to play for both adventurous entertainment and credibility.

"Yellowneck" straddles the line in a way that makes you feel like you haven't been totally cheated out of an hour of your life. It isn't classic, in my opinion, but it isn't nearly as contrived as many other such movies.

When one weighs a movie like this, the deciding weight is in the credibility of the plot, story, and characters.

We have an inkling who will survive, and the way the film goes about this process is perhaps a little contrived, but not very contrived.

If you watch this, I feel safe to say you will also rate it close to middle ground, like I did.

This modestly budgeted oddity from the mid-fifties is as good an example as I can think of of how to make something out of nothing. Set in the waning days of the Civil War, Yellowneck follows several Confederate army deserters in their flight through the Florida Everglades. The actors are all good and the predicament these characters are in is dramatized with a fair amount of realism. Poisonous snakes, insects and alligators abound, as these unfortunate men have gone from the hell of the Civil War into the frying pan of the swamp. They squabble amongst one another a good deal, but their biggest enemy is nature itself, which seems to be conspiring against them at every turn. One comes to like some of these men very much, and despise others. The pathetic nature of their plight is always apparent, and we cannot help but feel for them as they slog through the mud, their hopes diminishing with each passing day. A fine. psychologically provocative piece of film-making, in tone and sensibility, a sort of cross between Ambrose Bierce and Albert Camus.

Never waste 90 minutes of your time on this terrible take on Civil War. Some old films were never good, and this is one of them. The story of 5 Cofederate deserters (Yellownecks, as they were called) could have been OK, but here it was not. Slow, poorly shot film is only good for the Florida Everglade views, animals, snakes, gators, jungles, bogs and rivers. The 5 actors are intermittently forgettable ad pathetic. They encounter almost every ordeal on the way and it is obvious which next they will come soon into. Nay, sirs, this was not good in the 50's, it is boring and dull now. What is especially bad, is that we feel no pity for them. The film is cold and bland, and the performance is rather mediocre. Just going slowly and very predictably. You know the end at the very beginning and you know it will be not cool to watch it with any interest. Utterly forgettable and banal