So much average

I'll tell you why so serious

hyped garbage

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Okay, we have a pre-perm James Caan. He got that first perm when he played Sonny in The Godfather 40 years ago and he will apparently be buried with it. We have Sarrazin, Vincent, and Ford; all who had very successful acting careers. We have Stroud and Popworth, who were featured in several Clint Eastwood flicks. The cast was good. The rest was poor. Cheap production - lots of stock footage and indoor sets with fake scenery. Anachronisms abound, as Brenda Scott sports a "That Girl" hairdo made famous by Marlo Thomas. The trouble is, it's supposed to be 1862 - the era of sausage curls - not 1968. I don't believe they had hairspray back then. Then, all of the men are clean shaven in an era where practically all men had beards. James Caan got shot in the arm, had the arm amputated, and is out and about the next day as if nothing had happened. Jan Michael Vincent has the phoniest death scene ever. Brenda Scott's fake eyelashes look like flyswatters. I could go on and on.....skip it.

I literally hadn't seen this film since my teenage years (when it originally aired) until now (2006), when it replayed on cable TV. The main cast included some of the most popular young actors of that time (the late 60's) -- and though the acting, direction and script aren't the finest work you'll ever see, it spoke to the youth of that day.The United States was fighting an unpopular war in Vietnam -- and this film focused on the confusion and waste that surrounded the Civil War. The result was to create a direct parallel between that historical war and the (then) current situation. And believe me, we got it! The deaths of six of the seven young men who went to war was found tragic by the audience -- who immediately compared it to deaths of friends and family.My sister and I just reflected on how popular the theme of desertion was in the 60's and 70's -- while men ran to Canada to avoid the draft. It seems odd now to watch a Civil War film where the protagonist deserts, but it was perfect in 1968! An interesting movie that's certainly worth seeing -- it features a young (pre-Godfather) James Caan. And another then unknown young actor by the name of Harrison Ford!

1968's "Journey to Shiloh" was made a couple years too early to be classified as a "counterculture antiwar" film, it was about the same time as John Wayne's "Green Berets", while most of the country was still solidly behind the war and only barely beginning to waiver. The story and the theme are virtually identical to a 1959 German film "Die Brucken", in which seven just inducted teenage boys watch as cynical Wehrmacht soldiers evacuate their town ahead of approaching American troops. Full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" of patriotic ideology, the seven boys stay to defend a useless bridge. Both films are somewhat unusual anti-war pictures because the enemy is essentially faceless and the theme derives more from the tragedy of easily influenced and manipulated young people. Aside from the obvious California scenery (which cannot even remotely pass for Texas or Mississippi), the absurd physical miscasting of John Doucette as General Braxton Bragg, and a rather weak battlefield sequence; "Journey to Shiloh" is reasonably accurate historically. I'm from Tom Green County, Texas (just west of Concho and Menard Counties- where the characters are from) and the boys' journey to get into the far away war was not uncommon for West Texas; where young men went to war seeking adventure without much clue what the fight was really about. Calling these actors "boys" requires considerable suspension of disbelief as most of them were in their mid to late 20's. James Caan is the leader, the story is told from his point of view and he gets the vast majority of the screen time. Other sixties notables in the group are Michael Sarrazin, Paul Petersen, Jan-Michael Vincent, and Harrison Ford (who gets the least screen time-yet would become the most famous). Interestingly, even the remaining two had their claims to fame. Michael Burns played Benjie "Blue Boy" Carter in the all-time camp classic "Dragnet" episode about the evils of LSD; the drug caused him to paint his face blue (years before Mel Gibson). And Don Stroud's portrayal of Lamarr in "Joe Kidd" might be the finest piece of overacting in cinema history. Other notables in the cast are Rockford's dad and Ann Sothern's daughter Tisha Sterling. Sterling was an extremely promising actress in the late sixties (and my personal favorite) who in an ideal world would have had a lot more good roles. Here she plays a patriotic southern belle named Airybelle Sumner, who in the film's best scene inspires the boys (men) to fight for the noble honor of the south. They soon learn that her view of the south is somewhat at odds with reality. "Journey to Shiloh" does not deserve its obscurity. It has its faults but is gripping entertainment with an important message. Considerably better than most films from the time period. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

The book by Will Henry is absolutely terrific. A joy to read; the laconic dialog is realistic, hilarious ... and poignant. The book is available for cheap on eBay and other sites and I recommend it. Of the seven Concho County boys, Buck is drawn most fully; the others are tantalizing sketches. I saw this movie on TV years ago and I'm amazed at its unavailability on video/DVD, esp. given the "future-star" status of its cast. I most remember the stoic Buck soldiering on as each of his friends/comrades met his fate. The naive perception of war by the young finds itself face to to face with reality in this story. It is believable to think that many of the kids who fought in the Civil War marched off with these kinds of notions in their minds.