I wonder which movie the other reviewers saw because the "Seargeant Rutledge" I watched was so bad it was good. Everyone involved with this waste of film should be embarrassed red. Talk about a clinic on weak writing and bad acting. My family was rolling around the floor laughing at the clumsy attempts at drama that came off cornier than anything ol' frozen Walt Disney ever dreamed up. I liked Woody Strode in "Spartacus" and was intrigued by his background as an athlete, so that's why I gave "Seargeant Rutledge" a shot. What a mistake. Where to start? The writing was laughably pathetic and trite, the actors artlessly overdo the cliché drama, and the songs ("Captain Buffalo," for example) are something my kids will be laughing about for years. I can't believe John Ford directed this wreck. I hope he was really off drinking with Sam Peckinpah and maybe this mess was actually an Ed Wood project. Living up to his first name, Strode appears wooden throughout but what a physique! Woody's pecs and biceps and the beautiful shots of Monument Valley all make for nice scenery. But that was it as far as this movie's assets. As for the bad acting, it was close but I'll have to go with Willis Bouchey as the worst of the bunch for his completely amateurish and inept mishandling of the role of Otis Fosgate, who presides over Rutledge's trial. Honorable mention to Jeffrey Hunter, Constance Towers, Billie Burke and Judson Pratt for mangling their parts. Carleton Young actually isn't too bad as the prosecutor, but he, like the rest, has to read and deliver his lines off a script that stinks to high heaven. The sexist scenes of the treatment of the women at the trial is beneath contempt but the confession scene at the end of the trial as well as the very final closing scene with Hunter,Towers and the black soldiers are really the twin icings on this mudcake. Just terrible. An accidental comedy.
Review of Sergeant Rutledge
