Dry Spell Out West

The Hallelujah Trail is bigger but not better than any of the recent comedies that are supposed to milk laughs from the sacred cows of the Hollywood western. The sheer bulk of the opus is one clue to its failure. Given a plot with several droll twists, Director John Sturges (The Great Escape, Bad Day at Black Rock) lets his camera roam freely over the Cinerama landscape, too often striving for epic effects when antic effects are needed.

The year is 1867. With winter due, the city of Denver has been hit by a liquor shortage. In ten days the saloons will be bone dry unless a wagon train can get through with the likker. So 40 wagonloads of champagne and whisky go lumbering across the plains on a collision course with a band of footsore Denver vigilantes determined to protect the booze, a tribe of thirsty Sioux Indians who want to drink it, and a U.S. Cavalry troop led by Captain Jim Hutton set on heading off the Sioux. Meanwhile, a temperance-minded suffragette (Lee Remick) fields her lady crusaders and Colonel Burt Lancaster must deploy more horse soldiers to keep the girls out of trouble.

Unfortunately, Hallelujah drowns its troubles in talk, and the sobering effects are compounded by a mock-historical narrator who tries to pinpoint everyone's position on a map from time to time. Lancaster, a commanding presence as always, looks permanently flabbergasted over his first venture into an out-and-out farce, though his attitude seems appropriate to the movie's funniest scene--pondering strategy after a fierce battle waged in a blinding sandstorm, he finds that there hasn't been a single casualty on any side. Actress Remick's pioneer prudery is the standard brand, softened with lipstick, eye shadow and plunging necklines.

By the time Scenarist John Gay has maneuvered the entire cast into a pesthole known as Quicksand Bottoms, there is little suspense as to what direction the plot will take, and Hallelujah goes into its what-crazy-thing-can-we-do-next phase. Soon those drunken redskins are speeding toward the horizon in ten covered wagons filled with exploding bottles of French champagne--but the white man's magic has long since lost its sparkle.

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