Ulzana’s Raid – 1972
One man alone understood the savagery of the early American west from both sides.
Director
Robert Aldrich

Writer
Alan Sharp

Producers
Carter De Haven Jr. producer (as Carter De Haven)
Harold Hecht producer
Burt Lancaster producer
Alan Sharp associate producer

Cast
Burt Lancaster – McIntosh
Bruce Davison – Lt. Harry Garnett DeBuin
Jorge Luke – Ke-Ni-Tay (army scout)
Richard Jaeckel – Sergeant
Joaquín Martínez – Ulzana
Lloyd Bochner – Capt. Charles Gates
Karl Swenson – Willy Rukeyser (settler)
Douglass Watson – Maj. Cartwright (CO, Ft. Lowell)
Dran Hamilton – Mrs. Riordan
John Pearce – Corporal
Gladys Holland – Mrs. Rukeyser
Margaret Fairchild – Mrs. Abbie Ginsford
Aimée Eccles – McIntosh’s Indian woman
Richard Bull – Ginsford (settler)
Otto Reichow – ‘Dutch’ Steegmeyer (Indian Agent, San Carlos Reservation)
Dean Smith – Trooper Horowitz
Larry Randles – Trooper Mulkearn
Hal Maguire – Trooper
Ted Markland – Trooper
R.L. Armstrong – Trooper
John McKee – Trooper
Tony Epper – Trooper
Nick Cravat – Trooper
William H. Burton – Trooper
Fred Brookfield – Trooper
Jerry Gatlin – Trooper
Walter Scott – Trooper
Richard Farnsworth – Trooper
Henry Camargo – Indian brave
Larry Colelay – Indian brave
Gil Escandon – Indian brave
Marvin Fragua – Indian brave
Frank Gonzales – Indian brave
Benny Thompson – Indian brave
George Aguilar – Indian brave
Wallace Sinyella – Indian brave

Review by Theo Robertson

Ulzana’s Raid (1972)
Not A Western – A Great Film,
I hate westerns so why do I adore ULZANA`S RAID? Simple – it’s not a western
Question: What’s the connection between M.A.S.H, TOO LATE THE HERO and CHATO`S LAND? The answer is they’re all Vietnam allegories. The Hollywood conservative establishment didn’t allow film makers to voice their comments on the war unless they agreed with it (Witness the train wreck that is THE GREEN BERETS) so the only way authors could get round this was if they dressed their stories up as something else. Add ULZANA`S RAID to the list

Scottish screenwriter Alan Sharp has written a great script. It has a simple premise, which is usually the sign of a good film. US troops go after an Apache war party. There that’s it the entire premise and a tightly plotted one at that, something that is not often seen in Hollywood scripts nowadays. And being a `Nam allegory there’s a lot of character interaction between a naive inexperienced officer and his men who are grizzled veterans. Sharp has also made a barbed comment on audience identification, everyone can relate to the white American soldiers while no one can relate to the Apaches murdering and raping homesteaders, but the homesteaders are surrogate Vietnamese, so at the same time ULZANA`S RAID represents contempary America through both the white cavalrymen and the Apache, something no one seems to have picked up on, but certainly deliberate on the part of Sharp

Flaws? Well I do think the film deserved a bigger budget than the reported 1.2 million dollars, sometimes the production feels like a TVM while the music swings between a genre western score and a romantic comedy, believe me no one will confuse ULZANA`S RAID with a rom-com. But these minor flaws don’t stop ULZANA`S RAID from being a great film due to the script, the cast and director Robert Aldrich