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Highly Overrated But Still Good

Fantastic!

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

I was totally turned off by paul peterson, he must have needed to spread his wings after the donna reed show...he was the only cast member that drew down the performance of the others....slavery was abominable yet not much changed until the kennedy irish catholics pressed the issue...like all wars its difficult to see the enemy and after you do you see its us

Journey to Shiloh is directed by William Hale and adapted to screenplay by Gene L. Coon from the novel written by Will Henry. It stars James Caan, Michael Sarrazin, Brenda Scott, Albert Popwell, Harrison Ford, Jan-Michael Vincent, Robert Pine and Noah Beery Junior. Music is by David Gates (supervision Joseph Gershenson) and Technicolor cinematography by Enzo Martinelli.Seven young Texans journey east to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Full of ideas of noble glory for the war effort, the group have their eyes rudely opened by the prejudice and snobbery they encounter along the way.Rock of Ages.Film is bookended by a cheesy song that first tells of the young men setting off for the journey, then latterly of what became of them upon their final destinations. Throw in some pretty wooden acting away from the lead player and mix in a score that sounds like it belongs in the Pink Panther cartoon show, well you would naturally expect the film to be something of a disaster? Yet there is much to recommend here for the discerning fan of Civil War yarns.The Pensacola Light Blues.Picture gets its strength from the interest garnered by the source story and the lead performance by a youthful, wig wearing, Caan. Story is potent as an anti-war piece, the parallels with the then current Vietnam War, and the feelings running high at that time, are hard to ignore. Here the lads have their ideals punctured by events that happen out on the trail. Firstly some in fighting upsets the equilibrium and this sets the tone for the rest of the picture. An encounter with a runaway slave, and the aftermath of said encounter, really puts a serrated edge on the plotting. Young men off to be brave and fight the good fight, do they know what for? They then are surprised by public resistance to their bravado, you see not everyone wants a war, lads.Cos we're fixin to shove that there General Grant and them blue bellied soldiers of his-plum into Lake Erie.A pointless romantic interlude threatens to derail the picture, but the makers overcome it by dropping in some good action. A bar room brawl at Munroe is most enjoyable, and then once the guys find themselves enlisted into the Pensacola Light Blues, with Beery Junior arriving and putting his mark on the picture, we move onto the horrors of war. Here we lurch onto The Battle of Shiloh (AKA: Battle of Pittsburgh Landing) which is resplendent with artillery galore and much flinging around of stunt men. It's well constructed but sadly too short in length. Filmed out of Agoura in California, the scenery is an extra bonus and an enjoyable character accompaniment as story unfolds.All told it's a mixed bag of a viewing, but the good far outweighs the bad to make this a sleeper of an Oater worth seeking out. While future stars of film and TV taking tentative steps in the acting world also holds a high interest factor here. 7/10

I saw the very young Harrison Ford and had to watch this late 1960s action film about 7 friends from west Texas who are drawn into their imagined adventure of joining the American Civil War and fighting for the Confederate States (south). Harrison Ford probably has the fewest lines of the seven friends. What happens on the journey? Everything goes wrong. In fact, they do not make it to their destination, Virginia. Their ideals begin to drop off, along with their numbers, along the way as they see a runaway slave being hung from a tree. They encounter prejudices against them as they try to join upper-class party in east Texas, dishonesty at a saloon gambling game in Louisiana, and the bloody severity of war at The Battle of Shiloh.The strong premise about the destructiveness of war and civil rights is obvious, but offered up with a "teenage adventure" smile on the easy to criticize setting of the South during the Civil War. This may have been one of the earliest anti Vietnam War movies out of Hollywood and is worth watching to see how an anti-war message was beginning to come out of Hollywood. You can see the conflicting messages as The Green Berets was made the same year.There are some historically accurate portrayals that are worth seeing, such as 2 different treatments of African-Americans - one had a comfortable life and another was lynched. Some of the battlefield scenes looked like they were taken from another movie. And what happens to the main character at the end is a surprise, but keeps with the premise.

I remember seeing this as a 16 year old back in 1968 and really enjoyed it.As I'm typing this, I'm watching it again on the history network and it's interesting to see the people in it and think about their careers over the last 36 year. A young James Caan wearing a silly looking "wig" - a very fresh faced Jan Michael Vincent before he descended into the bottle and is now just a shadow of himself - Don Stroud, a great bad guy in a couple of Clint Eastwood and a fellow named Michael Burns who was a big star back then but just seemed to drop off the face of the earth shortly afterIt was a good story about 7 young guys heading off to fight in the Civil War. A great song and good story - maybe not a classic but very watchable..!!