Good concept, poorly executed.

Beautiful, moving film.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

I have to read Birney's novel, which is a deeply layered story of the recruits of the 3rd Cavalry facing almost certain death trying to subdue the "renegades" remaining on the high plains. The romantic interests in the story add to the drama and the emotional attachment to each soldier. No doubt, General McCabe (Duggan) became the inspiration of Custer's "Little Big Man". Although filmed in 1966, it captures the elements of the 50s westerns with the political statements of the later 60's westerns, where the authority makes decisions not in the best of interests of their own men. So, it is also a bit of a 'tweener, linking the old westerns to the new. Every actor rode his own horse, there didn't seem to be an overuse of stunt men. You have to wonder in the old westerns whether one of the first question of an actor was "can you ride a horse". Because these were expert horsemen, the entire cast. The acting is more than adequate to pull of the difficult multi-layered story. Slim Pickens, in particular, is up to his par in this film, but more serious than in most. A good tale, well crafted by Peckinpagh, and well filmed on location.

For the time being, this is a hidden gem of a Western.Most of you probably already know that there are some big name actors in this, and some that would be big names later. Also, you probably already know the Custer scenario here.Perhaps the most obvious aspect of this Western is that the lead character is the stoniest of the lot. It's not uncommon for directors and producers to use the most gifted thespians around a stoic "observer" character. Usually, it's a well motivated character who observes and reacts. That's what happens here.The romance story here is very well developed. Personally, I didn't care for the macho bravado Hollywood rivalry of the two men, but the rival's charisma overcomes that, as well as the heroine's beauty.This isn't a puzzler. You'll guess the fates of every character from the onset. If there's one that may be up in the air, it's Slim Pickens, so I'll leave you to question his fate.There's lots to like in this action packed cavalry film, and I won't spoil it any more.

The story of how General George Armstrong Custer led his troops to their deaths at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 is a textbook example of military megalomania writ large in American history, and clearly a story ripe for a budding writer, which is what Sam Peckinpah was in the 1950s, when, at the request of the production team of Arthur Gardner, Jules Levin, and Arnold Laven (for whom he would create the legendary TV western series "The Rifleman"), he was commissioned to write the screenplay for Hoffman Birney's novel "The Dice Of God", loosely based on the Custer story, and which was to become the basis for THE GLORY GUYS. But by the time the story went behind the cameras in mid-1964, Peckinpah, due to the fury that he had caused in Hollywood with the extreme production conflicts on MAJOR DUNDEE, was about to be virtually blackballed from Hollywood. And while the end result is nowhere near a terrible product, one has to wonder just how much further this film would have gone had Peckinpah been given the opportunity to direct his own script, which he in fact never did, contrary to what has been reported here at the Internet Movie Database (I for one would like to see corroborating evidence of that claim that he directed even a small part of it).Even in the finished film, there are themes Peckinpah had broached upon that are still there--the conflict between two men (Harve Presnell; Tom Tryon) and their commanding officer, a steely-eyed, almost dictatorial Cavalry commander (Andrew Duggan) out to put the Sioux in their place. As this kind of scenario had loosely played itself out in MAJOR DUNDEE, however, Laven, who directed the film, seemed to shift the film away from this critical look at personal and military obsession to the love triangle between Tryon, Presnell, and a pioneer woman (Senta Berger, returning from MAJOR DUNDEE) at their fort. It was a point that Peckinpah strongly (and unsurprisingly) found highly disagreeable, since his focus was on the near-fundamentalist behavior of Duggan's character. In the meantime, Laven does stage plenty of good action scenes, including the attack on the Sioux, but they don't have the kind of raw (let alone bloody) energy that Peckinpah would have bought to them, and the editing of these scenes, while more than competent, isn't quite up to what was even done in the action scenes of the unfairly butchered DUNDEE.Still, it's hard to say too many bad things about a film that is still as far removed from the old John Ford/John Wayne cavalry films as MAJOR DUNDEE had been; and Tryon and Presnell are extremely competent in their roles (though rumor has it that Lee Marvin and James Coburn were both considered first, before salary conflicts forced Laven to settle for the other two). There are also early roles for James Caan as an Irish-born cavalryman; and Wayne Rogers, later to star in the long-running TV series M*A*S*H, as another cavalry officer. Slim Pickens, who is never anything less than memorable, also does a good turn as one of the members of the cavalry. Perhaps the best thing about THE GLORY GUYS, besides those moments when the film lays Duggan's military megalomania bare, is the superb cinematography, most of it done on location near Durango, Mexico, of James Wong Howe, who had won an Oscar in 1963 for HUD.All in all, THE GLORY GUYS does hold up as an extremely competent film. But it still leaves one to wonder just how much further up the ladder of quality sagebrush film making it would have gone had Peckinpah been the one in the director's chair, as opposed to the more workmanlike direction of Laven. One can, unfortunately, only speculate.

I cringed when the opening credits started and some horrible song invaded my ear drums, but then things got better and I was pleasantly surprised while watching this film in its widescreen version. The acting was very good, the Calvary life on a dusty western post was well depicted, and the direction, albeit cheesy in some of chivalry scenes between the two leading men and typical bar fights of the genre, was pretty good considering the simple and predictable plot line.I think James Caan's part of Pvt. Anthony Dugan was well acted and gives us a hint to his impending stardom. Beautiful Senta Berger was just okay in her part of Lou Woddard but there wasn't much for her to do except officiate the battle between Tom Tryon and Harve Presnell for her hand. The other parts weren't that special either but what made the film play out well in my eyes was the appearance of authenticity of a western Calvary company. From the initial gathering of a bunch of green troops through their training and drilling, and complaining, to the final well oiled product that had at least a fighting chance of survival in a big campaign against the Indians.I would recommend this film for those who like westerns and give it 6.5 stars out of 10.