Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
... View MoreMost undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??
... View MoreAt first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
... View MoreThe movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
... View MoreTHE PROUD AND THE DAMNED is an odd, zero-budget western that was filmed in Colombia. That novelty value is about the only thing this has going for it as otherwise it's a completely routine oater that feels like a low-budget, low-effort riff on THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. The storyline involves a group of rather dull mercenary types who hole up in a small village during a revolution and soon find themselves getting involved in the action.Although there's plentiful action in this movie, none of it is very good. It doesn't help matters much that the quality of the print I saw was absolutely pitiful, one of the worst-looking westerns ever. The Colombian locations are effective but the direction is very poor and this feels like an old 1930s-era film rather than a '70s movie. Chuck Connors and Cesar Romero co-star.
... View MoreChuck Connors, Aron Kincaid, Smokey Roberds, Henry Capps, and Peter Ford, play the title roles in The Proud And Damned. Probably this film's only distinction is it's the only film I've seen and reviewed that was shot in Colombia. Fitting as the location for the action is some unnamed South American country.These five are Confederate veterans who've gone south and have kicked around selling their military experience as mercenaries and now just want to go home. But time and circumstance force them to get involved in a local war between a would be dictator in Andres Marquis and Cesar Romero the Alcalde of a medium size town who is not happy about Marquis challenging his hegemony.Our cast looks distinctly unhappy in their roles and deliver the perfunctory performances to prove it. Even Jose Greco merely recycles only a part of what he gave to his role in Ship Of Fools as a gypsy whore master. We do however get to see Greco the great flamenco dancer in a number in the film.This whole crew looks like it's waiting for their salary checks to clear.
... View More"Awful" is not a word I use often to describe a movie. There's usually some redeeming quality that at least raises it to the level of just plain "bad." "Awful" is the word here, though. Chuck Conners stars as the leader of a band of ex-Confederate soldiers who find themselves caught in the middle of a South American civil war in 1870. Aside from the last 10 minutes or so there's precious little action or adventure here, and there's a lot of just plain dumbness. Ike (Aron Kincaid) falls head over heels in love with a girl he meets for 5 minutes at a local monastery (true!) and at one point brings a guitar playing buddy of his to the monastery to serenade her while the nuns look on! Then he spends the rest of the movie gazing forlornly into the distance with puppy-dog like eyes. Meanwhile, Hansen (Conners) becomes a sort of protector/lover to a gypsy girl whose own people have cut off one of her ears. Aside from Conners and Cesar Romero as the leader of the town of San Carlos we have here largely unknown actors (unsurprising, since how would they get anyone to cast them in anything significant after this disaster?) 1/10
... View MoreChuck Connors and Cesar Romero head an otherwise unknown cast in this tale set in South America in 1870, as Will Hansen (Connors) leads a group of four ex-Confederate soldiers now plying their trade as mercenaries. Hansen is the only member of the band that seems to have any hint of a hard edge, the rest are just a bunch of good old boys with no drive or direction of their own. The South American setting could be just about anywhere since no country is ever named, but it might just as well have been Mexico for the portrayal offered by the two opposing forces. On one side, General Alehandro Martinez offers Hansen and his comrades pay in exchange for information on the opposition in the valley town of San Carlos. Cesar Romero is the mayor there, determined to protect his town, but one wonders from what. The conflict between Martinez and Romero is never made known, maybe that's why Hansen and his men have no emotional involvement in the proceedings.It would be difficult to describe the action in the film - there is none. There are two romantic angles involving Hansen and a gypsy woman, while one of his men named Ike (Aron Kincaid) tries to woo a senorita from the local convent. If the film's pace wasn't slow enough as it was, it's accentuated by the doleful strumming of a guitar from time to time, bringing one's attention to the fact that nothing is going on.All doesn't go well for Hansen though, since he missed his appointment with General Martinez, he'll have to pay for that indiscretion. That prompts his men to think for themselves for the first time, and they take a stand with the citizens of San Carlos. You'll have to watch the film to see how far that goes, but even amidst the flying cannonballs, it's kind of anti climactic. One never feels any empathy for this bunch, and that's what makes the movie largely forgettable.If you're a Chuck Connors fan, you'll be better served by any single episode of his "Rifleman", which will have more story and excitement to it in twenty six minutes than this hour and a half sleeper. The only thing I found interesting in the film was how much Connors appeared to have aged in the decade since the Rifleman series ended. Oh wait, maybe it happened during the filming!
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