SEASON 2, EPISODE 38, ULZANA'S RAID - The Blood-Soaked 1970s Revisionist Western!

The RRH returns to the bloodsoaked American Old West with ULZANA’S RAID!

Returning to our show is Cinema Studies Professor Peter Mascuch to offer his sharp insight upon this notoriously violent but artistically great Revisionist Western. ULZANA’S RAID stars Hollywood legend Burt Lancaster and up-and-coming Bruce Davison as Macintosh and DeBuin respectively, two officers of the United States Cavalry tasked with apprehending or killing Ulzana, a renegade Apache on a rampage all over the Southwestern United States. With an Apache scout (Jorge Luke) in tow, Lancaster and Davison head to a collision course with the ultra violent Ulzana and his war party. Carnage and death inevitably ensue!

Directed by Robert Aldrich (KISS ME DEADLY, THE DIRTY DOZEN) and written by Alan Sharp (NIGHT MOVES), ULZANA’S RAID is a bleak and bloody Western which took the dual cultural risks of showing a more positive light upon the Apaches and portraying them as vengefully violent. Both Peter and Cesare discuss Aldrich’s stark direction, Sharp’s expert screenplay, and the engrossing performances from Lancaster, Division, and Luke. They further analyze the film’s powerful debunking of the Western, which removed the genre’s conventional tropes and added newer, tougher edges like graphic violence that was so recognizable in 1970s cinema. ULZANA’S RAID manages to realistically capture the Old West in its bloody form while telling a compelling story.