Breakheart Pass
|
List Price: Our Price: $0.70 You Save: $3.28 (82%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Breakheart Pass
Movie Review: Great Western!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great western with lots of action and it hasCharles Bronson who is a western legend(Magnificent Seven,
Chato's Land, Vera Cruz, etc). A must for Western collections!
Movie Review: Great Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
Great quality DVD. As a Charles Bronson fan, this was one of those hard to find favorites of mine. Delivery was fast. Excellent movieMovie Review: Charles Bronson and Yakima Canute make an exciting movie where the plot is almost nonexistent and the stunts are great
Summary: 4 Stars
Something's not right at isolated Fort Humbolt and diphtheria may be the least of the problems. Breakheart Pass is based on the adventure thriller by Alistair MacLean, who also wrote the screenplay. It's not bad as a Bronson vehicle except for its excesses: An obvious 1970s score glued on a movie that's set a century earlier; one action set piece after another, most a lot of fun but so many that the storyline becomes just the excuse for the set pieces; and corny directorial indulgences that have nearly every character in the movie exchanging suspicious glances with one another at key moments, accompanied by music stings.
What Breakheart Pass has going for it are some fine character actors like Ben Johnson, Charles Durning and David Huddleston; the look of the film...the hovel of the tiny rail town of Myrtle in the Rockies, dry, gray, worn-out plank buildings, a shack of a train station, a utilitarian brothel that's all business; the tired steam engine and worn carriages but with a plush interior of the wood-paneled dining car and parlor; the rugged snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountains; the stunt work directed by Yakima Canute in his last picture; and, of course, Charles Bronson, phlegmatic, stoic, always watching and seldom speaking. Bronson sure wasn't handsome but he had a memorable, worn and craggy face, even with that Fu Manchu moustache he often wore. He also had the screen presence of a basically tough good man who could do, when aroused, violence that would hurt. Few major movie stars were as unlikely as Bronson.
What's the fuss at Fort Humbolt? It has something to do with conspiracy, treachery, rifles and gold...the usual. All we know is that we're on board a train carrying medical supplies and provisions to aid the sick soldiers at the fort. Aboard is the territorial governor, the daughter of the fort's commander, a doctor, a minister, a train official, a major, some of his soldiers and a lawman with his prisoner, a man called Deakin (Charles Bronson). We don't really care, even when the passengers start being murdered. We learn those supplies seem to consist of rifles and ammunition and that Deakin is no bad guy, but this is predictable. All those great stunt set pieces just pile on and make the plot irrelevant. There are fights atop the moving train, the steam engine billows out huge white clouds of steam as it chugs and rattles across a high, rickety wooden bridge, men fall and bounce off that bridge, corpses are discovered in firewood piles, in rifle boxes and in train compartments, Indians rampage and attack, there's a cavalry charge across the snow, a runaway troop car crashes down a mountainside, you name it. Best of all, most of the movie takes place in and around that steam engine, clattering and swaying over the tracks through the mountains. Engine Number 9 should have received star billing alongside Bronson. Just about everyone on the train is suspicious and only Deakin is smart and tough enough to figure things out and then do something about it. With the stunts, with Bronson and with that steam engine, Breakheart Pass could make a great theme park ride.
That sentiment holds true of most of Alistair MacLean's books. He was an immensely successful writer of thrillers that featured the same formula: Workmanlike plots, lots of action, little or no sex (it got in the way of the action, MacLean thought) and indestructible heroes. He wrote about 30 thrillers. The last half were nothing but tired exercises in theme park rides. His reputation now probably rests on two movies made from his books, Where Eagles Dare and The Guns of Navarone. For those who enjoy well-written adventure thrillers by authors on their way to being forgotten, try some of the books by Desmond Bagley, James Leasor, Geoffrey Jenkins, and Victor Canning.
Breakheart Pass has an okay DVD transfer, with wide screen on one side of the disc and pan-and-scan on the other. There are no extras.
Movie Review: Breakheart Pass
Summary: 4 Stars
Breakheart Pass is a solid western that stars Charles Bronson. The supporting cast is excellent & includes Ben Johnson, Richard Crenna, Jill Ireland (Mrs. Bronson), Charles Durning & Eddie Little Sky. the cast also has two actors, in small roles, better known for being sports personalities: Joe Kapp (former quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings) & Archie Moore (former light-heavyweight world champion boxer). The film was directed by Tom Gries, one of Bronson's two favorite directors. The movie is based on the Alistair MacLean novel of the same name, he also wrote the screenplay. MacLean is famous for writing the novels The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare & Ice Station Zebra. Breakheart Pass was his only western ; what makes this so unique is MacLean was from Great Britain.
Breakheart Pass is actually a Western-mystery. It centers on a train bound for Fort Humboldt where a diptheria epidemic has broke out. The train is carrying medical supplies for the living & coffins for the dead. Leading this expedition is the governor of Colorado, Richard Fairchild (Richard Crenna). He's accompanied by Marcia Scoville (Jill Ireland) with whom he's having a not-so-secret relationship with, she's also the daughter of Col. Scoville, commander of Fort Humboldt. Being the daughter of the commander is the only reason she's on the train because it's restricted to only military personnel or those involved directly with the humanitarian mission. John Deakin (Charles Bronson) is there only because he's an outlaw who's been arrested & the U.S. Deputy Marshall doesn't want to leave him behind. Marshall Nathan Pearce (the venerable Ben Johnson in a rare major role) is on the train because he's supposed to be picking up a civilian prisoner at Fort Humboldt. Major Claremont (Ed Lauter) has a detachment of about 30 or so soldiers on the way to Fort Humboldt as replacements.
The outbreak of diptheria at Fort Humboldt isn't common knowledge to everyone on the train. Maj. Claremont isn't told this until they're less than a day away from Fort Humboldt & is told by the Governor this information; & he's only told this because two of his officers had disappeared & been left behind in town. In actuality, they've been murdered & have been stashed in the locomotive's woodpile. The mystery gets deeper as the cars that contain the soldiers are loosened from the train & end uo crashing to death. The locomotive looses its fireman because he fell off the train on a bridge & plummeted to his death. The doctor dies mysteriously (murdered) & the preacher disappears (murdered).
We finally learn that Deakin is an undercover agent for the Secret Service. He's been tracking a stolen shipment of rifles & has found them hidden in the coffins, he's also found dynamite hidden in the so-called cases of medicine. The diptheria outbreak at Fort Humboldt is only a ruse; the guns & dynamite are being delivered there to the not-really captured outlaws & a band of Indians. Before the movie is over we find out almost everyone left alive on the train is part of the conspiracy, including the Governor & the Deputy Marshall. The climax is exciting &well done. Breakheart Pass is done in the vein of the traditional Western except we can't tell the good guys from the bad guys until near the end.
Movie Review: "And you must be Mr. Deakin, the murderer."
Summary: 4 Stars
So I dig it muchly when the film takes place on a train. And if that same film also crosses over into the whodunit genre, well, so much the better. BREAKHEART PASS, released in 1975, is actually a western mystery, starring Charles Bronson, he of the rugged frame and the tough, careworn features. And, because what's a Bronson flick without lovely Jill Ireland, she shows up, too, looking all nice.
Alistair Maclean offers up the screenplay (adapted from his novel), about a train in the Old West conveying replacement troops and medicine to Fort Humboldt, a distant military garrison stricken with diphtheria. The trek is quite a ways, four hundred miles of freeze and isolation. So it's even more harrowing when the passengers begin to be picked off, one by one. "Trust no one," the movie trailer warns ominously, "and believe half of what you see. Because nothing is as it appears, and nobody is who they seem to be." But could the surviving passengers' only hope lie in the mysterious prisoner in their midst?
A year before, Charles Bronson knocked it out of the park with his blockbuster flick Death Wish. So the viewing public was high on him when this one was released. BREAKHEART PASS doesn't let his fans down. It's thrilling and suspenseful and culminates with a slam bang finish. This flick isn't your typical, straightforward western; it's got some twists. While the film doesn't quite bowl you over with jaw-dropping reveals, the frequent plot shifts do keep you involved and guessing. Meanwhile, the imposing snowy backdrop of the Rockies lend greatly to a feeling of deadly danger and isolation.
While Charles Bronson will never be considered a consummate actor, he does maximize his talents. His biggest strength is that tough persona he's built up for the cinema. He's absolutely ideal for those roles calling for a man of action (but of few words). Having said this, Bronson does play his John Deakin with enough complexity that you're never quite sure what he's up to, although we don't quite buy Deakin's assertions of pacifism, never mind that he's a former university lecturer. Is he trying to unearth a conspiracy, or is he part of it? Honestly, can you be sure he's the good guy?
Backed by a reliable bunch of acting veterans (Ben Johnson, Richard Crenna, Charles Durning) and graced by an oft-partnered actress (and wife), Bronson confidently carries the film. Even though 54 years old when this movie debuted, with those lines on his face sinking in ever deeper, dude was still spry and athletic enough to pull off his action sequences. And for a man of action but few words, well, that's almost everything.