What I’ve Been Watching: Breakheart Pass (1975).
Who’s Responsible: Tom Gries (director); Alistair MacLean (screenwriter); Charles Bronson, Ben Johnson, Richard Crenna (stars).
Why I Watched It: You might well ask, why wouldn’t I watch it?
Seen It Before? Hell yeah.
Likelihood of Seeing It Again (1-10): 10.
Likelihood the Guys Will Rib Me for Watching It (1-10): 2, tops.
Totally Subjective BOF Rating (1-10): 8.
And? During the 1960s, Charles Bronson appeared in some of the foundational films of my personal cinematic pantheon, not least as an indelible member of three of the greatest ensemble casts ever assembled on the screen in The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), and The Dirty Dozen (1967), as well as working with Sergio Leone in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). The ’70s were hit or miss, and even the success of Michael Winner’s Death Wish (1974) might be considered a mixed blessing, since he and J. Lee Thompson, who between them directed three of the four sequels, epitomized Chuck’s late-career plummet. So I consider this one of Bronson’s last really good films.
It is no surprise, at least to me, that it’s the one linking him with another of my favorite authors, joining the elite company of Richard Matheson (Master of the World, 1961; Cold Sweat, 1970) and Elmore Leonard (Mr. Majestyk, 1974). There are plenty of films based, with varying degrees of fidelity and/or success, on books by Alistair MacLean, a number of which I dearly love (The Guns of Navarone, 1961; Ice Station Zebra, 1968). But there are only four on which he was a screenwriter, giving us an unfiltered hit of MacLean; this and the now-elusive When Eight Bells Toll (1971) reunited him with Elliott Kastner and Jerry Gershwin, the producers of my all-time favorite movie, Where Eagles Dare (1969).
This was the penultimate feature of director Tom Gries (1922-1977), who had helmed Bronson’s Breakout that same year, but most of whose largely unremarkable career was relegated to television, ranging from the lauded miniseries Helter Skelter (1976) to the tiresome TV-movie Earth II (1971) and episodes of 40-odd series. Gries did, however, display a knack for Westerns, most notably Will Penny (1967) and 100 Rifles (1969), the latter a staple of Raquel Welch Week on The 4:30 Movie and a prior collaboration with Jerry Goldsmith, for whom my admiration knows no bounds. He also had an affinity for the genre, e.g., Welch’s Bandolero! (1968), and his Breakheart theme is very memorable.
Lucien Ballard, best known for photographing Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), contributes some gorgeously rugged Idaho exteriors, while second-unit director and stunt coordinator Yakima Canutt, a veteran of Where Eagles Dare whose last film it was, also earned his salary on this one. The story is from one of my favorite subgenres, thrillers set aboard trains, in the grand tradition of Richard Fleischer’s The Narrow Margin (1952), Horror Express (1972), and Sidney Lumet’s Murder on the Orient Express (1974). As such, it’s more of a MacLean adaptation than a traditional Bronson vehicle—pardon the pun—and, despite the unusual setting, it follows his classic blueprint in several respects.
Medico-turned-desperado John Deakin (Bronson) cheats at cards in the 1870s town of Myrtle, leading to an altercation and his arrest by U.S. Marshal Pearce (Johnson), thus securing them spots on a train transporting relief troops to Fort Humboldt. That’s easier said than done, because Major Claremont (Ed Lauter) had refused to bend the strict no-civilians rule to let Pearce fetch notorious outlaw Levi Calhoun (Robert Tessier, dubbed by Paul Frees), a prisoner at the fort. Traveling with Nevada Governor Richard Fairchild (Crenna) are Marica (Jill Ireland), daughter of the fort’s commander and obviously his lover; the Reverend Peabody (Bill McKinney); and Dr. Molyneux (David Huddleston).
Before conductor O’Brien (Charles Durning) even gets the train moving, trouble is afoot as two soldiers disappear—ominously soon after being asked to decipher a message that might tell Claremont Just What the Hell Is Actually Going on Here. Yet Fairchild waits for no man, so away they go, and as with David Shire’s brilliant score for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Goldsmith’s driving theme evokes the forward motion of the train. While they’re building up steam, however, let’s take a moment to examine this cast, which while not exactly A-list is certainly interesting, e.g., McKinney, a part of the Clint Eastwood “stock company” but most indelibly remembered for Deliverance (1972).
Just as with Clint and the execrable Sondra Locke, at this point in his career, if you got Bronson, you likely also got Ireland, his wife and/or co-star from 1968 until her death in 1990. No doubt her first husband, David (Man from U.N.C.L.E.) McCallum, was sorry he introduced them on the set of The Great Escape, since she subsequently dumped him for Chuck. Her spoiled-brat looks and inept emoting haven’t improved since Ireland was shoehorned into Cold Sweat—with a role that has no analog in Matheson’s source novel, Ride the Nightmare—and while I commend Bronson for showing her more loyalty than she did to McCallum, her presence is a millstone that drags down any film she appears in.
With exceptions such as Robert Wise’s The Sand Pebbles (1966), I’ve never been a big fan of Crenna’s, so he seems well suited to his officious-prick role; conversely, Johnson always comes across as so likable, even when playing a killer in The Wild Bunch, that his nastiness as Pearce is surprising. I’d never call Durning one of my favorite actors, but he does have a key role in one of my favorite films, The Sting (1973), and while given little screen time, he lets his chubby-coward flag fly in a nice “Hey, I’m no gunman” scene. A tireless, rock-solid supporting player for almost 50 years, Lauter worked with everybody from Aldrich and Frankenheimer to Hitchcock, and does well with a rare heroic role here.
Once they’re safely outta Dodge—er, Myrtle—it’s revealed that the troops are not relief but replacements for the victims of a diphtheria epidemic, and after leaving to check on the medical supplies, Molyneux is found dead in a murder that ex-doc Deakin discovers was made to look like natural causes. In short order, the fireman plunges from a bridge, his body reeking of alcohol despite reportedly never touching it; Peabody vanishes; and the rear cars carrying the troops are cut loose, plunging sans brakes into a ravine. Gries handles this brilliantly as we only hear the screams and see no gore, just the slow-motion pulverization of the derailed cars, leaving the horrific carnage inside to our imaginations.
Many a MacLean story centers on a journey or mission whose true nature, along with that of one or more participants, is only made clear near the climax, and in this case, even the epidemic is a red herring. Revealing himself to Claremont as an incognito Secret Service agent, Deakin explains that far from being a prisoner, Calhoun is in control of the fort and has made an unholy alliance with Chief White Hand (Eddie Little Sky), to whom he has promised the guns and ammo that are their real cargo. The doctor was silenced to protect that secret; the firemen was killed when he found—as did Deakin—the bodies of the two missing soldiers in the wood supply; and Peabody, also found dead, was his fellow agent.
Fairchild, Pearce, and O’Brien are all in on it, even Carlos the cook (Archie Moore), who battles Deakin to the death atop the train in a nail-biter recalling Canutt’s famed cable-car clash in Where Eagles Dare. Also echoing that film, Deakin says that he knew he could trust Claremont because the major tried so hard to stop Pearce, their prime suspect, from boarding. Highlights of the climax in the titular pass include Fairchild shooting Calhoun, who is holding Marica hostage, only to be cut down with a sword by the mounted major; Deakin dynamiting the tracks and tricking the Indians into attacking their own allies; and his final showdown with Pearce. Cue reprise of the Jerry Goldsmith theme. All aboard!
Welcome back Matthew, it’s been an age! WHERE EIGHT BELLS TOLL (which I like a lot and always seems to me like a faster, lighter version of WHERE EAGLES DARE with a cheaper Welsh thespian in the lead) is now on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino by the way: https://www.kinolorber.com/film/wheneightbellstoll
Profuse thanks for both the kind words and the tip, Sergio. Have to get my hands on that one, if only to find out whether or not it holds up as well as I remember it!
Saw it again recently – smaller than I remembered but very well formed. Great last scene!