We open in the wild, wild west in the late 1800s. Mother nature is giving all the signs that a harsh winter is fast approaching. In the little mining town of Denver, Colorado, the local miner's association is in a state of panic. Somehow, everyone forgot to restock their liquor supplies and spending a long cold winter in seclusion sober is a prospect these prospectors don't want any part of.

They consult Oracle Jones (Donald Pleasance), famed guide, prophet and clairvoyant - and complete nut-job - whose visions get clearer and more accurate the more blitzed he is. They keep pouring him shots and the answer comes to him: They should all pitch in for one big shipment of whiskey before the snow starts flying.

There is precious little time so they sign a contract with Frank Wellingham (Brian Keith) to bring 40 wagons full of liquor and booze over from Kansas. Being "a tax payer and a good Republican," Wellingham demands an army escort to protect his cargo. 

Colonel Thaddeus Gearhart (Burt Lancaster) sends Captain Slater (Jim Hutton) and a detachment of cavalry to protect the wagon train. This will also keep the philandering Slater away from his daughter, Louise (Pamela Tiffin). Gearhart has to stay behind to protect his fort from the Women's Temperance Movement led by the fiery Cora Massingale (Lee Remick).

She gets wind of the shipment and uses her feminine wiles - and her portable bathtub - on the hard drinking Gearhart. With the Colonel in tow, she leads her band of prohibitionist women onto the prairie to intercept the booze and destroy it. 

The local Indian tribe, led by Chief Five Barrels (Robert Wilke) and his stooge, Walks Stooped-Over (Martin Landau!), also get wind of the shipment and make plans to intercept the "crazy water" for themselves.

Out on the prairie, Wellingham is having trouble with the Irish teamsters he's hired to drive his wagons. (They're threatening to strike if their demands aren't met.) Meanwhile, in Denver, with no word from the now long overdue wagon train, the miners form the Free Denver Militia and set out to find the shipment and help escort it home or face a long cold winter with no booze.

So you have the whiskey shipment slowly heading west stalled by labor negotiations; the miners heading east; the cavalry and the Temperance Movement heading south; and the Indians moving north all on a collision course. (If this all seems confusing, don't worry. The film provides a narrator and maps to help keep track of who's where and what's going on.)

Mayhem ensues.

- - - -

This is all Stanley Kramer's fault. The famed director, known mostly for his social and morality plays, decided he wanted to make a comedy...and not just any comedy -- the comedy to end all comedies, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

I love that movie and think it's absolutely hilarious but I'll also admit it's not a very good movie. It also ushered in a new type of comedy where the misconception that bigger and louder and more spectacular equals more funny.

Kramer was lucky that his film was buoyed by a cast of great comedians that kept the film going despite the constant threat of implosion. Other productions weren't as lucky.

The Hallelujah Trail was supposed to be just another run of the mill western. At the time of its production, all the studios were doing their dangdest to get people's butts back in the theater seats and away from their TV sets.

One of these new innovations was Cinerama (kind of a proto-Imax experience). The studios pushed all-star blockbusters for the new format and The Hallelujah Trail was tagged for an upgrade.

The film is based on a book, a comedy of the same name, by William Gullick. The director assigned to the project, John Sturges, like Kramer, was better known for a different kind of film: action movies, like The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape which have there funny moments but aren't comedies.

No one can match up to Kramer's cast but this films stable of actors are all gamers. Lancaster gets the rare opportunity to show off his comedic side and has real and genuine chemistry with Remick. Hutton, the only real comedy actor in the bunch, is solid. As is Brian Keith and mention also must be made for the fine troupe of the women in the Temperance Movement. Landau almost steals the show but that honor goes to the almost unrecognizable Donald Pleasance as Oracle Jones. (If you all thought Dr. Loomis was his looniest character, you haven't watched this film yet.)

There is a lot of potential for comedy gold here if the film had dug just a little deeper. The film pokes fun at a lot of western clichés and stereotypes. This was a wonderful opportunity for a satire but what it all boils down to is a battle of the sexes. All the bits with the Indians are hilarious but the movie plays it safe hoping all the zany antics of its players will be enough. I don't know about the rest of you but zany antics, unless we're talking about the Stooges, are rarely funny and grow tedious pretty dang quick.

At a whopping 165-minutes, Trail amplifies the zaniness with more action and bigger stunts as it goes barreling for the climax. All the parties converge at Whiskey Hills but a freak sandstorm cuts the visibility down to nothing. Everyone intermingles in the confusion, shots are fired and the Battle of Whiskey Hills commences.

Everyone "circles the wagons" and returns fire blindly. When the storm ends, and the films best gag is revealed, the camps are barely yards apart but, miraculously (except for a little buckshot in a few select behinds), with all that shooting, no one got hurt.

An uneasy truce is struck despite a little trouble with the Indian interpreter. They have a palaver, officiated by Gearheart, and everyone wants the whiskey: Massingale wants to destroy it, the miners and the Indians want to drink it and Wellingham just wants to get paid.

While Gearheart ponders on what to do (and the romance between he and Massingale is cemented over a bottle), The Women's Temperance Movement holds a pow-wow with the Five Barrels and get his entire tribe to sign a sobriety pledge. Meanwhile, Wellingham conspires with Oracle to sneak the whiskey shipment away through the treacherous Quicksand Bottoms. Oracle has staked out a trail through the sinkholes with the shreds of his long johns (meaning underneath that buffalo coat Donald Pleasance is buck-ass nekkid!) and they'll escape during the celebration at the Indian camp.

The celebration was all a ruse, though, as Five Barrels takes the women hostage and will exchange them one at a time: one woman for one whiskey wagon.

Wellingham could care less about Massingale and her movement so he takes the first few wagons into the swamp. What he doesn't know is that the ladies were on to them, moved Oracle's markers and soon Wellingham's wagons sinks out of sight. So much for that idea.

Now there's a story that Stanley Kramer was under much stress about the ending of IMMMMW. With all that build up, he had all those comedians up in that building but had no real idea how to end it and get them back down or the film would end with a resounding thud.

Sturges' film has been a flash and spurting build-up but we've made it this far so how do we end it? The same way Kramer did, with a bunch of outlandish stunts and special effects.

The rest of the whiskey wagons are lined up for the exchange. Massingale is informed several of the wagons are filled with hot champagne that is ready to pop at the slightest jolt. So during each exchange, when a brave takes a wagon, she gives the horses a stab with her hairpin. 

The horses bolt. The champagne explodes and soon the cavalry is chasing a wagon train of Indians who are more interested in drinking the cargo than fighting. The chaos ends when the Indians inadvertently circle the wagons as the soldiers circle and attack.

With the whiskey destroyed, the miners slouch back to Denver; the Indians ride off their hangovers back to the reservation; there's a double wedding in store for Gearhart, Massingale, Slater and Louise; while Wellingham and Oracle wait and retrieve whatever Quicksand Bottoms belches up.

And there you have it. *whew* We made it.

If The Hallelujah Trail has one weakness, it is its monumental running time. The stunts comes fast and furious and are pretty spectacular, Sturges knows his stuff, but the comedy is stretched pretty thin by the end.

It's amazing, really, when great directors who really don't understand comedy, or think they do, try to make one. Kramer and Sturges can be funny and have genuinely hilarious moments in their more serious films but wind up with monstrous comedy hemorrhages when they did make a comedy. A lot of it can be blamed on thin premises that are stretched well past critical mass.

Other directors have failed in this same spectacular manner. More contemporary examples include Spielberg and Lucas. They can be funny, too, but their blockbuster comedies, 1941 and Radioland Murders, were out of control duds at the box office. (So if you think all this style over substance stuff is a new plague on filmdom, brush up on your cinema history, kids.)

To some of you this will come off as lame, others tedious or, if you're like me, you'll find them all hilarious, lumps and all. And I mean genuinely funny, not in the "it's so bad it's good" sense. I think I was born with a defective gene but I love all of these corny, overblown comedies (the same way I enjoy overblown historical and biblical epics). Kramer's movie overachieves thanks to its cast, while Sturges' movie overcompensates with likeable characters, spectacular stunts and gorgeous cinematography and a goofy charm that wins you over. Barely.

The film has just enough gas to make it to the end. My advice is to put it on cruise control, try to keep up with Oracle Jones on the booze intake and take full advantage of the film's built-in intermission, then kick back and enjoy the wackiness.