Pharaoh's Army (1995)

Director:

Robby Henson

Writer:

Robby Henson (writer)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

A private civil war

Plot:

During the American Civil War, a Union Army captain leads his rag-tag cavalry troop up a misty creek...

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Cast

Chris Cooper	...	Captain John Hull Abston
Patricia Clarkson	...	Sarah Anders
Kris Kristofferson	...	Preacher
Robert Joy	...	Chicago
Richard Tyson	...	Rodie
Frank Clem	...	Neely
Huckleberry Fox	...	Newt
Will Lucas	...	Boy
Mac Miles	...	Israel
Robert E. Simpson	...	Narrator
Maude Mitchell	...	Preacher's Wife
Rebecca Ryland	...	Mourner
Scott Coffman	...	Mourner
Gale Wilson	...	Mourner
Stacie Coffman	...	Mourner

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for brief violence and sexual references.

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Kentucky, USA

Company:

Cicada Films

Trivia:

The text at the end of film reads: "In 1941, a Kentucky mountaineer returned to a remote sinkhole, the place where during the Civil War he had killed and buried a Union Soldier. This film was inspired by his story as told to the folklorist Harry Caudill."

Soundtrack:

Love Theme

Worth Watching!

If you're even mildly interested in the War between the States, this film is worth watching. It is great historical story telling. No flashing sabres, no cavalry charges, no carnage -- just the story of a sorry group of Union soldiers stumbling into the farm of a Confederate woman and her son and taking as much as their captain's conscience allows. This quantity moves up and down as events unfold affecting his sense of humanity in conflict with his sense of duty to his men and his cause. Ultimately, he reaches a compromise that any of us would be hard put to top.

I appreciate the historical treatment of the war in Kentucky, a slave state that tried to stay neutral but eventually opted to remain in the Union under mysterious political circumstances involving the detention of certain legislators. Roughly half the soldiers from Kentucky fought for each side, but there's never been much treatment of what it was like to have lived there through those times. This film makes a great contribution simply in the "look and feel" of the time and place.