The Red, White, and Black (1970) User Reviews

Somewhat Disjointed but Not Terribly Bad Overall

[Uriah43 · 4/10 · 19 January 2022]

The film takes place in 1871 with a womanizer by the name of "Eli Brown" (Robert DoQui) attempting to avoid various jealous husbands by enlisting in the 10th Cavalry Regiment of the U. S. Army. Although he thinks he is quite clever, he quickly meets his match when he gets to Fort Davis, Texas and is introduced to "First Sergeant Robertson" (Isaac Fields) who immediately gives him extra duty to go along with his exhaustive basic training. Eventually, Private Brown adjusts to military life and it's then that he happens to see an attractive woman named "Miss Julie" (Janee Michelle) who works as the local seamstress. One thing leads to another and they are soon married. The problem, however, is that there are very few women at Fort Davis and the news of this marriage is not received well by a jealous non-commissioned officer named "Sergeant Hatch" (Lincoln Kilpatrick) who has little regard for his men and is not respected by them. Now, rather than reveal anymore, allow me to say that I happened to like this film by and large. Unfortunately, it had a number of flaws that were simply too obvious to be ignored. For starters, the plot seemed somewhat disjointed with some scenes lacking harmony with the others. And while I won't say that the film fell apart at the end, I must admit that the final scene could have used some improvement. Likewise, the character known as "Walking Horse" (Robert Dix) wasn't very convincing either. That being said, while I don't consider this to be a bad movie necessarily, in view of the obvious faults just mentioned, I cannot in good conscience rate it any higher than I have. Slightly below average.

Good for a low budget movie

[bookmarkau · 6/10 · 2 September 2022]

There is no getting around the fact that this is a low budget movie, but having said that I think the other reviewers are being way to harsh. The thing I really like about the movie is that it looks and sounds like it takes place when and where it does. The soldiers look like soldiers on frontier duty, instead of coming straight from the wardrobe department. The combat is more realistic than heroic and at the heart of the movie is a morality play. It is a slice of life movie than anything else and I find that interesting. One final note is that it is a movie where race is important, but it has no axe to grind.

A real curio...

[Wizard-8 · 5 January 2003]

Surprisingly, though its packaging might make you think this is an exploitation movie, this western (concerning the real-life Buffalo Soldiers) actually takes itself very seriously, despite instances concerning action and sex. Though the movie had serious intentions, it feels like it was made by exploitation filmmakers, and the movie still has a weird feeling of exploitation to it (possibly due to the low production values.) It isn't very compelling, but it may have enough curiosity value for fans of drive-in movies of the time.

Entirely Worthless

[roark183 · 1/10 · 2 April 2006]

I have never seen such a film that has so little value as this version of Buffalo Soldiers. The black soldiers that operated in the American West after the Civil War deserved better than this.

This film had no plot. The acting was extremely poor. There was no character development. It was mis-cast. The costuming of the Indians was extremely poor. The songs were really poor; it would have done better without such boring songs. Where do they find such lousy composers? The Indians were dressed in modern clothing made to look ragged. They had headbands that were obviously recently color dyed for the film.

Cesar Romero is a fine actor, but it is pretty unreal to find a Latin officer in the US Army defending the US border with Mexico. Barbara Hale plays his wife. She took her part pretty insincerely. I agree with her, as no one could take this film seriously. 1/10

No a "B Western", but a "Z Western"!

[The_Colonel · 1/10 · 29 October 2006]

I saw this when it first came out and liked it. Probably because I love westerns and westerns about the cavalry. So when I saw it available on DVD under the title of "The Buffalo Soldiers", I had to have it. When I watched it I couldn't believe that I liked such schlock! Terrible! Saw that it was filmed at the actual Fort Davis in Texas, but that didn't help the lousy script, acting, directing, filming, editing and whatever else there is to rate. The actual Buffalo Soldiers must be rolling in their graves at this one. What an embarrassment. Save your money and bypass this piece of garbage! If you want to see a better movie about these heroes called Buffalo Soldiers, get yourself a copy of Danny Glover's film. Yeah, yeah it ends on a lame note, but it is sure better than this waste of film!