Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #34: Rough Riders (1997)

 

Most of the movies I’ve watched have taken place within the confines of today’s United States. With Rough Riders, America starts to take a more active role on the global stage. Back in the 1890s, a not entirely accurate press whipped up support for Cuban independence from Spain. After the destruction of the military USS Maine  (long proven to have been an accident and not a Spanish plot) off Havana, Cuba, the US declared war and ended up with several overseas possessions. The idea of creating an overseas empire was extremely controversial at the time, with detractors seeing it as an attempt to emulate the aggression of European powers and the defenders believing it would serve America’s economic interests or, as Theodore Roosevelt believed, keep America’s heroic frontier spirit alive.

The Spanish-American War was an extremely lopsided victory for the United States. Naturally, the only part of the war that could warrant a heroic war film were the land battles in Cuba, where Teddy Roosevelt and his volunteer Rough Riders would distinguish themselves at San Juan Hill. Such a film materialized as a TNT miniseries thanks to Roosevelt fans Tom Berenger and John Milius. Berenger was the initiator, having gotten the idea while playing James Longstreet in Gettysburg. He wasn’t going to direct, however, and chose John Milius for the job.

Milius had already filmed Roosevelt in his 1975 epic The Wind and the Lion, where Brian Keith (who plays President James McKinley for a couple scenes in Rough Riders) turned in an incredible performance as the 26^th president (I almost added this movie to my list to get more Roosevelt, but alas this is his solo appearance). Milius, a rare firm conservative in Hollywood, perhaps saw himself in Roosevelt, as both used mental and physical dedication to overcome a sickly childhood.

While he wisely did not direct, Tom Berenger does play the meatiest role, that of Theodore Roosevelt. Berenger does a pretty good job, really delivering on the president’s famous energy. His Roosevelt is, like in history, enthusiastic about the opportunity to finally prove his courage in war. He’s not an idiot, in fact making sure a professional soldier commands the regiment he raises, but he does have his clownish moments such as trying to run around the battlefield with an unwieldy sword. The soldier he chooses to lead the regiment is Colonel Leonard Wood (Dale Dye), who serves as a straight man until he’s promoted to general and Roosevelt suddenly finds himself feeling heavier responsibility as a full colonel. Fleshing him out is his wife Edith (Ileana Douglas), who was quite the energetic figure herself, though naturally we don’t see much of it as this is a war movie.

Teddy and Edith Roosevelt (Tom Berenger and Ileana Douglas)

Of course most of the main characters make up the titular unit, the Rough Riders (officially the 1^st United States Volunteer Cavalry). Though meant to be cavalry, they would end up as light infantry, a wise move since the terrain they fought in was wooded or hilly. Having spent much time out West, Roosevelt intended this to be the epitome of the American man, a collection of horse-riding frontiersmen from the southwest. It ended up being much more eclectic, as Texas Rangers, Native Americans, and Ivy League athletes pulled strings or simply showed up to join.

The characters in the movie’s regiment are a mix of real figures and fictional encapsulations of the various types of men who joined up. On the fictional side there’s an old frontiersman (Geoffrey Lewis), a Mexican (Francesco Quinn), a Sioux Indian (Bob Primeaux), and an outlaw (Buck Taylor in his third movie on my watchlist). Among the real figures are the upper-class Harvard-educated men, with Chris Noth having the most prominent role as Craig Wadsworth Jr. This was back when upper-class men were expected to be tough, too, so there’s a great scene where the frontiersmen try to pull a trick on Wadsworth by putting him on an unruly horse. To their surprise Wadsworth gets the animal to calm down, as he was a polo champion (in real life a steeplechase rider).

Left to right: Henry Nash (Brad Johnson), Indian Bob (Bob Primeaux), and American attaché to the Cuban rebels Frederick Funston, who is mistakenly cast with Latino actor Pablo Espinoza when he was really white.

Sam Elliot returns to my watchlist as William “Buckey” O’Neill, an Arizona sheriff (among other things) who joined the Rough Riders as a Captain. I’m not sure how accurate Elliot is to the real O’Neill, but he’s reliably a good character, a major officer who toughens his men into a fighting unit, but also cares for them. On the topic we get to the mini-series’ most odd inaccuracy. Brad Johnson plays Henry Nash, a stagecoach robber who literally joins the Rough Riders in an attempt to escape the law. He displays cowardice early on in the battle scenes and draws the ire of O’Neill. The real Henry Nash was a completely respectable miner and schoolteacher was friendly with the sheriff. For the purposes of the movie, he’s mixed with real-life outlaw William Sterin, who had actually been arrested by O’Neill. Whereas in real life O’Neill and Sterin found their new alliance amusing, the movie makes things much more hostile. The changes allow Nash to have the most character growth, going from amoral thief to war hero.

Because the Spanish-American War has not made it into movies all that much, John Milius took the opportunity to add a whole host of other characters in the Rough Riders’ orbit, many of them famous independent of the Spanish-American War. Keeping with the military side of things, a fellow unit in the cavalry division is the 10^th US Cavalry, better known as the Buffalo Soldiers. These were black troops, who were still seen as viable fighting men at the end of the 19^th Century. One of the white officers was none other than John Pershing, future commander of the American force in World War I. Here, played by Marshall Teague, he’s implied to be the actual commander of the regiment, but it is true that he drew attention for his fighting at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Since the Rough Riders are already an eclectic bunch, the presence of the Buffalo Soldiers allows for a big unified, multiracial moment when the hill is captured.

General Willam Shafter (Rodger Boyce) gets a very unflattering portrayal as an obese and out-of-his depth commander (he was fat, but not in a slovenly way). Worse, the movie implies that he never saw service in the Civil War when in fact he won the Medal of Honor for his performance at the Battle  of Fair Oaks. He was even wounded there.

More prominent in the miniseries is General Joseph Wheeler (Gary Busey), a former Confederate cavalry general who was given command of the US Army’s cavalry division by President McKinley. As usual Busey hams it up, making Wheeler one of the more entertaining characters to watch. As in real life his excitement gets the better of him and he starts calling the Spanish “Yankees.” While his Civil War record is mixed, even controversial, Wheeler's presence in the Spanish-American War, as well as a common foreign foe, healed some of the wounds between the North and South (as seen at the end of this clip). Surprisingly R. Lee Ermey is in this but does not play a military figure. Instead he appears as Secretary of State John Hay. One of Abraham Lincoln’s private secretaries in his younger days, Hay is regarded by historians as one of the more impactful Secretaries of State because he oversaw America’s explosion into a global power. Here, though, he’s a minor figure to provide a little wider context.

William Randolph Hearst (George Hamilton) pops in and out as the newspaper editor who stirred up war fervor with his incendiary coverage of Spanish rule in Cuba. He usually shows up to deliver one of his famous quotes. Frederic Remington, the famed western artist, also makes a couple small appearances. He provided the most famous illustration of the Rough Riders’ charge up San Juan Hill. More involved with the narrative are two war correspondents. Davis Edward Marshall (William Katt) was wounded at San Juan Hill, but survived. The movie has him actually helping out with the fight at Las Guasimas, shooting a rifle alongside Teddy Roosevelt.

The other correspondent is none other than Stephen Crane, a fact I somehow missed on my first viewing of the mini-series. If you don’t know who he is, he’s the tortured writer who gave us The Red Badge of Courage as well as many short stories about everyday life. I am a bit confused about what the mini-series says about him. I got the sense that when Marshall says Crane’s book almost makes it sound like he was there, he’s accusing him of making things up without actually doing the journalistic legwork. However the only book on war that Crane had written by this point was Red Badge of Courage, which of course was based on the Civil War decades earlier. He did cover the Greco-Turkish War, but was definitely a witness and his novella on it was written after the Spanish-American War. Regardless, Crane did get himself into serious controversy when he escorted chorus girls and a prostitute while in New York, and he did fall seriously ill and die at the age of 28.

Americans fire a machine gun at Las Guasimas. This is
the first appearance of such a weapon on my watchlist.

The mini-series is three hours in total. For the first third it’s preoccupied with the formation of the regiment and the training. This means there’s no battle scene for a long time, but the story moves along nicely thanks to the plethora of diverse and colorful characters. It should be noted that the Spanish perspective is not shown at all. This could be chalked up to the need to focus on the large cast of Americans, but it’s possible that Milius didn’t see the Spanish as compelling antagonists, as they never drew the respect or fear as soldiers that British redcoats, Confederates, Sioux Warriors, or Nazi-led Germans did. Actually, Milius decided to give the Spanish German advisers in the belief that it’ll make them easier to root against. Personally I find this decision a little eye-rolling.

There are only two battles, but they have long runtimes. The Battle of Las Guasimas was a pitched firefight in the Cuban jungle. The real battle is chalked up as an American victory because the Spanish did retreat, but it was actually a poor showing for the invasion force, which made foolish assaults that resulted in about 70 killed and wounded compared to about 20 for the Spanish. The mini-series does have Wheeler admitting he got his men ambushed, and the confusion created by the jungle and smokeless Mauser rifles of the Spanish is well conveyed. On the other hand Milius makes things decidedly more even-handed during the action with the Rough Riders inflicting as much casualties as they receive.

Theodore Roosevelt yells orders to his Rough Riders.
(https://alchetron.com/Rough-Riders-(miniseries))

The Battle of San Juan Hill is largely accurate. The first phase of the battle sees American troops ordered to stay put in a hazardous position where the Spanish can rake them with fire from the heights. Then the Rough Riders get their orders to assault Kettle Hill. The moment when the Rough Riders fail to follow Roosevelt because they’re distracted by a comrade’s death also occurred. As with Las Guasimas the facts have to be altered a bit to make the protagonists more heroic. It’s never mentioned that the Americans outnumbered the Spanish five to one at least. While the Spanish positions were formidable, this would have still undercut the Rough Riders’ efforts to take them. Also, the movie has the Rough Riders go from Kettle Hill to San Juan Hill in another action, but the battle’s titular height had already fallen by this point.

One final subject is whether the war is portrayed positively or negatively. At several points a more cynical character will note that the war conveniently serves an imperialist ambition or worse the financial interests of a major corporation. Milius even has Roosevelt, right after he achieves victory, grow sullen when he sees a sugar silo that belongs to an American company. Milius is able to ensure his story is triumphant by focusing on the bonds of the men within the Rough Riders, leaving a window open for another director to make a more critical stance on the military operations in Cuba.

Rough Riders is long, but it’s a blast to watch thanks to Milius’ direction, solid music, good battle scenes, and surprisingly fun characters, with the energetic performances by Berenger and Busey as Roosevelt and Wheeler being the highlights. If you’re more cynically inclined, however, you may need to turn off your brain at certain parts and enjoy the camaraderie and bravery of the characters.

Rating: 8/10

(https://jeffarnoldswest.com/2023/06/rough-riders-tnt-1997/)