The Glory Guys is a 1965 American Western film directed by Arnold Laven and written by Sam Peckinpah, based on the 1956 novel The Dice of God by Hoffman Birney. Filmed by Levy-Gardner-Laven and released by United Artists, it stars Tom Tryon, Harve Presnell, Senta Berger, James Caan, and Michael Anderson Jr.
The Glory Guys | |
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![]() Original film poster by Frank McCarthy | |
Directed by | Arnold Laven |
Screenplay by | Sam Peckinpah |
Based on | The Dice of God by Hoffman Birney |
Produced by |
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Starring | Tom Tryon Harve Presnell Senta Berger James Caan Michael Anderson, Jr. |
Cinematography | James Wong Howe |
Edited by | Tom Rolf |
Music by | Riz Ortolani |
Production company | Levy-Gardner-Laven |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date | 7 July 1965 |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1.6 million[1] |
Though a fictionalized Western based on George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the film is almost a generic war story covering the enlistment, training, and operational deployment of a group of recruits that could take place in any time period. The main plot follows two cavalry soldiers under the command of a tough general who fight Plains Indians and fall for the same woman.
Arnold Laven hired Sam Peckinpah to write the script in 1956 after having been impressed by some of Peckinpah's scripts for Gunsmoke. Although it took a number of years for Laven to raise finance for the movie, the quality of the script led to Laven working with Peckinpah in television.[2]
Peckinpah later called the film "a total disaster because of the casting. All the people in the picture were good. That is, they’ve all been good in other pictures but they didn’t really belong in that one. It was a wretched film. And one of the reasons I’ve made up my mind not to write any more. But I was on the street. I had to write."[3]
The film was known as Custer's Last Stand. When 20th Century Fox announced they would make The Day Custer Fell they were worried about competing with a big budget film so they changed the script and made all the characters fictitious.[1] Sam Peckinpah, fresh from making Major Dundee (1965), was considered to direct the film, but he was passed over in favor of Arnold Laven.
The large-scale film was made in Durango, Mexico, with large numbers of mounted extras and the final battle scene choreographed on 20,000 acres (81 km2) of land.[4]
The titles were drawn by Joseph Mugnaini for Format Productions. Cover version's of the title song were done by Al Caiola and sung by Frankie Laine.
Films directed by Arnold Laven | |
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