The Wind and the Lion

In retrospect, John Milius looked like Hollywood’s last hope of ever reviving the classic adventure style cultivated by Michael Curtiz, Zoltan Korda, and, a little further down the road, John Huston. But the critics rejected him as being too conservative. Their loss. This robust adventure, set in 1904, is seductive in its boyish view of history. The two main characters, a Berber chieftain and President Teddy Roosevelt, are painted in large, clean strokes, as great, lonely men who somehow exist outside of time, a little like George C. Scott’s Patton. The story pivots around the idea that these two heroic archetypes, though enemies, somehow illuminate each other’s paths. During the intense opening scenes, the warlike chieftain kidnaps strong-willed widow Candice Bergen and her two children, and Roosevelt, seeing an opportunity to snag more votes, sends in the Marines to retrieve her. Roosevelt’s scenes, played beautifully by Brian Keith, have an alluring, dignified weariness about them, and underscore one or two memorable speeches about the still young United States. This is an intensely rightwing film, not only for its prodigious display of gunmanship, but also in its adulatory depiction of the American character—blind and reckless at times, but also strong, intelligent, and courageous beyond all reason. One rarely hears such candid declarations of the conservative spirit that one almost believes Milius is playing a joke on the audience. The film is a bit talky and draggy at times, and the supporting performances, with the possible exception of John Huston as the Secretary of State, are uniformly weak, but Connery is compelling in his usual gallant manner, and Keith is superb. It is also graced with a breathtaking score by Jerry Goldsmith—stirring, romantic, voluptuous.