I didn't expect much from this Civil War movie, set in Vermont(!), but the movie really delivered some great excitement. A group of Rebs were held prisoner in a POW jail in Plattsburgh, NY. They escape to Canada, not far away, and then decide to raid St. Albans, VT, also not far from the border. Their motives are to raise money for the Confederate cause by robbing the 3 banks, and to get revenge for Sherman's destruction of Savannah. All of the big male stars are bad guys--if you believe the lost cause was bad. Van Heflin has some redeeming qualities--he is kind to the boy, Tommy Rettig, and to Anne Bancroft in one of her earliest movies, as a local boarding- house owner and mother of the boy. (Her husband died in the war, fighting for the Union cause.) The excitement builds to a climax, but that may be an unsatisfying climax if you are a Unionist.

Based on a real event in 1864, it's an interesting historical tale. A dozen or so Confederate soldiers escape from a Union prison and make it to Canada where they join a band of other escaped Confederates. After casing the small town of St. Albans, Vermont, they don their uniforms, raid the town, make off with the horses and the banks' money, and burn the buildings.I don't know how closely the film hews to historical fact and I'm too lazy to look it up but, as it stands, it's not badly done. There's nothing resembling grace in Hugo Fregonene's direction or in the dialog but the performances are entirely professional. That's only to be expected from such a seasoned cast.It's a narrative that contrasts ideologues and pragmatists, a subject of interest in some circles today. Lee Marvin as a Confederate lieutenant and Richard Boone as a guilt-ridden Union officer are ready to kill and die for their principles, even though the Civil War was virtually over by the time of the raid. Both are filled with loathing for the other side. The principle they stand for seem not to be states' rights or slavery but self actualization. Some of the town's good citizens are equally filled with righteous wrath towards the South.Boone survives after a futile defense but Marvin does not. This is Lee Marvin in his villainous mode. We get a generous portion of that baleful stare and we are forced to acknowledge that pendulous lower lip. And when Lee Marvin dies on screen, he really DIES. When he's shot he never slumps quietly to the floor grasping his belly. No. He twirls around and throws his arms awkwardly about. He does pirouettes. He does majestic leaps during which he seems to hang in the air. He does handstands, somersaults, and back flips. He does a grand jete en tournant. The audience applauds wildly, recklessly, as Marvin does a toe dance and for his renowned finale performs a superlative cancan. A few bluenoses razz his frilly underpants but he carries on undaunted until he slides to the floor, a dying swan. And when he finally stops rolling over, his tongue lolling out, there's no doubt that he is well and truly dead.The rebel leader is Van Heflin and he's a pragmatist. Regardless of the progress of the war, he's a major in the Confederate Army and he acts like one. The raid for him, as for most of the others, is an act of war, not just an expression of hatred. The raid (he hopes) will draw Federal soldiers from the south, and the money they steal will buy Enfield rifles from the British. It may be too late but that doesn't absolve him of his responsibility.I don't know what the covert message of the film is, although I'm sure there must be one. Maybe it's summed up when Heflin points out to Anne Bancroft that Sherman has been marching through Georgia, burning and looting and killing. Bancroft understands that. But would she understand why Confederates might do the same thing to St. Albans? I don't think that even-steven ploy would have worked if this were a movie about World War II and the Germans pillaged a town in Vermont. But both sides are rather balanced here, which is a step or two above "Gone With the Wind," in which the despised Yankees were all rats.

A Civil War gem recently hunted down on eBay for a second look after 54 years, this is an inspired historical movie about the day the Confederates reigned down on the Yankee town of St Alban's and delivered an overdue lesson to the smug northerners who were celebrating Sherman's criminal march through Georgia.Based on history, a group of Confederates who'd escaped from a Union prison in New York drift down from Canada to "bring the war home" to the north, a thousand miles from where Union soldiers were burning and looting the Southern states. The town of St. Alban's suffers a small lesson about the toll of war - something they thought only distant neighbors need endure.The one inaccuracy in the film is in showing St Alban's in flames. In fact, burning the town was planned but never actually happened, save for one small shed that was torched.

I grew up in St. Albans and I remember as a young grade school student and old gentleman who was a witness to the event visited our school and told of us his experience. It was a thrilling to us young people. The tree where a Confedate bullet hit was still standing back in the 30's and still remember it well. Many of the old structures are still standing today. Banks , livery stable etc. The Park where the people were herded is a more or less unchanged from the Old days. Every year a local store displayed the old uniform etc of the Confederate Officer. No animosity was held towards any one and I guess Lt. Young ? even returned to visit.