The Hallelujah Trail

The Hallelujah Trail is a Western comedy set in 1867, when Denver faces a winter with its whisky and champagne supplies nearly gone. A wagon train of forty wagons is sent from Julesburg to bring in a large cargo of liquor for the miners and townspeople, and Colonel Thaddeus P. Gearhart is given the job of protecting it. The convoy has to deal with several parties who want the drink for themselves: Sioux warriors, a determined temperance league led by the widow Cora Templeton Massingale, and the local militia. John Sturges directed and produced the film, working from a screenplay by John Gay; it is the tenth of the eighteen features he directed, following The Great Escape and preceding The Satan Bug. Burt Lancaster plays Gearhart, with Lee Remick as Massingale, Jim Hutton as Capt. Paul Slater, Donald Pleasence as "Oracle" Jones, Brian Keith as Frank Wallingham and Martin Landau as Chief Walks-Stooped-Over. The production had a budget of 7 million USD and took 4 million USD at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.5 from around 4,900 votes, and on TMDB a rating of 6.1 from about 100 votes.