Burt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry) and Lee Remick (Days of Wine and Roses) star in The Hallelujah Trail, the widescreen comic western extravaganza directed by John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven) from a screenplay by John Gay (Separate Tables) based on the novel by Bill Gulick.

Under the watchful eye of its owner Frank Wallingham (Brian Keith, The McKenzie Break), the Wallingham Freighting Company is bound for Denver with forty wagons of whiskey to quench the town’s thirst. But there are others who have plans of their own for the load of libations including temperance leader Cora Templeton Massingale (Remick), who wants it destroyed, the Sioux Indians who want it for themselves, ditto the Denver citizens militia, as well as the Irish teamsters hired as wagon drivers. Fearing that the shipment may not reach its destination, Colonel Thaddeus Gearhart (Lancaster) assigns Captain Paul Slater (Jim Hutton; The Green Berets) to safeguard the cargo, unaware that Slater’s fiancée, Louise (Pamela Tiffin, Harper) – who also happens to be the Colonel’s daughter – has fallen under the powerful spell of Cora’s temperance message.

Rounding out the cast in this comic free-for-all are Donald Pleasence (Phenomena), Martin Landau (Ed Wood), Dub Taylor (Bonnie and Clyde), John Anderson (Ride the High Country), Tom Stern (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold) and Val Avery (Black Caesar).

The Hallelujah Trail was photographed in the Ultra Panavision 70 format by three-time Academy Award® winner Robert Surtees (King Solomon’s Mines – 1951, The Bad and the Beautiful – 1953, Ben-Hur – 1960), costumed by eight-time Academy Award® winner Edith Head (The Sting – 1974), with a rousing score by Academy Award® winner Elmer Bernstein (Best Music, Original Music Score, Thoroughly Modern Millie – 1968).

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The Hallelujah Trail was an ambitious project from the very start. The story follows two cavalrymen (Burt Lancaster and Jim Hutton) as they escort a wagonload of whiskey to Denver while enduring Indian attacks, belligerent drunks, and a crusading temperance league led by Lee Remick. To Sturges, it was a Western composed of pure situational comedy elements, a form of filmmaking that he had not tackled previously, plus the scope of the picture was truly daunting, even for Sturges. The production alone totaled nearly 300 cast members and a myriad of crew members behind the camera.

Shot on location in Gallup, New Mexico, The Hallelujah Trail definitely had its share of behind-the-scenes crises. In Against Type: The Biography of Burt Lancaster by Gary Fishgall, second unit director Tim Zimmerman recalled that Gallup in the early sixties was "a truck stop on the old Route 66. It was a very rough town...There were a lot of bars, and everybody went to all of them, and everybody got into trouble." Some of that trouble spilled over to the set and it was reported that Lancaster did not get along with two of his co-stars, Brian Keith and Lee Remick. Another problem, according to actor Martin Landau, "was bad weather continually. The day would usually start beautifully, and then the afternoon storms would come up." Worst of all, a stuntman named Bill Williams was crushed to death beneath the wheels of a wagon while performing a stunt.

Excerpt from TCM located HERE

1080P Single-layered Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video

Edition Details:
• Trailer (2:10)

Blu-ray  Release Date: February 27th, 2018
Standard Blu-ray case