The Raid

1864, in the American Civil War. A group of escaped Confederate officers crosses into Canada and plans a raid on St Albans, a small Vermont town just over the border: rob the banks and burn the place. Their leader spends a few days there in civilian clothes to learn the ground, and the longer he stays the more he settles into the life of it, particularly into that of a widow and her son. Hugo Fregonese's film comes from a real event; the St Albans raid was the northernmost land action of the war. It uses the shape of a western without looking for a hero: both sides do what they came to do. Van Heflin, Anne Bancroft, Richard Boone and a young Lee Marvin are in it.