Advance to the Rear (1964)

Advance to the Rear (1964)

 

Advance to the Rear is a light-hearted 1964 American Western comedy film set in the American Civil War. Directed by George Marshall, and starring Glenn Ford, Stella Stevens, and Melvyn Douglas

  

The film is based on the 1957 novel Company of Cowards by Jack Schaefer, whose inspiration was an article by William Chamberlain, published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1956

Chamberlain recounts the apocryphal Civil War stories of "Company Q" (19th century army slang for the sick list), a unit composed of coward soldiers who are given a second chance to prove their bravery

The film had the novel title in pre-production and when released in the United Kingdom

However, the novel had none of the comedic elements of the film which retained only the basic idea of a unit formed out of men who had been court-martialed for cowardice and sent out west as well as some character names

The story may have been the inspiration for the later ABC-TV sitcom F-Troop (1965-1967)

 

Advance to the Rear (1964)