Shalako

The caste alone is worth the admission: Connery, Bardot, Hawkins,Steven Boyd, Eric Sykes, Honor Blackman, Woody Strode, others ... Mostly European (actors) - strange for a Western - but not unrealistic to the times. Hawkins and Boyd - both recently out of starring in Ben Hur. A coterie of fine acting talent and charismatic screen artists. Proves my theory as to why Western Film will never die: Every Actor and every Director want to make a Western at some point. Connery and Bardot have some nice interplay in sharing the bulk of the screen time. Meanwhile here's some decent action here in what is a pretty well a straight up Western adventure tale. Possibly a Western that will enjoy greater appreciation with time.

While I will concede that Shalako is not a groundbreaking film, I must take issue with the low average score it has received. The story is fairly engaging, Sean Connery is in great form, and Brigitte Bardot is as comely as ever! She reminds me of Claudia Schiffer! I also love her accent! She and Sean Connery share a very nice restrained romance. Some people might interpret this film as a celebration of the New World over the Old World but really that is too much of an analytical assertion. To me, it's a great star vehicle and a nice rousing adventure celebrating ingenuity, honor, and perseverance. 7/10.

Given its director (Edward Dmytryk) and its cast (Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot) it is rather odd that 'Shalako" (1969) is such an obscure film and that so many of the comments/reviews are totally negative. "Spaghetti" westerns (filmed in Italy or Spain) were quite the rage in the late 1960's and "Shalako" is about what you would get if "Hombre" (1967) had been given a mild "Spaghetti" treatment.

While not even remotely on the level of Monte Hellman's stuff, "Shalako" is an entertaining and comprehensible western that most viewers will get into and enjoy until about the ¾ mark when the wheels fall off and it drags along to a less than spectacular resolution.

Dmytryk was a veteran action director who occasionally ("Eight Iron Men" and "The Young Lions") even did a good job of directing actors for the camera. This was one of his last efforts and he seems to have stayed focused on the action and paid little attention to the performances themselves.

Connery plays the title character, an experienced frontiersman who (like Paul Newman in "Hombre") is forced by circumstances into guiding a bunch of clueless civilians to safety. "Hombre" had Newman (a white man raised by Indians) in the moral dilemma of having to assist a group of people for which he has total contempt. Shalako ' s situation is simpler: he must extract a European aristocrat's hunting party who have ticked off the Apache's by coming onto their reservation and who have been betrayed by their cowboy hunting guides. Although he has little use for most of this group he has developed a grudging respect for a plucky countess (Bardot). There is decent chemistry in the early Connery-Bardot scenes but it does not sustain itself as the relationship begins to turn romantic.

As in "Hombre" there is an interesting twist with the young wife (Honor Blackman) of one of the aristocrats deciding to leave her husband for the dangerous cowboy (Stephan Boyd) who has just placed the group at the mercy of the elements (and the Indians). Blackman is excellent in this part , the only really challenging role in the production.

Dmytryk does an excellent job with his first three action sequences, including a surprisingly credible dawn attack on the camp of the hunting party and a more traditional stagecoach chase sequence. But as already mentioned, the film is extremely front-end loaded and he has dissipated all the tension before the climatic sequence even begins.

"Hombre" on the other hand withheld its best sequence until the end and managed to pack some nice irony into its resolution. You won't find this in "Shalako", in fact the final 20 minutes are so listless your mind begins mulling over the plot holes. Like how did Boyd's character manage to walk all the way to the top of the plateau without being detected by the Indians? When you have to insert a detailed verbal explanation for something totally inexplicable (that has happened "off" camera) a competent editor knows that it is time for some major trimming and a focused director begins revising his script.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Hundreds upon hundreds of westerns have been made by Hollywood and other cinematic centers of creation, but this one can at least claim a pretty unique premise and an unusual cast. The story concerns an arrogant and stubborn party of European nobility who have come to the wilds of the North American west to hunt for sport. They blithely roam onto an Apache reservation and invoke the wrath of the tribe, which has had its fill of broken treaties. Connery, as the title character, plays a well-known loner in the area who has a tenuous relationship with the Apaches and finds himself having to try to rescue the hunters. The hunters include the snobby, condescending van Eyck, his feisty fiancé Bardot, cuckolded Hawkins, his discontented wife Blackman, blithering ex-senator Knox and his Latino wife French. Their guide is the dubious Boyd, who is exploiting them for the fees they pay for his services. It is, at once, jarring and fascinating to see these characters in a western setting. The clothing, furnishings, behaviors, etc...are at odds with the typical western visuals. A butler frets that the champagne may not be cold enough, while they all sit at a dining table in the middle of the desert. The characters are so shallow and bigoted that the viewer can hardly wait to see them get their comeuppance and most of them do...in spades. Where the film primarily fails is in its storytelling, editing and location. The script is vague at times, to say the least. It's not always easy to determine the motivations of the characters. This is not helped by the fact that many of their accented murmurings are spoken softly while the musical score blares, making it hard to settle on a volume level. The editing is, at times, striking and effective, but other times it is weak and harms some of the dramatic impact of the story. The location (Spain) resembles nothing like the American west. This is immediately distracting and sometimes continues to be. There's a horribly silly title song. The direction is occasionally on the lazy side as well. However, the sheer intensity and savagery of the action sequences and some various intriguing story elements make this quite watchable. Connery is appropriately rugged, if unexpected, as a western hero. Bardot is lovely, but doesn't really get a chance to shine much. She is a striking figure on the range, even if her HEAVY eye make-up has nothing to do with the time or place. She and Connery have a slight, subdued chemistry between them that isn't fully developed. The real sparks fly between Boyd and Blackman. He is a great slimeball and she is wonderfully desperate. Her tussle with the Indians is a high point of the film. The Indians are portrayed in a throwback way...speaking pigeon English and basically doing what they did in westerns of the '30's. It's surprising that in 1968, Strode was cast as one of the leaders. Ultimately, the climax renders most of what has taken place inconsequential, another flaw in the storytelling. Still, the film has merit for it's collection of international actors, it's inventive violence and it's unusual approach to the western genre. (In some ways, it resembles a 1970's disaster movie! An all star cast gets dressed up, faces peril, gets dirty, and only a handful survive!)

The idea behind Shalako is not as preposterous as it sounds. Lots of European nobles came here for hunting parties during the American wild west period. As was pointed out in the beginning of Shalako among others was the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia where Buffalo Bill served as a guide to his party.

That being said I'm sure none of them were as dense as Peter Van Eyck who when warned of Indian danger, refuse to leave an area. Quite frankly those Indians should have wiped those blockheads out and would have if not for the efforts of intrepid Indian scout Shalako, played by Sean Connery in a cowboy suit.

Connery looks real nice, but if he wanted to play a western a better script would have done for him. Sean knows this thing is a turkey, but if you had the opportunity to work with Brigette Bardot, would you pass it up.

Stephen Boyd is the best one here as the turncoat guide of the Europeans. Boyd was a good looking man with a trace of arrogance in his screen persona that made him right for a part like Messala in Ben-Hur, but wrong for Livius in The Fall of the Roman Empire. He's back in his proper element.

And I can't give the ending away, but folks take my word for it, it is ridiculous.

Still if you want to see some unfamiliar faces for westerns, this is a good movie to see.