Marlon Brando's career was almost as comatose as his performance when he made this spaghetti western wannabe. Don Corleone was still six years ahead of him and the bloated epic Mutiny on the Bounty, his last sizeable hit, four years in the past. Age was catching up with him, too: at the age of forty-one he was starting to fill out. Perhaps, by embracing a genre that was huge in the mid-sixties, he believed he could kick-start a career that looked as if it was fizzling out. If that was the case, he was sadly mistaken.
The story concerns a reformed criminal's (Brando) efforts to recover the eponymous appaloosa stallion stolen from him at the outset of the film. The thief is Chuy (pronounced Chewie, like Han Solo's sidekick) Medina (John Saxon), a local crime lord who attempted to buy the horse from him to save face after his 'wife' stole it in an attempt to escape her husband. The appaloosa, of course, is a symbol. Matt (Brando), after a life of crime, plans to start a horse ranch from the horse's seed, so its theft is both an emasculation (and its circumstances an equally damaging humiliation) and a theft of his chance of redemption. For Medina, the horse represents the power he can now wield over those who had held back his people for so long. The struggle for Trini (Anjanette Comer) is a parallel struggle and, strangely enough, it adds a dimension to Saxon's character rather than Brando's. Although Saxon's accent is of the Speedy Gonzales school of diction, there is a brooding darkness to him that is hinted at rather than explored, which is a shame because, for all its symbolism, this movie doesn't have a whole lot going for it.
Judging by this effort, director Sidney J. Furie, whose career peeked around this period (when he was only 33) is something of a style sponge. Either that or he's just a plain old copycat, because he couldn't be more obviously trying to emulate Leone if he had Clint Eastwood walk on in his poncho. For every straightforward shot, he feels completely to supply us with a shot of the action filmed from behind the brim of one of those outlandishly large hats that Mexican cowboys wear, or from behind Brando's fingers, or from behind a horse's arse, so we get four-fifths of the screen filled with hat/fingers/arse and one-fifth action. Plus, of course, we get the obligatory close-ups of sweaty, sneering faces possessing bad tombstone teeth and giant pores. Nothing wrong with paying homage, Sid, but you've gotta add a little originality and imagination at the same time. And a little pace would be a bonus. Otherwise, your career is going to go well, you know where your career is going to go.
Pluses: some nice photography (when not obstructed by Brando's arse, horse's fingers etc), a good performance by Saxon – even with the silly accent, and a bang-on arm-wrestling contest in which the loser's hand will be pushed onto a rather angry scorpion. And Comer looks nice, although she isn't really given that much to do. Although, given that she is the sole reason that Matt finds himself in the situation he does, you can't help wondering whether he would have been so nice to her if she hadn't looked so hot. But then perhaps, in a way so obscure it is almost invisible, that ties in with the general theme of the film.
The story concerns a reformed criminal's (Brando) efforts to recover the eponymous appaloosa stallion stolen from him at the outset of the film. The thief is Chuy (pronounced Chewie, like Han Solo's sidekick) Medina (John Saxon), a local crime lord who attempted to buy the horse from him to save face after his 'wife' stole it in an attempt to escape her husband. The appaloosa, of course, is a symbol. Matt (Brando), after a life of crime, plans to start a horse ranch from the horse's seed, so its theft is both an emasculation (and its circumstances an equally damaging humiliation) and a theft of his chance of redemption. For Medina, the horse represents the power he can now wield over those who had held back his people for so long. The struggle for Trini (Anjanette Comer) is a parallel struggle and, strangely enough, it adds a dimension to Saxon's character rather than Brando's. Although Saxon's accent is of the Speedy Gonzales school of diction, there is a brooding darkness to him that is hinted at rather than explored, which is a shame because, for all its symbolism, this movie doesn't have a whole lot going for it.
Judging by this effort, director Sidney J. Furie, whose career peeked around this period (when he was only 33) is something of a style sponge. Either that or he's just a plain old copycat, because he couldn't be more obviously trying to emulate Leone if he had Clint Eastwood walk on in his poncho. For every straightforward shot, he feels completely to supply us with a shot of the action filmed from behind the brim of one of those outlandishly large hats that Mexican cowboys wear, or from behind Brando's fingers, or from behind a horse's arse, so we get four-fifths of the screen filled with hat/fingers/arse and one-fifth action. Plus, of course, we get the obligatory close-ups of sweaty, sneering faces possessing bad tombstone teeth and giant pores. Nothing wrong with paying homage, Sid, but you've gotta add a little originality and imagination at the same time. And a little pace would be a bonus. Otherwise, your career is going to go well, you know where your career is going to go.
Pluses: some nice photography (when not obstructed by Brando's arse, horse's fingers etc), a good performance by Saxon – even with the silly accent, and a bang-on arm-wrestling contest in which the loser's hand will be pushed onto a rather angry scorpion. And Comer looks nice, although she isn't really given that much to do. Although, given that she is the sole reason that Matt finds himself in the situation he does, you can't help wondering whether he would have been so nice to her if she hadn't looked so hot. But then perhaps, in a way so obscure it is almost invisible, that ties in with the general theme of the film.