Western

Film review, by Jason Day, of Shalako (1968), the Western starring Sean Connery in the title role, a white man raised by first world nation people tasked with protecting a group of privileged, European, big game hunters. Co-starring Brigitte Bardot, directed by Edward Dmytryk.

Synopsis

From IMDb.com: ‘A group of European aristocrats go hunting in New Mexico in the 1880s. Here they quickly come into conflict with the Apaches, who are reluctant to see guests on their reservation. Only the recluse Shalako seems able to save them.’

Review, by @Reelreviewer

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC to their friends and intimates) give a PG (Parental Guidance) rating to Shalako, a curious thing for a curious movie – a British Western.

The Western has long been the preserve – and, frequently, masterwork – of US filmmakers. It’s a genre as embedded in the psyche of America as the Georgian/Tudor/Victoria period drama is to the British.

Shalako is helmed by Edward Dmytryk – Canadian born but long since working in Hollywood, first as editor then director, including the megaphone duties of the classic 1959 Western Warlock, starring Richard Widmark – so this Blighty-backed production should have been in the hands of someone steeped in Western mythology and symbolism, right?

Right?

Not quite.

Dmytryk’s film comes at the high point of the 1960’s period of Spaghetti Westerns, a term for films usually made by Italians in Europe that invert and upend the style and narrative of US movies.

Spaghetti Westerns typically are bloodier and more violent and Dmytryk’s style is certainly in step with that, but that’s about all he gets right in this aggressive, argumentative, but ultimately dramatically thin piece with perfunctory dialogue and a sometimes drawn out and too long feel.

Not all of this violence is seen, thank God, but dogs have their throats cut, and flaming arrows land inconveniently in men’s bodies before, in the film’s most shocking scene, Honor Blackman meets a grisly end.

Blackman is more brilliant and buxom than star Bardot and has the most interesting role in the film (not entirely BB’s fault – she’s hampered by a heavy French accent – the other actors are English or American – and a dull character).

A society woman, married through convenience to a dull member of the English gentry (Jack Hawkins), she’s fabulously honest about wanting what she can get.

So, when ole Jacky boy and his title outstay their welcome and handsome, grizzled cowboy Stephen Boyd flashes a smile and an offer of a way out and get her hands on Bardot’s glittering jewellery), she picks up her heels and bustle and skidaddles.

Sadly this is right into the Apaches hand – and where I feel that PG rating is curious – leading to a sequence usually cut from TV showings. Blackman plays dead after an attack, has sand dropped into her mouth, and then is stripped and choked with the very necklace she has long coveted.

The attack underlines a stonking inconsistency with the film. Connery talks about the Apache – whom he was adopted by as a child – with affection and respect, leading us to believe they are unfairly maligned and misunderstood. Then, the film depicts them committing graphic, nasty violence and gleefully engaging in torture.

There is an almost Brechtian staging to the earlier, pre-attack scenes as one of the quintessential scenes of Englishness – a shooting party – is recreated in the desert, dining table, candelabras and unflappable butler (British comedy legend Eric Sykes, no less), setting up the characters and viewers for a dozen course of snacking, smoking and ‘sherrying’.

Scots Connery makes a strapping but wholly miscast lead (remember, he’s American, adopted by Apache Indians) but he looks like he had fun cocking a rifle and reveling in his international, movie hero status (one of his last James Bond films – You Only Live Twice – was released the year before). A telling support turn comes from Alexander Knox as an elderly and wily US politico.

Cast & credits

Director: Edward Dmytryk. 1h and 53mins/113mins. Palomar Pictures International/Kingston Film Productions Ltd./Central Cinema Company Film (CCC). (PG)

Producers: Artur Brauner, Euan Lloyd.
Writers: James Griffith, Hal Hopper, Scot Finch.
Camera: Ted Moore.
Music: Robert Farnon.
Sets: Herbert Smith.

Sean Connery, Brigitte Bardot, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Peter van Eyck, Honor Blackman, Woody Strode, Eric Sykes, Alexander Knox, Valerie French, Julián Mateos, Don ‘Red’ Barry.