#mackenna's gold 1969

[mrcowboysmovieroom]

Mackenna's Gold (1969)

Directed by: J. Lee Thompson Genre: Western, action

CW: None Originally written 07/04/2023

Mackenna's Gold caught my attention because of the synopsis and because it stars Omar Sharif. I've seen him in quite a few movies but never in a western. Well, I suppose there is Hidalgo but I don't really think that counts.

I really want to just talk about Omar's character all on his own, but I suppose that's really suited for later.

Mackenna's Gold stars Gregory Peck and Camilla Sparv as well. It also contained Telly Savalas and Ted Cassidy whom I recognized immediately as the man who played Ruk in Star Trek TOS episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?". More notably and more significant however, was his role as Lurch in the original Addams Family tv show. Additionally there's Julie Newmar who played Catwoman in the Adam West Batman series. So, a pretty cool cast.

This western is a treasure chaser. The story goes that there is basically this hidden location sacred to the Apache which is basically just gold. I don't think anyone ever compared it to El Dorado, but the comparison probably goes without saying. The place is thought to be a myth up until recently before the film starts.

Marshall Mackenna (Gregory Peck) ends up being the only man to know it's location by happenstance. He happens to end up in a shootout with the chief carrying the only known map, seeing the map during a conversation ensuing, and then burning the map after the chief dies.

Mackenna has a gifted memory which we learn about through Colorado who reveals that Mackenna has a history of playing poker and won by memorizing the cards.

This marks one of many times we are informed of Mackenna and Colorado's shared history. They call one another old friend and whenever the story needs to reveal a bit of Mackenna's sordid backstory, Colorado is generally the one to divulge. I like this dynamic a lot, but I don't want to get distracted in talking about it a whole lot just yet.

Colorado is searching for the gold and has been following the Apache chief carrying the map for awhile now, and when he finds Mackenna and the chief dead, he surmises that Mackenna must be after the gold as well and is now their only lead to get to it, so he kidnaps Mackenna.

Before he met up with Mackenna he also kidnapped Inga Bergerman (Camilla Sparv) who's the daughter of the judge who made Mackenna Marshall. She's also the love interest. Don't really feel much of anything for her character if I'm being honest. But if I'm being even more honest, I really don't feel much for anyone but Colorado.

I don't think it's Sparv's fault. While I'm not super familiar with her career, this did come out in the 60s, and it's pretty commonplace to underutilize a femme character.

Colorado kidnaps her, but he has no idea of her import and value, or of the fact that even though she's the ex-judge's daughter she's actually worth basically nothing anyways and incidentally this gold could really help her.

And then, all of the sudden Eli Wallach shows up! I was really excited to see him, but this marks a very strange section of the film. With him is a really diverse group of various western archetypes. You expect this to mean something and go somewhere. There is such a weird amount of attention placed on various members of this group that you expect them to be around for a while, at least some of them. There's even dialogue and shots which seem to imply that later on there will be some modicum of payoff for a few of them.

One of them is supposedly the only known survivor to have been to the gold's location but he was taken there blindfolded and then blinded and left for dead. There's a pair of Englishmen who get a very strange amount of attention, and it's possibly implied one of them is actually a woman in disguise.

Eli Wallach and Omar Sharif combine their forces only for a short time before American troops catch up to them and  break them up. The only people to escape are Inga, Mackenna, Colorado, and two Apache played by Ted Cassidy and Julie Newmar (yeah, this is a movie with brownface).

It seems like some of the others may have escaped also but the movie never storybooks their ends so it’s a really confusingly useless section of the movie. It adds nothing to the plot, and at first you don’t realize that because it seems like any of these guys might have gotten away and would end up being trouble later on, but then the movie ends and you’re like oh. Okay. In fact, you may have even forgotten that that part of the movie happens at all! It was just *so* long ago.

So, to get to our final five it feels like we took a long walk to get basically right back to where we started. Omar had more than five people in his group, but these were the only really relevant ones anyway.

Whatever. The group now keeps making their way with soldiers still on their tail and the hot desert ahead. At some point Inga is released to join the soldiers because she’s been slowing them down as she’s weaker and unused to the climate. She meets up with Sergeant Tibbs (Telly Savalas) whom she tells everything to in the hopes that he’ll help Meckenna. Well, shock and awe as he kills his own men and kidnaps her so he can catch up to Meckenna and company to also hunt down the gold.

Kinda funny.

From here, it’s a bit of a blur. I’ve neglected to talk about some other scenes of character development because, if I’m being honest, I don’t care. I don’t really have much regard for these characters despite the cast behind them. There were some enjoyable components but it all mostly had to do with Omar Sharif.

Eventually they reach the location and so more characters have to die. Greed or whatever I guess. Basically, by the time we see gold all we have left is Colorado, Mackenna, and Inga. Unsurprisingly, Mackenna and Colorado fight. Mackenna overpowers Colorado by beating him against the rock walls. Funnily, Inga tries to help by throwing Mackenna her belt to use but then he misses grabbing it and it falls right off the cliffs.

While they’re having their climactic action other Apache who’ve been trying to keep this place guarded finally catch up to them and the rumble and size of the group inadvertently causes an avalanche to occur. So, now our three leads have to escape the area and the end of the movie sees this gold paradise lost in the rubble. Pretty much what you expect from movies like this. Greedy characters get punished and the object of their greed is lost to time and becomes mythical once more.

Uh, it’s okay. The major issues for me are that the film is full of wasted time. There were all those extraneous characters I mentioned before, but it feels like a lot of time could be abridged or make the remaining characters more interesting. I liked that all of them were more or less connected. Mackenna and Colorado have history, but so too does Mackenna to Hesh-Ke (Julie Newmar) who was once his lover. I liked when the movie referenced this history or used it for some of the conflict. For instance, Hesh-Ke tries to kill Inga in an attempt to be the only viable option for Mackenna.

And of course, I really liked Colorado. It’s Colorado time, baby! First, Omar Sharif makes a delightful ruffian. He has this boyish charm and a brilliant smile. Colorado dresses nice and wears these jangly spurs that are never not making noise. I love that detail to his character because it enforces this pattern of peacocking and virtue signaling he does. Colorado really wants you to take him seriously and he’s a man with dreams! There is an adorable scene where he shows Mackenna his reason for wanting the gold and pulls out pamphlets about well dressed men in Paris. He wants to live the life!

Suddenly it’s got me thinking about his wardrobe and how he’s probably never known the comfort and power of wealth like that and that's why this is so important to him. He has this endearing and bubbly personality that just sucks ya in. He’s magnetic and you wonder how anyone can’t grow to love him, and it makes me wonder how the movie can’t give him some sort of redemption proper or reward in the end. Yeah, he lives but under threat and without any gold. I’d give Colorado the gold. Listen I know he’s an outlaw but he’s so sincere and pleasant to be around. Can’t we cut him some slack?

I also just find him more interesting than Mackenna. My interest in Mackenna really only extended as far as his connection to Colorado went. Mackenna was such a stiff board in comparison. There’s a scene in the movie where they find a river and Colorado jumps in naked and then lounges outside and Mackenna and Inga, are for some reason, too good to do the same. They jump in a little later with their clothes still fully on and Colorado says he will never understand the gringo, and like uhhh yeah man, these two are real party-poopers.

So anyway, now that I’ve talked about how much I love Colorado I will conclude by saying the movie is okay. It’s not bad, it's just dull at times and wastes a good bit of time on things that don’t ever matter. It’s probably not so bad if you’re watching for a first time, but I can’t imagine some of the scenes will be bearable in subsequent watches when you know they lead nowhere and did nothing for the plot on large.

Final verdict; 5.6/10

[voguefashion]

Camilla Sparv and Omar Sharif all in Velvet, at the premiere of Mackenna's Gold, in which they both starred, at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on April 9th 1969.

[thedepartmentofdiscoveries]

[gatutor]

Julie Newmar-Gregory Peck "El oro de MacKenna" (MacKenna´s gold) 1969, de J. Lee Thompson.

[leonardcohenofficial]

gregory peck and omar sharif playing bridge on the set of mackenna's gold, 1969

[hagolaz]

Eli spotted! Mackenna's Gold, 1969

[wheelscomedyandmore]

Theodore Crawford "Ted" Cassidy (July 31, 1932 – January 16, 1979)

Noted for his tall stature at 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m), and his deep bass voice. He tended to play unusual characters in offbeat or science-fiction series such as Star Trek and I Dream of Jeannie, and is best known for the role of Lurch on The Addams Family in the mid-1960s. He is also known for voicing The Hulk. Though the character of Lurch was intended to be mute, Cassidy ad-libbed his signature line, "You rang?". The subtle humor and the deepness of his voice was immediately a hit. Thereafter, it was a recurring phrase written into the script. Cassidy also provided the voice of the more aggressive version of Balok in the Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver", the role of the android Ruk in the episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", and he voiced the Gorn in the episode "Arena". Cassidy did more work with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in the early 1970s, playing Isiah in the post-apocalyptic drama pilots Genesis II and Planet Earth. His film work included his appearances in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Mackenna's Gold (1969), The Limit (1972), Charcoal Black (1972), The Slams (1973), Thunder County (1974), Poor Pretty Eddie (1975), Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977) and Goin' Coconuts (1978). He also co-wrote the screenplay of 1973's The Harrad Experiment, in which he made a brief appearance. Cassidy underwent surgery at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles to have a non-malignant tumor removed from his heart. While recovering at home, complications arose several days later and he was readmitted. On January 16, 1979, Cassidy died at age 46 at St. Vincent Medical Center.

[jedivoodoochile]

Theodore Crawford "Ted" Cassidy (July 31, 1932 – January 16, 1979)

Noted for his tall stature at 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m), and his deep bass voice. He tended to play unusual characters in offbeat or science-fiction series such as Star Trek and I Dream of Jeannie, and is best known for the role of Lurch on The Addams Family in the mid-1960s. He is also known for voicing The Hulk. Though the character of Lurch was intended to be mute, Cassidy ad-libbed his signature line, "You rang?". The subtle humor and the deepness of his voice was immediately a hit. Thereafter, it was a recurring phrase written into the script. Cassidy also provided the voice of the more aggressive version of Balok in the Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver", the role of the android Ruk in the episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", and he voiced the Gorn in the episode "Arena". Cassidy did more work with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in the early 1970s, playing Isiah in the post-apocalyptic drama pilots Genesis II and Planet Earth. His film work included his appearances in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Mackenna's Gold (1969), The Limit (1972), Charcoal Black (1972), The Slams (1973), Thunder County (1974), Poor Pretty Eddie (1975), Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977) and Goin' Coconuts (1978). He also co-wrote the screenplay of 1973's The Harrad Experiment, in which he made a brief appearance. Cassidy underwent surgery at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles to have a non-malignant tumor removed from his heart. While recovering at home, complications arose several days later and he was readmitted. On January 16, 1979, Cassidy died at age 46 at St. Vincent Medical Center.

[buzzdixonwriter]

George Lucas Is A Lousy Storyteller, Episode One

Let’s talk about the naked emperor elephant in the room:  George Lucas is a lousy storyteller.

He’s been lucky in his personal career, fouling out with his first feature, hitting a respectable double with his second, and then a grand slam bases loaded outta-da-park home run for his third.

The considerable media empire he started typically succeeds better when they hand over his projects to more skillful storytellers than to rely on Lucas’ own storytelling abilities. 

The ancillary successes of Star Wars hinge off side projects he provided little direct input into.  The more closely involved he is, the less likely a project is to succeed.

And to those of you thinking this is sour grapes, no:  This evaluation is based solely on Lucas’ own words and on his own films.

Lucas seems supremely disinterested in the basic structure of storytelling.  His interest as a filmmaker lies more in sight and sensation as opposed to a coherent story (and by coherent story I mean one where characters and theme work together to form the plot, not one where they are a jumble of discordant elements thrown together).  Carrie Fisher famously observed Lucas did not know how to direct actors, not even to the most basic degree of helping them shape their performances. 

Lucas himself long boasted of his disdain for conventional filmmaking and storytelling, a boast clearly evident in his earliest films.  He ignored USC’s film school rules, adding unapproved elements to his films to overshadow fellow students who followed school constraints.  When USC got him a chance to work on a making-of documentary short about the 1969 film MacKenna’s Gold, he turned it into a meandering, pointless, and unfocused -- in every sense of the word -- string of desert landscapes and obscure behind-the-scenes shots where one couldn’t tell what was going on.

In fairness, MacKenna’s Gold isn’t a very good movie, but if the task at hand is to tell people about it, Lucas failed miserably. 

Let’s start at the very beginning, with his USC student films:

Look At Life (1965) is a photo collage film, a series of fast paced intercuts of various contemporary images against a music backtrack, ending with an ironic comment.  The technique goes back to the early experimental film makers of the late 1920s and early 1930s in Germany, later reintroduced in America with Bruce Conner’s A Movie in 1958.  It seems every young filmmaker at some point dose a movie like this because they’re cheap / fast / easy.

Herbie (1966) is an abstract film showing the play of light on cars.  To be fair, every young filmmaker also shoots a movie like this at some time.  Call it a rite of passage.

Freiheit (1966) shows a frightened young man in a white shirt and a tie running through the woods.  He sees an object (a sign?  Surviving prints are too murky to make this out clearly) and runs towards it, only to be gunned down from off camera.  A soldier comes out to examine his body while various voice overs talk about how important freedom is.  Presumably, Lucas intended this as some sort of comment on the draft and the Vietnam war, but it seems more pretentious than profound and frankly looks amateurish.  The title is German for “freedom”.

1:42.08 (1966) is a short documentary about a driver making a time trial run in a sports car.  It’s well directed in terms of camera placement and editing, but it’s nothing but a guy getting in a car and driving around a track.  It’s the kind of footage that would serve well a as a show reel for someone wanting a job shooting commercials or sports videos as it focuses entirely on motion and sensation, not story.  While other students in class were limited to black and white film, Lucas shot his in color, giving him an unfair edge.  His passion for cars comes through, however, and from this short one can see how he visited the topic in American Graffiti.

Electric Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967) is Lucas’ most famous student film and to be frank, it does mark the highwater mark of his college career.  Assigned the task of instructing USAF officers in the basics of filmmaking, Lucas dragooned them into making a dystopian sci-fi short using real locations such as Los Angeles International Airport (yes, back then you could simply go to the airport late at night and shoot a sci-fi film in the empty corridors without a ton of security descending on you).  The film does run a bit longer than truly necessary to tell the story, and the story is very basic (guy flees oppressive society by running through empty corridors until he finds a door leading outside), but the sound design really helps sell the mood and sense of the future.

The Emperor (1967) is a short documentary about then popular LA DJ “Emperor” Bob Hudson.  It’s essentially a pretentious puff piece and the best elements in it seem to be taken from commercials shot by somebody else, but Lucas intercuts between Hudson and young people on the streets of Los Angeles.  Hudson boasts of his appeal to young people and perhaps in the day he really was thought of as a counter-culture figure, but 55 years later he seems more like a mellower, less toxic Rush Limbaugh.  Without the context of the era, the importance of radio in general and Hudson in particular is lost on modern audiences while the !960s sexism wears thin.  This short is notable for the first glimpse of how Lucas would later handle Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti.  For reasons known only to him, Lucas inexplicably puts the credits at the midway point of the film.

Anyone Lived In A Pretty How Town (1967) is about a magical (?) photographer popping in and out of existence as he follows a young couple, taking their picture yet never finding an image that satisfies him.  This film feels like a throwback to Lucas’ earliest efforts, with a very amateurish look and performances.  It seems heavily inspired by Carson Davidson’s Help! My Snowman's Burning Down (1964) and Jim Henson’s Time Piece (1965), both of which were well known to film students of the era.

6.18.67 (1967) is the aforementioned abortive making-of documentary and we needn’t repeat ourselves.

Filmmaker (1968) is a behind the scenes documentary on Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People (1969) and boy howdy, it sure didn’t do Coppola any favors in how it portrayed him and his sixth or eighth feature film (depending on whether one wants to count The Terror and Battle Beyond The Sun as actual Coppola directed features).  It depicts a chaotic, unfocused production with a lot of waste, not the sort of thing one hopes major studios would take note of.  The end titles are over a group shot of The Rain People’s cast and crew, and Lucas zooms in tight on himself standing on a truck, towering above the others as bombastic music plays.  Keep that image in mind.

Bald:  The Making Of THX 1138 (1971) seems to me to be the most disturbing of Lucas’ short film.  It’s another making-of doc, this one about the feature version of his award winning student sci-fi film.  It focuses on the actors Robert Duvall, Johnny Weissmuller Jr., and actresses Maggie McOmie and Irene Forest getting their heads ritually shaved by a sardonic barber dressed in black, and dwells with sadistic glee on the discomfort of the two actresses as their hair is shorn off.  Remember this was shot in 1971, and during the 1960s long hair marked a cultural sea-change in the US and around the world.  For the actors of THX 1138 to shave their heads marked no small emotional trauma (Sid Haig excepted; that was his look from Spider Babyonward).  Lucas never shied away from exploiting actors, he just stayed careful enough to do it in a not so obvious manner.  This film is genuinely painful to watch and diminishes enjoyment of the feature.

Which leads us to his first three features:

THX 1138 (1971) expanded his student film.  It’s not a bad film, it deserves praise for a lot of what it achieved, but it’s ultimately soulless and by the numbers, the sort of dystopian sci-fi tale found in Ace Doubles through the 1960s.  In a very odd way it’s the mirror twin of Zardoz (1974), with each film in that pair doing right what the other did wrong and vice versa.  It’s another film that doesn’t quite jell and lacks the panache to steamroll through those patches.  In 2004 Lucas released an expanded director’s cut that added CGI special effects, thereby undercutting one of the original version’s chief strengths, that it looked and felt real because much of it was filmed in real futuristic looking locations.  This is another example of Lucas’ weakness as a storyteller, a belief that making things Bigger!  Brighter! will also make them better.  Keep that in mind when we get to Jar Jar Binks.

American Graffiti (1974) marked Lucas’ first box office success, not on the scale of blockbusters that followed, but a solid hit nonetheless.  Lucas found a balance between his interest in car culture and rock & roll with Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck’s thoughtful and poignant screenplay.  Lucas is never able to rise above his collaborators, and the better his crew, the better his productions.  A far more low key and more human /humane film than THX 1138, American Graffiti put him in excellent field position for his next and career-wise most important film.

Star Wars [none of that sub-titled / roman numeral / retconned / CGI enhanced crap but the original theatrical Han-shoots-first version] (1974) was the lucky break every creative soul dreams of.  Famously, Lucas wanted to get the rights to Flash Gordon but couldn’t cut a deal (he previously included the trailer for the old Buck Rogers serial at the start of THX 1138).  Frustrated by their refusal, he wrote several drafts of a script originally called The Star Wars.  Comparing them and early production art to the final film show Lucas doesn’t think creatively in terms of clear and consistent storylines but rather disjointed scenes and characters.  When at the top of his form (as with the original Star Wars) it produces a light-hearted audience pleasing romp that easily sidesteps its own plot holes.

When not at the top of his form, however, we get The Phantom Menace / Attack Of The Clones / Revenge Of The Sith.

 © Buzz Dixon

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Yield to the Night

The sight of Diana Dors crossing a dance floor as a piano plays “The Very Thought of You” is enough to make even straight women and gay men forget those little ordinary things that everyone ought to do. That’s not her look through most of J. Lee Thompson’s YIELD TO THE NIGHT (1956, Criterion Channel through last night), released here as BLONDE SINNER, and the film is far from a daydream. Although it opens with the glamorous star committing murder, it then switches to her time on death row with no makeup, her natural hair color and her hair pulled back starkly. It’s an amazing transformation, but that would be just showmanship if she didn’t have the acting chops to back it up. She delivers a harrowing performance as a woman waiting to find out if she’s been granted a last-minute reprieve. J. Lee Thompson’s direction focuses on details, starting with the murder, depicted through shots of walking feet, a key in a lock, packages in a car, etc. He doesn’t cut to a closeup of Dors until she pulls out the gun. In prison, he focuses on every detail of her cell and the matron attending her. Thompson’s wife, Joan Henry, had been in prison and captured the mind-numbing routine and lack of privacy in her original novel and the screenplay she co-wrote. Those details are foremost in Dors’ mind, as relayed in voice overs. Thompson’s direction is fluid, with some great cuts and camera angles. At the same time, it often feels this is all to cover up the threadbare murder plot. Dors’ life before prison seems like a cautionary tale for young women apt to fall for the wrong man. She leaves her husband for pianist Michael Craig, only to have him dump her for a wealthy socialite. The film’s focus, however, is on the dehumanizing effect of prison life and, even though Dors is unrepentant, the inhumanity of making her pay for the crime with her life. Still, the dice are loaded in her favor. Not only can we see how Craig’s ill treatment has damaged her psyche; we also barely get to know the victim, and there are hints throughout that she treated Craig even worse than he treated Dors. The supporting cast is wonderful, with Yvonne Mitchell as a sympathetic matron, Marie Ney as the prison governess, Mona Washbourne as Craig’s landlady and the radiant Athene Seyler as a woman campaigning for prison reform and visiting inmates simply to offer them some comfort. The film is so good it’s hard to believe Thompson would later direct unmitigated schlock like MACKENNA’S GOLD (1969) and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1981). It’s hard to believe he could even stomach pictures like that.

[aaronjhill]

Mackenna’s Gold

On YouTube. A 1969 Western with Gregory Peck and many other stars.

[47burlm]

Camilla Sparv (born 3 June 1943) is a Swedish actress.

Sparv was born in Stockholm, Sweden on 3 June 1943. She was awarded a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer (female) in 1967 for her role opposite James Coburn in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966). She also appeared in such films as Murderers' Row (1966), The Trouble with Angels (1966), Assignment K (1968), Nobody Runs Forever (1968), Mackenna's Gold (1969), Downhill Racer (1969), The Greek Tycoon (1978), Caboblanco (1980), and Survival Zone (1983), as well as the television shows Airwolf, The Rockford Files, The Love Boat, Hawaii Five-O and the miniseries Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls (1981). In 1977, she appeared in "Never Con a Killer," the pilot for the ABC crime drama The Feather and Father Gang. She played several roles in movies, such as beauty girls on snow or skis.

Sparv was briefly married to American film producer Robert Evans in 1965. Now retired, Sparv had two children by her second husband, Herbert W. Hoover III, and has been married to her third, Fred Kolber, since June 1994.

[gatutor]

Cartel película "El oro de MacKenna" (MacKenna´s gold) 1969, de J. Lee Thompson.

[gpecks]

They weren't very good, but they were the best that was offered. I did not do them only for the money. I knew they weren’t worth much when I read the scripts. But as soon as I started working on them, damned if I didn't start believing in them. It just goes to prove you can't be an actor and Pauline Kael at the same time. -Gregory Peck on Mackenna’s Gold & Marooned

Mackenna's Gold (1969) Dir. J. Lee Thompson Marooned (1969) Dir. John Sturges

[peter-ash]

[girlsattack]

Camilla Sparv dans Mackenna's Gold, 1969.