Shalako

Description

Saddle up for a raucous and "robust western adventure" (Variety) that packs "strong action" (Film & TV Daily) and the crackling chemistry of screen icons Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot! Based on the novel by Louis L'Amour, Shalako is a "handsome" (Variety), "rousing western" (Motion Picture Herald) that delivers nonstop thrills with both barrels blazing! Gutsy, gunslinging Shalako (Connery) is a loner who looks out for number one, until he finds himself rescuingand falling fora beautiful countess (Bardot) under attack by Apache Indians. But when Shalako discovers that the countess is part of a European hunting party that refuses to be led to safety, he must summon all his courage to fight the Apache and save the woman he loves or die trying!

Customer Reviews:

75% Entertaining.......2007-09-01

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 ("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.

Cool Bardot Western.......2007-07-31

What is more retro-cool than watching a late 60's western starring
Brigette Bardot and Sean Connery?

A European Hunting party gets trapped out west and surrounded by
Indians. Connery attempts to move them to safety. This is an
intense serious drama that is eerily realistic at times.

You feel a sense of dread as this hunting party gets deeper and
deeper into trouble.

Bardot looks stunning, and brings her natural charisma to the film
Her romance with Connery is actually minimal. This is a drama with
action, not a love story.

There is a very intense stagecoach chase later in the film, with
great camera work. Somehow this film got lost in the shuffle, but
it's a great adaptation of a Louie L'amour novel.

Enjoyable off-beat western with strong cast.......2007-07-21

What do you get when you put a Scottish actor, a French bombshell, an American director, and spaghetti western filming locations? A enjoyable off-beat western called Shalako that is not that well known considering the cast. In the 1870s in New Mexico, a hunting party full of European nobles is making its way through an Apache reservation, hunting as they go. But the Apaches have been pushed too far, telling the hunting party they have just one day to leave before they attack. An ex-Army colonel, Shalako Carlin, must lead the group to safety before the Apache war party closes in and finishes them off. For a western that isn't that well known, I was pleasantly surprised with Shalako. Imagine a mix of American and spaghetti westerns and you get this movie. The locations are beautiful, you'll probably spot some from other spaghettis, the action is pretty decent, and the story is simple, but it keeps you entertained from beginning to end. Give this western a try, it's worth a watch.

The ensemble cast full of recognizable names works very well together. In what I think was his only western, Sean Connery plays Shalako Carlin, the ex-Army colonel who finds himself trying to save the lives of the stranded hunting party. Connery seems to be enjoying the part, and it shows. French beauty Brigitte Bardot plays Countess Irina Lazaar, who takes an instant liking to Shalako, even though an arranged wedding with Peter van Eyck's Baron Frederick has been set up. Bardot is good in the part, and as expected, she's easy on the eyes. van Eyck also turns in a good performance as the Baron who finds himself battling with Shalako before finally siding with him. Some other members of the hunting party include an underused Jack Hawkins, a treacherous Honor Blackman, and Alexander Knox and Valerie French as a U.S. senator and his wife. Stephen Boyd is perfectly slimy as Bosky Fulton, the trail guide who abandons the party. In a small part, Woody Strode plays Apache chief Chato and pulls it off in a strange way. Julian Mateos and Don Barry are also strong as Rojas and Buffalo, two men Shalako can count on in such a dangerous situation.

The DVD offers a nice-looking widescreen presentation, but that's about it. No special features or anything are included. Of course, I'd love to see interviews with Connery or Bardot, but that's probably wishful thinking. I would have settled for a trailer or something though. Anyways, Shalako is an exciting western with a very good cast that is not the most well-known western from the 60s, but don't let its obscurity scare you away. Check out Shalako!

Dmytryck becomes a negligible director in the '60s!.......2006-11-08

Brigitte Bardot went on to Hollywood but did not fare any better... 'Shalako,' a British-produced Western directed by Edward Dmytryk, teamed her with Sean Connery and Stephen Boyd (her partner in 'The Night Heaven Fell') in a smoldering relationship charged with tension and passion...

The idea is cute and unbelievable: A party of European aristocrats are on a hunting safari in New Mexico in the 1880's... They are traveling with full equipage including butlers, maids, fine linens and vintage wines...

When their safari is led upon an Apache reservation, the Indians become annoyed, and Countess Irina Lazaar (Brigitte Bardot) is attacked by a savage Apache... Shalako (Sean Connery), a scout for the U.S. Army, bravely attempts to save her and leads the aristocrats away from imminent annihilation... With the Indians determined to attack, each member of the hunting party faces the greatest peril of their lives...

Edward Dmytryk seems to have attempted to recapture the freshness and essence of the 'B.B.' that Roger Vadim had helped to shape... But the re-creation escapes him, despite the careful choice of Louis L'Amour's novel and the casting of international stars as Jack Hawkins ('Lawrence of Arabia'), Peter Van Eyck ('The Longest Day'), Honor Blackman ('Goldfinger'), Woody Strode ('Spartacus'), and Valerie French ('Jubal').

The film never becomes exciting despite incidental brutalities...

Shalako.......2005-09-09

Edward Dmytryk is one of my favorite directors. Thanks to the miracle of dvd technology I've been allowed to watch good prints of such classic dark crime dramas as `Crossfire' and `Murder, My Sweet' (a movie that some claim invented what is now known as `film noir.') I've seen maybe his most famous movie, `The Caine Mutiny,' as well as a handful of western gems, including `Broken Lance' and that great, underrated and too-often overlooked masterpiece `Warlock.'

Saturated as I was in such cinematic excellence I wasn't quite prepared for SHALAKO, a stagnant horse opera adapted from what must have been a better book by Louis L'Amour. I'm inclined to blame it on the sixties. Or Brigette Bardot, who is little more expressive than a pouting china doll and possessed of an accent thick enough to cut a week old baguette. Maybe Jupiter wasn't yet aligned with Mars.... To be fair, though, I think my hero Eddie D. has to held accountable for this yawner. SHALAKO is not the best work, or anywhere near the best, of any of the participants.

Sean Connery plays Shalako (the name rhymes with `calico') and Bardot plays Countess Irina Lazaar, a wealthy European who travels with other European royalty to hunt wild game in the great, unsettled southwest. Stephen Boyd plays a grungy galoot who leads the Euro royals - replete with white-gloved butlers, comely maids and formal attire - through the wilderness. That Boyd has led them deep into the heart of an Apache reservation we learn early on. The Apaches' less-than-enthusiastic reaction to this intrusion is established soon after. Although made in 1968, a year by which most movies knew better, the natives in SHALAKO are the whooping, hollering, blood thirsty savage kind, although a couple of Apaches wade out of the gore for speaking parts. African American actor Woody Strode plays Chato, a young chief with a gun in his mitts and a chip on his shoulder. Strode was a good actor who was in a ton of westerns, and casting him in the part diffuses, or at least confuses, accusations of casting non- Natives as American Indians. Still, Strode's chief is of the if-I-kill-Shalako-my-soul-will-walk-free ilk. In other words, after a quick, obligatory mumble about broken treaties the film hustles back to the reliable same old, same old.

Shalako spends most of the movie leading the Europeans away from Chief Woody and his blood thirsties, and, I think, falling in love with Countess Bardot. I think. Beyond the pout Bardot isn't terribly expressive, and her thick accent didn't help. She was either falling in love or asking for a limburger sandwich. I think they were falling in love. With his rugged charm and ironic wit Connery has always been more than capable of throwing a movie on his shoulders and carrying it to the winner's circle on his own. Unfortunately, here he plays it grim and laconic, more or less depriving this movie of any chance it might have had. SHALAKO isn't a terrible movie, but it's an uninspired and uninspiring one.

Average customer rating:

75% Entertaining
Cool Bardot Western
Enjoyable off-beat western with strong cast
Dmytryck becomes a negligible director in the '60s!
Shalako

Shalako [Region 2]
Starring: Sean Connery , Brigitte Bardot , Stephen Boyd , Jack Hawkins , and Peter van Eyck
Director: Edward Dmytryk
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B0001XLY6K

Customer Reviews:

75% Entertaining.......2007-09-01

Cool Bardot Western.......2007-07-31

Enjoyable off-beat western with strong cast.......2007-07-21

Dmytryck becomes a negligible director in the '60s!.......2006-11-08

Shalako.......2005-09-09

Average customer rating:

75% Entertaining
Cool Bardot Western
Enjoyable off-beat western with strong cast
Dmytryck becomes a negligible director in the '60s!
Shalako

Shalako
Starring: Sean Connery , Brigitte Bardot , Stephen Boyd , Jack Hawkins , and Peter van Eyck
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Manufacturer: Anchor Bay
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

Adventure | Kids & Family | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Cowboys & Indians | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Westerns | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $14.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: 6305307091
Release Date: 1999-01-19

Customer Reviews:

75% Entertaining.......2007-09-01

Cool Bardot Western.......2007-07-31

Enjoyable off-beat western with strong cast.......2007-07-21

Dmytryck becomes a negligible director in the '60s!.......2006-11-08

Shalako.......2005-09-09

DVD:

DVD

DVD