Eagle’s Wing **** (1979, Martin Sheen, Sam Waterston, Harvey Keitel, Stéphane Audran, John Castle, Caroline Langrishe) – Classic Movie Review 10,519

Director Anthony Harvey’s 1979 impressive oddity Eagle’s Wing is a British-made allegorical Western, with an outstanding cast, about a trapper, Pike (Martin Sheen), and a Kiowa Indian brave, White Bull (Sam Waterston), obsessively fighting over the title’s white stallion.

John Briley’s virtually wordless screenplay (based on a story by Michael Syson) and Billy Williams’s Mexican Eastmancolor location cinematography catch the attention on a grand scale.

Eagle’s Wing is an exciting, eerily evocative Western that impressively hits a mythic dimension, though it did little box-office business at a time when Westerns were out of favour.

It was shot in Durango, Chihuahua, and Sonora, all Mexico.

It runs 111 minutes but there are two cut versions that run to 104 minutes and 98 minutes.

Also in the cast are Harvey Keitel, Stéphane Audran, John Castle, Caroline Langrishe, Jorge Luke, José Carlos Ruiz, Manuel Ojeda, Pedro Damián, Jorge Russek, Farnesio de Bernal and Claudio Brook.

Other British Westerns: Carry On Cowboy, Shalako, A Town Called Bastard, Captain Apache, Chato’s Land.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,519

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