Mackenna’s Gold ** (1969, Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif, Telly Savalas, Ted Cassidy, Camilla Sparv, Julie Newmar) – Classic Movie Review 12,561

Gregory Peck stars in director J Lee Thompson’s 1969 Western film Mackenna’s Gold as Marshal Sam Mackenna, abducted by crook John Colorado (Omar Sharif) to conduct him to mountain gold.

The wobbly miniature work special effects, feeble studio-shot exteriors and rudimentary dialogue are more suited to a cheap Fifties B-movie than this overblown big-budget Sixties Western about gold lust, based on the 1963 novel by Heck Allen (using the pen name of Will Henry).

Gregory Peck stars in director J Lee Thompson’s 1969 Western film Mackenna’s Gold as Marshal Sam Mackenna, abducted by crook John Colorado (Omar Sharif) to conduct him to mountain gold. Of course, others are soon in on the act. The impressive all-star ensemble cast also include Telly Savalas, Camilla Sparv, Keenan Wynn, Julie Newmar, Ted Cassidy, Lee J Cobb, Raymond Massey, Burgess Meredith, Anthony Quayle, Edward G Robinson and Eli Wallach.

Even if the subject has been much better tackled (especially The Treasure of the Sierra Madre for instance), and many times, it is still fun watching starry actors like Peck and Sharif going through their paces up against the odds, while Quincy Jones’s score and the final avalanche bring the house down. It is shot in Super Panavision 70 and Technicolor by Joseph MacDonald, and the exterior photography looks good.

Gregory Peck did not like the film: ‘Mackenna’s Gold was a terrible Western. Just wretched.’

Filming started on 16 May 1967 on location in Oregon, and it premiered on 18 March 1969 in Munich, West Germany. Columbia Pictures slashed down the film from nearly three hours (plus an intermission) to 128 minutes just before release. No doubt because of this, awkwardly a narrator (Victor Jory) was needed to explain the film’s plot to the audience.

The film flopped in North America, but was a hit in the Soviet Union and India.

The novel is loosely based on the legend of the Lost Adams Diggings.

It was Carl Foreman’s first Western since the 1952 High Noon. He said: ‘I feel we should all do a Western from time to time. It’s the gym, the workout for basic cinema. This one bears a relationship with High Noon. It’s roughly about the same town 10 or 15 years later and MacKenna is Gary Cooper’s successor.’

J Lee Thompson’s first choice for the role of MacKenna was Clint Eastwood, who disliked the script and turned down the movie to star in Hang ‘Em High (1968). The script was also sent to Richard Burton who called it ‘a standard Western script… Christ, what a lot of rubbish one reads.’

Stills of Julie Newmar swimming naked in the film were reprinted in Playboy.

Foreman allowed four film school graduates from USC and UCLA to come on location and make their own short film. They included George Lucas, who made the short film 6-18-67, supervised by Saul Bass.

The cast are Gregory Peck as Marshal Sam MacKenna, Omar Sharif as John Colorado, Telly Savalas as Sergeant Tibbs, Camilla Sparv as Inga Bergemann, Keenan Wynn as Sanchez, Julie Newmar as Hesh-Ke, Ted Cassidy as Hachita, Lee J Cobb as The Editor, Raymond Massey as The Preacher, Burgess Meredith as The Storekeeper, Anthony Quayle as Older Englishman, Edward G Robinson as Old Adams, Eli Wallach as Ben Baker, Eduardo Ciannelli as Prairie Dog, Dick Peabody as Avila, Rudy Diaz as Besh, Robert Phillips as Monkey, Shelley Morrison as The Pima Squaw, Trevor Bardette as Judge Bergeman, and Victor Jory as the Narrator.

Peck’s character is listed in publicity materials as ‘MacKenna’.

Camilla Sparv was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on 3 June 1943. She won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer (Female) in 1967 opposite James Coburn in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966).

Julie Newmar (born Julia Chalene Newmeyer, August 16, 1933) won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play as Katrin Sveg in the 1958 Broadway play of The Marriage-Go-Round and reprised the role in the 1961 film version, The Marriage-Go-Round, with Susan Hayward and James Mason.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,561

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