The Appaloosa (1966)

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Matt Fletcher (Marlon Brando) is returning home with his beautiful Appaloosa horse intending to start a horse ranch with it. Powerful bandit Chuy Medina (John Saxon) steals his horse. Matt decides to pursue his gang into wild hostile Mexico. Chuy's brutalized girlfriend Trini helps him.The villains are mustachio Mexican bandits. Yet John Saxon plays the lead Mexican and he does it with a fake accent. This is a spaghetti B-western except it has Brando. It's not well made and slow moving. The story meanders and lacks excitement. It does have Brando. He's the only interesting thing in this movie.

although the final duel between Marlon Brando and John Saxon should have been much more epic "The Appaloosa" (1966) is an extremely underrated western... Brando is great as always, all about in the scenes where his character has to pretend that he is a Mexican, but John Saxon performance is one of the greatest in all movie history, his portrayal of a Mexican villain speaking with a more than perfect Mexican accent is terrific... one of my favorite scenes from the film is the arm wrestling contest between Brando and Saxon very well directed by Sidney J. Fury who directed this film as if was a spaghetti western---very recomendable and underrated fim

Matteo (Marlon Brando) saunters into town to live with his family if he can get past the cantina where Chuy (John Saxon) hangs out.Marlon must go back into town to retrieve his stolen appaloosa horse, which we don't get to see enough of. Things get rolling once he has finished slapping Rafael Campos in the face a half-dozen times. Anjanette Comer is the pretty girl who director Sid Furie gave virtually nothing to do, except to film her from a distance while she sucks on lime wedges and waits for the next take. Anyway, she's nice to look at.It's cool to note that John Saxon apparently was not in the least phased by Brando's eminence. Saxon is, in fact, much better than Brando in this film. Saxon does not back off or hesitate while he concomitantly restrains himself from over-acting in any way resulting in perhaps the best performance of his career.Interesting western.

Chuy Medina (Saxon) and his thugs steal the Appaloosa belonging to Brando. Brando chases them across the border into Mexico and after many tribulations brings back both the horse and Anjanette Comer.Somebody in movies like this is always racing across the border to escape justice or wreak revenge or retrieve a stolen horse or something. Mexico is "the other". It's usually "bad" in the way that California is a pipe dream of paradise. Both honor and treachery rule in Mexico. It's a Hobbesian universe. "No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Brando's compadre advises him, "Trust no one in Mexico, Matteo." Brando can trust Anjanette Comer, though. She's truthful and entirely candid. Not that she looks anything like a Mexican woman though. She's groomed like a Hollywood actress playing a Mexican woman.That's the responsibility of Bud Westmore, who was in charge of make ups. He must have been asleep at the wheel. A hard-working rancher's wife is given a close up of her fingers fondling a crucifix, and her fingers are immaculate and her nails perfectly trimmed and polished. She could perform surgery without gloves.Westmore has also thoughtfully seen to it that the principal actors, the ones not wearing raggedy beards, have cheeks and chins as smoothly shaven as Anjanette Comer's, even if they've been recovering from scorpion venom. That would be Brando. He's been stung by a scorpion from Durango after losing an arm-wrestling contest with Saxon. (John Wayne could never have played this role because John Wayne couldn't possibly lose an arm-wrestling contest.) Actually, Durango is noted for its scorpions. They're not even called escorpio, at least not according to my Durango informant. They have a special name, alacran, and the people of Durango are generally known as Alacran de Durango.This was directed by Sidney J. Furie, who must be phobic for traditional movie shots. There are no more long shots than are absolutely essential to an understanding of the plot. Medium shots are invariably broken by objects in the foreground -- pillars, posts, pitchers, and in one scene all five of Marlon Brando's fingers block most of the camera's view. The close up are really CLOSE ups. A typical reverse angle shot, involving, say, two people conversing at a table will alternate chokers in which we see a person's features from his eyebrows to his lower lip. More than once, we see only a single eyeball. But there are plenty of teeth that are not just white but blindingly so, like arc lights, cleaned, polished, buffed, and in those dark, scarred faces they glow with an inner luminescence.Other director's tics: When people drink or eat, whatever they are drinking or eating tends to dribbled down their chins onto their clothing or gets clotted in their facial hair. A very artistic shot of Anjanette Comer's incandescent incisors squishing on a wedge of lime after a shot of tequila. And when someone walks, we don't see them walk. We see their jangling spurred boots moving step by step through the dust or snow.I don't know how much it cost to hire Marlon Brando for this Mexican adventure but he didn't put an equivalent amount of effort into the role. There was a time (and there would be a time again later) when he invested his roles with intelligence and energy, but by 1966 he seemed to be sleepwalking, tired, bored, resigned -- just another actor. Comer is miscast. She seems city bred. John Saxon does surprisingly well by the role of the local strong man. And Alex Montoya is given a novel touch of humanity -- shot full of holes by Brando, he looks agonized and cries, "Senor!", before collapsing.Nice location photography and a potentially interesting story, mostly ruined by superheated direction and a flat performance by the star.