El Condor
(US, 1964)

Director: John Guillermin, Screenplay: Larry Cohen, Steven W. Carabatsos, Producer: André De Toth, Original Music/Conductor: Maurice Jarre, Cinematographer: Henri Persin, Film Editors: Walter Hannemann, William H. Ziegler, Production Designer: Julio Molina, Set Decorator: Enrique Fernández, Makeup Supervisor: Ramón de Diego, Hair Stylist: Josefa Rubio, Unit Production Managers: Ivo Nightingale, Vicente Sempere, Robert Watts, Second Unit Directors: Tap Canutt, Alberto Cardone, Assistant Directors: Antonio Tarruella, Russell Vreeland, Assistant Set Decorator: Rafael Ablanque, Assistant Production Designer: José María Alarcón, Property Master: Graham Sumner, Sound: Paddy Cunningham, Music Editor: John Mick, Special Effects: Kit West, Stunts: Tap Canutt, Camera Operator: Gilles Bonneau, Wardrobe: Tony Pueo
Cast: Jim Brown (Luke), Lee Van Cleef (Jaroo), Patrick O'Neal (General Chavez), Marianna Hill (Claudine), Iron Eyes Cody (Santana), Imogen Hassall (Dolores), Elisha Cook Jr. (Old convict), Gustavo Rojo (Colonel Anguinaldo), Florencio Amarilla (Águila), Julio Peña (General Hernández), Ángel del Pozo (Lieutenant), Patricio Santiago (Julio), John Clark (Prison Guard Captain), Raúl Mendoza Castro (Indian), Rafael Albaicín (Officer), George Ross (Guard), Ricardo Palacios (Chief Bandit), Charles Stalmaker (Bandit), Charly Bravo (Bandit), Dan van Husen (Bandit), Peter Lenahan (Convict), Art Larkin (Convict), Per Barclay (Convict)

American-Football-legend-turned-actor Jim Brown as an ex-convict who teams up with Lee Van Cleef’s character to find and raid a mythical desert fortress said to be full with millions of dollars worth of gold by Mexican Emperor Maximilian. Van Cleef plays against type as a rambunctious drunken scoundrel who can call upon a motley crew of whacky Apaches to help with the capture of the fort. He can be two-timing and deceiving and it is quite a pleasure to see this often stoic actor display a wide range of over-the-top emotions in his cat like face. Hell, he is even seen laughing out loud! 

Imogen Hassall plays one of the local girls who gets dragged away to sleep with the soldiers. All of these girls are shown in the buff, but Hassall is the only one who can be called beautiful. She is also the only one of them who has at least a very small speaking part when she introduces her “bastard” son to Lee Van Cleef’s character. Van Cleef subsequently takes the son aside and asks him not to take note of his mother’s derogatory remarks. In a monologue full of double entendres he tells him that not only himself, but also some of the best people he knows were “bastards”.

This scene is typical for the quirky humour that easily identifies it as work written by iconic B-Movie director Larry Cohen (It’s Alive! Trilogy, Black Caesar, Q, The Ambulance). Other memorable scenes include: Jim Brown being chased as a human bull by bullfighting aficionado General Chavez, played by Patrick O’Neal (The Stepford Wives), who promises to get his ear and tail; when Brown’s character discovers that he’ll be pardoned from prison just on the day that he’d have successfully managed to finish his month long escape plan, he opts for the escape route anyway (fellow convict Elisha Cook looks on in amazement); stunningly beautiful Marianna Hill – a cousin of General Norman Schwarzkopf – performs a striptease in front of the fort’s soldiers in order to draw attention away from the approaching Apaches.

Larry Cohen is not the only familiar name amongst the film makers. Director John Guillermin was later responsible for The Towering Inferno and Hercule Poirot mystery Death On The Nile and couldn’t keep his paws off King Kong (King Kong and King Kong Lives). One-Eyed Producer André De Toth was the director on Vincent Price’s 3D vehicle House of Wax. El Condor was his second and last production credit after also serving in the same function in Michael Caine’s third and final Harry Palmer film The Billion Dollar Brain. Maurice Jarre – he of Lawrence Of  Arabia – wrote the musical score and stuntman/second unit director Tap Canutt is the son of stunt legend Yakima Canutt.

Overall, this is a shamefully ignored western, a little gem that begs to be released on DVD and made more widely available for a new audience. (It is currently only available on NTSC VHS.) It’s worth checking out not just for the minute part Hassall has in it (short, but ravishing), but also in general if you’re in the mood for a film with a few surprising twists up its sleeve.

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