Behold a Pale Horse (1964) on Netflix
Manuel Artiguez, a guerrilla in the Spanish Civil War, has spent twenty years in exile in France. A boy, Paco, asks him to kill Viñolas, the officer who had Paco's father killed.
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Plot summary
Manuel Artiguez fights with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, and when the Francoists win he heads back toward Spain until his friends hold him and remind him that the war is over. Twenty years later he is still in French exile, a legendary resister who no longer leads raids into his homeland. A boy named Paco, sent by Pedro, crosses the border to find him with a request: he wants Viñolas dead, in revenge for the father the Guardia Civil killed rather than reveal where Artiguez was hiding. Viñolas, who must capture Artiguez to keep his rank in the Guard, learns that Artiguez's mother is dying in San Martín and lays a trap at the hospital, while she asks a priest to warn her son not to come.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Behold a Pale Horse (1964)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Because the film shows Captain Viñolas with a mistress and taking bribes, the Spanish government not only barred filming in Spain but banned Columbia Pictures from distributing any of its films there, forcing Columbia to sell its Spanish distribution arm.
- Anthony Quinn had initially requested the role of the guerrilla Artiguez in Behold a Pale Horse, but director Fred Zinnemann gave him the opposing part of the villain Viñolas instead, wishing to avoid typecasting.
- The film adapts Emeric Pressburger's 1961 novel Killing a Mouse on Sunday, which loosely follows the life of Francesc Sabaté Llopart, a Spanish anarchist guerrilla.
- Spanish refugees were cast as Franco's Guardia Civil officers, and the American leftist activist Allard K. Lowenstein put the filmmakers in touch with anti-Francoist exiles in France.
- After previewing the film for American audiences, Columbia added an introductory sequence explaining the Spanish Civil War, mixing clips from the documentary To Die in Madrid with dialogue.
