Trailer
Plot summary
The treasure of the Cañon del Oro is a legend: a fortune in gold guarded by Apache spirits. Marshal MacKenna, ambushed by the shaman Prairie Dog, kills him and comes away with a map to the treasure, which he memorizes and burns. Mexican outlaw John Colorado wants that map; he seizes a judge's house in Hadleyburg, kills the man and abducts his daughter Inga, then captures MacKenna and forces him to guide the gang, which includes Sanchez, the warrior Hachita and Hesh-ke, once MacKenna's lover. A gambler named Ben Baker arrives with townsmen who learned of the plan, among them the blind Adams, and Colorado lets them join the party. MacKenna warns them to go home, but Colorado tells them about Prairie Dog and they stay. Sergeant Tibbs and the cavalry are also on the trail.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mackenna's Gold (1969)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Carl Foreman had George Lucas shoot a behind-the-scenes short on location, supervised by Saul Bass. Lucas felt the films were a ruse to get cheap documentaries made, and Foreman reportedly hated the result but was forced to praise it in a PBS documentary.
- Mackenna's Gold became one of the biggest Hollywood hits ever in India, outgrossing even Jaws and Star Wars there and remaining the top Hollywood earner in the country until Jurassic Park and Titanic came along decades later.
- Director J. Lee Thompson's first choice for MacKenna was Clint Eastwood, who was looking for an American western after the Dollars trilogy but disliked the script and turned it down to star in Hang 'Em High; Steve McQueen was also considered.
- Mackenna's Gold was viewed by 63 million people in the Soviet Union, where it stands fourth in the all-time rankings of foreign film distribution.
- Star Gregory Peck did not like the film at all, saying of it: "Mackenna's Gold was a terrible western. Just wretched."
- Stills from the scene in which actress Julie Newmar swims naked in the film were later reprinted in the pages of Playboy magazine.
- In the finale, the filmmakers show the shadow of Shaking Rock lengthening as the sun rises, which is backwards, since real shadows shorten as the sun climbs higher.
