Shalako (1968) on Netflix
Bosky Fulton guides a hunting party of European aristocrats into Apache territory in 1880 New Mexico. When Countess Irina Lazaar is separated from the group, the tracker Shalako rescues her.
- Netflix2.9/5
- IMDb5.6/103,928 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes50%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1880 New Mexico, Bosky Fulton and his men lead European aristocrats, their servants, and a former American politician and his wife on a hunt inside Apache land. Countess Irina Lazaar strays from the group and is attacked by Apache riders; Shalako, an ex-cavalry officer who wants outsiders kept off Indian ground, pulls her free. Taking her back, the two are ringed by Apaches, and both give the chief their word that the outsiders will go. The chief accepts, but his son Chato vows to meet Shalako in battle. Shalako presses the party's leader, Baron Frederick von Hallstatt, to withdraw; the baron refuses and the men take against each other.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Shalako (1968)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Euan Lloyd wanted menacing Apaches: while scouting locations in the United States he noticed many Native Americans he saw were overweight, so Bob Simmons recruited a "war party" of lean Romani people and trained them to ride and act like war-bent Apaches.
- Shalako shared its Almería locations with Harry Saltzman's Second World War film Play Dirty: one crew had to wipe tyre tracks from the sand before filming the Old West while the other picked up horse droppings before battle scenes, and the gypsy Apaches once rode by mistake into an attack on a Long Range Desert Group.
- Bob Simmons talked Sean Connery into shaving off the droopy Snub Pollard mustache he had grown for the period, because investors feared a repeat of Gregory Peck's mustache in The Gunfighter, which was believed to have discouraged some of the public from attending.
- Shalako was once set to star Henry Fonda and Senta Berger and to be shot in Mexico, announced in 1966, but distributors were reluctant to back a film starring Fonda and the rising cost of filming in Mexico made the plan impossible.
- Brigitte Bardot turned down the female lead in On Her Majesty's Secret Service to make Shalako, her second Western after Viva Maria (1965).
- Sean Connery, a Western fan since childhood, was keen to make Shalako because he had been promised $1 million and 30% of the profits out of the film's $5 million budget.
SPOILER
Two scenes are routinely cut when Shalako is shown on television: the death of the cowboy sent to protect Bardot's character, and the death of Honor Blackman's character.
