El Condor

As the television market was saturated with countless western shows in the 1950s and first few years of the 1960s, western movies not surprisingly suffered. Why go to the theater and pay to see what you could watch at home? Spaghetti westerns -- movies made in Italy with European/Italian backing -- were the main response, rough, mean, violent and cynical westerns that certainly reflected the turbulent times of the 1960s. American studios at first wanted nothing to do with them, but finally started to cave...sort of. The response was a type of film that's been called everything from a Euro-western to a quasi-spaghetti western.

Released in 1970, El Condor is one of those westerns. It is pretty typical of how these movies tried to capitalize on the success of the spaghetti westerns. They were often filmed in Italy and Spain so you're seeing familiar and well-worn locations popping up. Casts needed to be filled so stars of spaghetti westerns made the seamless transition. The stories were similar, stories of gunfighters and saddle tramps, hired guns and killers, all looking to make a buck. Of course, these movies weren't spaghetti westerns no matter how hard they tried, and it shows. Still, thanks to some interesting casting and at least an attempt, most of these westerns are very watchable.

Working on a chain gang at a mine in the desert, a prisoner named Luke (Jim Brown) continues to hear rumors about a fortune in gold in the Mexican desert. Only knowing part of the story, Luke escapes with plans of getting his hands on the gold. The fortune is in El Condor, an immense mountain fortress guarded by a heavily armed garrison commanded by General Chavez (Patrick O'Neal). Inside the fortress awaits the treasure, all the gold that makes up the Mexican national treasury as Mexico fights back against French invader Maximilian. Luke seeks help, finding it in Jaroo (Lee Van Cleef), a down on his luck gold prospector who used to live with the Apaches. Recruiting over 80 Apache warriors (headed by Iron Eyes Cody), Jaroo and Luke go about preparing their plan to get the millions of dollars worth of gold.

The best thing going for this pseudo-spaghetti is the casting of Brown and Van Cleef who have a good Odd Couple, uneasy alliance buddy relationship. Still trying to prove himself as an actor/movie star after retiring from the NFL in 1966, Brown brings his usual bigger than life presence to his part as Luke. He was always more a star than an actor, but let's face it. Running back or movie star? Jim Brown was cool. Van Cleef gets to ham it up a bit, playing a part vastly different from his typical cold, steely-eyed anti-heroes that he played in so many spaghetti westerns. Individually, both men would have been capable of carrying an action movie, but together? Pie in the sky. They have a good chemistry together as they try to figure each other out, figuring who and what the other is up to.

One of the coolest things to come out of this movie though is the actual El Condor fortress, built specifically for this movie. You can see its introduction HERE via a Youtube clip. The sheer size of it makes it like an additional character, this heavily armed and guarded fortress, as impregnable as possible, taunting anyone who cares to take it on.  Some pictures of what it looks like more recently can be seen HERE at a cool spaghetti western locations website, just scroll down a bit. The fortress looks like something you'd see out of a French Foreign Legion movie with its high walls and baroque lookout towers. It's been used in several movies since, and in an age of computer-generated....well, everything, it's very cool to see such a well-built and highly functioning location.

Not quite an American or spaghetti western, El Condor falls somewhere in between. It certainly tries to offer something new in terms of violence and sex that you couldn't see on television, producing some rather odd moments. Luke and Jaroo lead a surprise attack on a Mexican patrol taking a "siesta" by kidnapping a bunch of women and having their way with them. The ambush waits until everyone's nude so we get some full frontal nudity -- not just female nudity either, awkwardly enough -- and some pretty low-brow humor. What the movie is most known for is Marianna Hill and her infamous striptease. Distracting the guards, Hill's Claudine -- O'Neal's live-in girlfriend I guess -- strips down where everyone can see her. She's completely nude for at least a couple minutes, the camera not shying away from her the way most movies would do. No complaints, Hill's gorgeous, but it feels oddly placed and kind of creepy, even voyeuristic. Basically something you wouldn't expect out of a 1970 western.

Director John Guillermin saves much of his best action for last, the final sneak attack and assault on El Condor led by Luke, Jaroo and their army of Apache warriors. The violence and action is amped up on an impressive scale. This fortress gets torn apart as the casualties mount and the gold gets ever closer. The finale saves some surprising twists -- along with Hill's distracting striptease -- that caught me off guard. I don't necessarily like the ending, but I don't hate it either. A specific choice is made that seems forced, making me question why Guillermin and the script didn't call for a darker ending because the potential is there. It is still a good example of these pseudo-spaghetti westerns even if it is a bit of a guilty pleasure.

El Condor <---trailer (1970): ***/****