''The Appaloosa'' (also known as ''Southwest to Sonora'') is a 1966 American
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
film starring
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academ ...
,
Anjanette Comer
Anjanette Comer (born August 7, 1939) is an American actress.
Early years
Born in Dawson, Texas to Rufus Franklin Comer, Jr., and Nola Dell “Sue” (Perkins) Comer, she attended Dawson High School. She gained acting experience at the Pasadena ...
and
John Saxon
John Saxon (born Carmine Orrico; August 5, 1936 – July 25, 2020) was an American actor who worked on more than 200 film and television projects during a span of 60 years. He was known for his work in Western (genre), Westerns and horror film ...
, who was nominated for a
Golden Globe
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a Mexican bandit. The film was directed by
Sidney J. Furie
Sidney Joseph Furie (born February 28, 1933) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for his extensive work in both British and American cinema between the 1960s and early 1980s. Like his contemporaries Norman Jewison ...
, and shot in
Techniscope
Techniscope or 2-perf is a 35 mm motion picture camera film format introduced by Technicolor Italia in 1960. The Techniscope format uses a two film-perforation negative pulldown per frame, instead of the standard four-perforation frame usu ...
in California, Utah, and Arizona.
Plot
Based on the 1963 book by Robert MacLeod, the title character is a beautiful horse (a breed, the
Appaloosa
The Appaloosa is an American horse breed best known for its colorful spotted coat pattern. There is a wide range of body types within the breed, stemming from the influence of multiple breeds of horses throughout its history. Each horse's colo ...
) belonging to Matt Fletcher (
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academ ...
), a Mexican-American buffalo hunter who returns home only to have his beloved horse stolen by a powerful bandit, Chuy Medina (
John Saxon
John Saxon (born Carmine Orrico; August 5, 1936 – July 25, 2020) was an American actor who worked on more than 200 film and television projects during a span of 60 years. He was known for his work in Western (genre), Westerns and horror film ...
) with the help of the bandit's girlfriend, Trini (
Anjanette Comer
Anjanette Comer (born August 7, 1939) is an American actress.
Early years
Born in Dawson, Texas to Rufus Franklin Comer, Jr., and Nola Dell “Sue” (Perkins) Comer, she attended Dawson High School. She gained acting experience at the Pasadena ...
) in the border town of Ojo Prieto. Trini was sold to Chuy at the age of 15, but has been brutalized and effectively discarded.
Matt begins to hunt down the bandit to recapture the horse, but finds matters more complicated than expected when he meets the girlfriend of the bandit. Fletcher is subjected to torture and humiliation by Chuy and his minions. A later foray into Medina's camp results in a brutal
arm wrestling
Arm wrestling (also spelled armwrestling) is a sport with two opponents who face each other with their bent elbows placed on a table and hands firmly gripped, who then attempt to force the opponent's hand down to the table top ("pin" them). The s ...
match in a bar between Fletcher and the bandido. Fletcher loses and is stung on the arm by a
scorpion
Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always end ...
. Again left to die, Fletcher is rescued by Trini, who despises her "lover", Chuy, and prefers Fletcher's company. She gets him assistance from a kindly old peasant, which later costs the old man his life. During the violence-laden climax, Fletcher is forced to choose between Trini and his beloved Appaloosa. Matt, realizing that Trini means more to him than the horse, sends out the Appaloosa to draw Chuy's fire. As the bandit prepares to aim for the horse, sunlight glints on his gun barrel, revealing his position. Matt fires and kills him. Matt and Trini then cross the border with the Appaloosa to start a new life.
Cast
*
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academ ...
as Matt
*
Anjanette Comer
Anjanette Comer (born August 7, 1939) is an American actress.
Early years
Born in Dawson, Texas to Rufus Franklin Comer, Jr., and Nola Dell “Sue” (Perkins) Comer, she attended Dawson High School. She gained acting experience at the Pasadena ...
as Trini
*
John Saxon
John Saxon (born Carmine Orrico; August 5, 1936 – July 25, 2020) was an American actor who worked on more than 200 film and television projects during a span of 60 years. He was known for his work in Western (genre), Westerns and horror film ...
as Chuy
*
Emilio Fernández
Emilio "El Indio" Fernández Romo (; 26 March 1904 – 6 October 1986) was a Mexican film director, actor and screenwriter. He was one of the most prolific film directors of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and 1950s. He is best kn ...
as Lazaro
* Alex Montoya as Squint Eye
*
Míriam Colón
Míriam Colón Valle (August 20, 1936 – March 3, 2017) was a Puerto Rican actress. She was the founder and director of New York City's Puerto Rican Traveling Theater. Beginning her career in the early 1950s, she performed on Broadway and on t ...
as Ana
*
Rafael Campos
Rafael Campos (13 May 1936 – 9 July 1985) was an actor from the Dominican Republic whose credits include ''Blackboard Jungle'' (1955), '' Dino'' (1957), ''The Light in the Forest'' (1958), ''Slumber Party '57'' (1976), ''The Astro-Zombies'' (19 ...
as Paco
*
Frank Silvera
Frank Alvin Silvera (July 24, 1914 – June 11, 1970) was a Jamaican-born American character actor and theatrical director.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in Boston, Silvera dropped out of law school in 1934 after winning his first stage ...
as Ramos
*
Larry D. Mann
Larry D. Mann (18 December 1922 – 6 January 2014) was a Canadian actor. He was best known as "The Boss" in a series of Bell Canada television commercials in the 1980s and for voicing the character of Yukon Cornelius in ''Rudolph the Red-Nose ...
as Priest
Production
The film was shot in shot in
Wrightwood
Wrightwood is a census-designated place in San Bernardino County, California. It sits at an elevation of . The population was 4,525 at the 2010 census, up from the population of 3,837 at the 2000 census. Wrightwood is located northeast of Lo ...
,
Antelope Valley
The Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona, and the ...
, and
Lake Los Angeles
Lake Los Angeles is a census-designated place (CDP) in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 12,328 at the 2010 census, up from 11,523 at the 2000 census. It is located east of Palmdale's Civic Center. According to the ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
,
St. George, Utah
St. George is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Utah, United States. Located in southwestern Utah on the Arizona border, it is the principal city of the St. George Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The city lies in the northe ...
, and
Colorado City, Arizona
Colorado City is a town in Mohave County, Arizona, United States, and is located in a region known as the Arizona Strip. As of the 2020 census, the population of the town was 2,478, down from 4,821 in 2010. At least three Mormon fundamentalis ...
. Parts of the film were also shot in
Hurricane
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
and at the
Virgin River
The Virgin River is a tributary of the Colorado River in the U.S. states of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. The river is about long.Calculated with Google Maps and Google Earth It was designated Utah's first wild and scenic river in 2009, during the ...
in
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
.
The film was John Saxon's favorite among his movies.
Awards
The film was awarded the
Bronze Wrangler
The Bronze Wrangler is an award presented annually by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum to honor the top works in Western music, film, television and literature.
The awards were first presented in 1961. The Wrangler is a bronze sculpt ...
by the
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 American West, Western and Native Americans in the United States, American Indian art works and Artifact (archaeology), ar ...
for outstanding western motion picture of 1966.
See also
*
List of American films of 1966
This is a list of American films released in 1966.
'' A Man for All Seasons'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
A–B
C–H
I–R
S–Z
See also
* 1966 in the United States
References
External links
1966 filmsat the Interne ...
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Appaloosa, The
1966 films
1960s English-language films
1966 Western (genre) films
Films about horses
Films directed by Sidney J. Furie
Films set in Mexico
Films based on American novels
Films based on Western (genre) novels
American Western (genre) films
Films set in the 1870s
Films shot in California
Universal Pictures films
Films shot in Arizona
Films shot in Utah
Films scored by Frank Skinner
1960s American films