For all fans of the genre, this should have been the Western epic's last hurrah. All the ingredients are right - Gregory Peck, Carl Foreman, score by Dimitri Tiomkin, vocals from Jose Feliciano, veteran Hollywood stars like Edward G Robinson and Raymond Massey, spectacular scenery, marauding Indians, lost gold, and a nude Julie Newmar. Instead we get a chaotic shambles, with wooden acting, dire script, ridiculous characterisation,uneven editing, preposterous storyline, crude special effects and scientific impossibilities (shadows lengthening when the sun rises). What can we salvage from this? Gregory Peck as always provides gravitas, although the poor man must have wondered why he signed on the dotted line. The scenery certainly is wonderful, and Dimitri Tiomkin delivers as always. But the rest of the film crumbles in a heap, rather like the climactic earthquake.
Review of Mackenna's Gold
