Bad bank robber falls in love with granddaughter of miner he and his men planned to rob of gold, has change of heart.Bad bank robber falls in love with granddaughter of miner he and his men planned to rob of gold, has change of heart.Bad bank robber falls in love with granddaughter of miner he and his men planned to rob of gold, has change of heart.
Sann de Lange
- Bank Customer
- (uncredited)
Frank Douglas
- Bank Manager
- (uncredited)
Pieter Hauptfleisch
- Dirk
- (uncredited)
Hal Orlandini
- Bartender
- (uncredited)
Gert van den Bergh
- Drunk
- (uncredited)
James White
- Bank Teller
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOpening narration - During the latter half of the last century, in the rugged hills and ridges of South Africa's Transvaal, gold was discovered. The result was a rushing, roaring tide of wealth seekers from all corners of the globe. First came the prospectors, high of hope, simple of purpose; and in their wake swept the next group: the speculators, the adventurers. Then, as inevitable as nature itself, there came the final ones: the scavengers, the jackals.
- GoofsWillie intermittently wears eye makeup.
- Quotes
Roger 'Stretch' Hawkins: I just wanted to show you how safe you'd be if I really wanted to get rough.
Wilhemina Adelaide 'Willie' Decker: You smell! Even animals are cleaner than you.
- ConnectionsRemake of Yellow Sky (1948)
Featured review
The Price Is Wrong
This remake of "Yellow Sky" plays like a two hour episode of "Have Gun, Will Travel," and tries everything it can to convince the viewer it is not a typical western- and yet, it is. Stretch (Robert Gunner) leads a gang into a gold rush era small town. They rob a bank, and flee into country so rough, the posse gives them up for dead and goes home. So far, so predictable- except all this action does not take place in southern Arizona, but South Africa. As the gang rides, the men begin to complain, horses drop dead, and this looks like one short film until the robbers happen upon a ghost town inhabited by the boyish Willie (Diana Ivarson) and her grandfather Oupa (Vincent Price). All the men take an immediate shine to Willie, who must fight off their collective advances. The ruggedly handsome Stretch seems to be the only one Willie doesn't seem to hate, and then the men get down to some deep thinkin'- why are Willie and Oupa here in the middle of nowhere? Could it be that they happened upon some gold in the nearby hills and will do anything to protect it?
An African western? Actually, the story is so bland that setting it in Antarctica and casting penguins in the lead roles could not have provided the viewer with any more interest. Remember some of those episodes of "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke" where the series' regulars would merely bookend a story involving townsfolk we would end up never seeing again? That is this film. With the exception of a climactic offscreen (!) gunfight, the violence here is mid-1960's network television-level, with all the danger of a brisk walk into your kitchen. The cast is stiff, the gang going unnamed for most of the film, not that you care about them either way). The soundtrack is rejected bachelor pad xylophone easy jazz, I kept waiting for Frank Sinatra to wonder in and ply Willie with a pitcher of martinis. Vincent Price should have stuck to cheesy horror films instead of hamming his way through this. While he does a good job channeling Jack Elam, he turns the half-drunk Oupa into a mincing creepy lout whom you suspect really is plying Willie with a pitcher of martinis. Had "The Jackals" been set in Arizona, with a capable cast and interesting direction, we may have had something. Instead, the film is too safe, picking all the most common ingredients off the carcass of the western film, which would get resurrected a couple of years later with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Imagining Burl Ives as Oupa and Clint Eastwood as Stretch, being directed by Don Siegel, would have been pretty cool.
An African western? Actually, the story is so bland that setting it in Antarctica and casting penguins in the lead roles could not have provided the viewer with any more interest. Remember some of those episodes of "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke" where the series' regulars would merely bookend a story involving townsfolk we would end up never seeing again? That is this film. With the exception of a climactic offscreen (!) gunfight, the violence here is mid-1960's network television-level, with all the danger of a brisk walk into your kitchen. The cast is stiff, the gang going unnamed for most of the film, not that you care about them either way). The soundtrack is rejected bachelor pad xylophone easy jazz, I kept waiting for Frank Sinatra to wonder in and ply Willie with a pitcher of martinis. Vincent Price should have stuck to cheesy horror films instead of hamming his way through this. While he does a good job channeling Jack Elam, he turns the half-drunk Oupa into a mincing creepy lout whom you suspect really is plying Willie with a pitcher of martinis. Had "The Jackals" been set in Arizona, with a capable cast and interesting direction, we may have had something. Instead, the film is too safe, picking all the most common ingredients off the carcass of the western film, which would get resurrected a couple of years later with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Imagining Burl Ives as Oupa and Clint Eastwood as Stretch, being directed by Don Siegel, would have been pretty cool.
helpful•10
- NoDakTatum
- Oct 4, 2023
Details
- Runtime1 hour 36 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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