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Sean Connery left the James Bond franchise to star in Shalako, his only Western, due to his desire to avoid being typecast. Despite the decline of Westerns during its release, Shalako attempted to capitalize on the popularity of the Bond films but ultimately failed to impress critics and audiences. Connery enjoyed his experience making Shalako but did not pursue any more Western roles, as the genre was waning in popularity and his previous Western had been a box office bomb.

Sean Connery exited the James Bond franchise to make his one and only Western. The success of Dr. No would kick off one of cinema's most iconic franchises, and there had never been a movie phenomenon quite on the same scale before. However, Connery began to tired of both the role and the producers behind the series. He feared being permanently typecast and that he wasn't being fairly compensated, given...

With only a couple of months left, 2020 cruelly claimed yet another silver screen icon. Reuters broke the news this past Sunday:

Scottish movie legend Sean Connery, who shot to international stardom as the suave, sexy and sophisticated British agent James Bond and went on to grace the silver screen for four decades, has died aged 90.

“Father Time” seemingly took our first (and for many the favorite) incarnation of the ultimate super spy (tough break you Spectre creeps and megalomaniacs). For much of the 1960s, he was the most popular movie star on the planet. We Movie Geeks respectfully raise a martini glass to his long career.

That’s Sean in the middle, number 24.

His journey to movie stardom started fairly humbly across “the pond”. After stints as a coffin-polisher (really), milk delivery man, and bodybuilder (he competed in the 1950 Mr. Universe contest), Connery took up acting, first on stage in...

Sean Connery, the Scottish-born actor who rocketed to fame as James Bond and became one of the franchise’s most popular and enduring international stars, has died. He was 90.

Connery, long regarded as one of the best actors to have portrayed the iconic spy, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000 and marked his 90th birthday in August. His death was confirmed by his family, who said that the actor “died peacefully in his sleep surrounded by family” in the Bahamas. It’s believed he had been unwell for some time. His last acting role had been in Stephen Norrington’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentleman” (2003).

Connery was an audience favorite for more than 40 years and one of the screen’s most reliable and distinctive leading men. The actor was recently voted the best James Bond actor in an August Radio Times poll in the U.K. More than 14,000 voted...

It’s 007 in the saddle! Sean Connery didn’t become a career cowboy but his one stint as a Louis L’Amour hero is a diverting change of pace. And we couldn’t resist the pairing of two of moviedom’s most attractive actors — Connery and Brigitte Bardot.

Shalako

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date July 11, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Sean Connery, Brigitte Bardot, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Peter van Eyck, Honor Blackman, Woody Strode, Eric Sykes, Alexander Knox, Valerie French, Julián Mateos, Don ‘Red’ Barry.

Cinematography: Ted Moore

Film Editor: Bill Blunden

Original Music: Robert Farnon

Written by J.J. Griffith, Hal Hopper, Scot Finch, Clarke Reynolds from the novel by Louis L’Amour

Produced by Euan Lloyd

Directed by Edward Dmytryk

It’s true, after five consecutive James Bond movies, we weren’t exactly ready to see Sean Connery as an American cowboy hero.

Issue #36 of Cinema Retro has shipped to subscribers worldwide. This is the final issue of Season 12. Please subscribe or renew today and help keep the dream alive for the world's most unique film magazine!  

Highlights of this issue include: 

Dave Worrall and Lee Pfeiffer celebrate the 50th anniversary of "The Professionals" starring Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Claudia Cardinale, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode and Jack Palance.

*Mark Mawston with a rare exclusive interview with 70's sex siren Linda Hayden

*Cai Ross takes a bite at covering the underrated 1979 version of "Dracula" starring Frank Langella and Laurence Olivier

*John LeMay uncovers the top secret story of the unfilmed "Romance of the Pink Panther" that was to have starred Peter Sellers.

*Peter Cook continues his celebration of matte painting artists

*Tim Greaves uncovers the fascinating career of British "Sex Queen" Mary Millington

*Mark Mawston concludes his interviews with legendary stills photographer Keith Hamshere,...

Issue #36, the final issue of Season 12 of Cinema Retro,  has now shipped worldwide. 

Highlights of this issue include:

Dave Worrall and Lee Pfeiffer celebrate the 50th anniversary of "The Professionals" starring Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Claudia Cardinale, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode and Jack Palance.

*Mark Mawston with a rare exclusive interview with 70's sex siren Linda Hayden

*Cai Ross takes a bite at covering the underrated 1979 version of "Dracula" starring Frank Langella and Laurence Olivier

*John LeMay uncovers the top secret story of the unfilmed "Romance of the Pink Panther" that was to have starred Peter Sellers.

*Peter Cook continues his celebration of matte painting artists

*Tim Greaves uncovers the fascinating career of British "Sex Queen" Mary Millington

*Mark Mawston concludes his interviews with legendary stills photographer Keith Hamshere, who recalls shooting "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and the James Bond films

*Lee Pfeiffer's personal tribute to the late Euan Lloyd,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Over the last year the entertainment industry has suffered incalculable losses of talented people. Some of them hit home personally, as is the case with producer Euan Lloyd, who passed away this weekend in London. I first met Euan in 1978 when I was attending college in New Jersey. I had the enviable gig of being the film critic for the campus newspaper, which afforded me the opportunity to routinely attend press screenings of forthcoming films in New York, which was a stone's throw across the river from my native Jersey City. I had read about the upcoming release of "The Wild Geese" which seemed to promise a "too-good-to-be-true" cast composed of some of my favorite actors (Richard Burton, Roger Moore and Richard Harris above all) in the kind of gritty, macho British war flick that I had become addicted to ever since seeing "Zulu" at age 8. To...

Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.Above: Bound to get taken offline by the time you read this, hurry up and watch Star War Wars: All 6 Films At Once (Full Length)Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory visit the famed closet of the Criterion Collection and recount their experiences encountering Godard's Weekend and films by Antonioni.At the invaluable chrismarker.org, Chris Marker's short film 2084 (1984) has been remixed.At its premiere at the Berlinale, Queen of the Desert, Werner Herzog's long-awaited return to epic filmmaking, garnered an unfortunate, uneven response. Now the full trailer for the film is out, and we hope it grows in our estimation upon re-viewing. As a recap, read impressions from Daniel Kasman and Adam Cook, as well as our interview with long-time Herzog cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger about working on the film.

Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run was pivotal in launching his career as a credible actor and leading man. Although considered a comedy classic today, the 1969 film actually lost money at the time of its release.

By Brian Hannan

All you need is top stars and top directors and making movies is easy. Surely you couldn’t miss with a line-up that included Sean Connery, Steve McQueen, Michael Caine, Dustin Hoffman, Lee Marvin, Omar Sharif, and directors of the calibre of Robert Aldrich (hot after The Dirty Dozen), John Boorman (Point Blank) and Woody Allen. Or so ABC must have thought when it set up a movie division in the late 1960s. Delving into the archives recently, I discovered that Sam Peckinpah’s rodeo picture Junior Bonner (1972) starring Steve McQueen was a box office stinkeroo. The picture lost $2.8m (about $15m in today’s money). Not just on domestic release,...

To mark the 50th Anniversary of one of the most successful movie franchises of all time and as James Bond prepares for his 23rd official outing in Skyfall later this year, I have been tasked with taking a retrospective look at the films that turned author Ian Fleming’s creation into one of the most recognised and iconic characters in film history.

The sixth film in the series was to be inspired by Fleming’s 11th novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Ohmss). Following the excesses of You Only Live Twice, the decision was made to take Bond back to his roots and make a faithful adaptation of Fleming’s original story with less reliance on gadgets and an emphasis on the love story at the heart of the novel.

Peter Hunt, who had already made his mark on the series by serving as editor for the previous films,...

It is, some say, a Roger Moore Bond movie without Roger Moore in it. That’s because Diamonds Are Forever — which celebrates its 40th anniversary this week — is as camp as Glastonbury in June.

Camp? Yes. Camp. Look at the evidence: it has saucy innuendo galore (“You seem to have caught me with more than my hands up”); a Shirley Bassey-delivered title track with Don Black’s ‘ooh-er’ lyrics; a gaudy Las Vegas setting; gay hit men; a moon buggy chase; plus Ernst Stavro Blofeld holding the world to ransom with an outer-space death ray. You know. That kind of camp.

It might have been different had George Lazenby returned for a second bite at Bond, or if American actor John Gavin (from Psycho) had played 007. In fact, Gavin had already signed a contract but, at the last minute, due to studio jitters, Sean Connery was made an offer...

Thanks for the identification of Claudia Cardinale in the masthead. I've always wondered about the guy on the left. Who is it? I sometimes think it looks like Sean Connery, but I can only think of one Western he was in. Any help appreciated!

Martin

Retro responds: Right you are, Martin- it's Connery in the title role of the 1968 Western Shalako. Thanks for asking- it's gives us an excuse to reproduce the movie's cool original U.S. one sheet. For an interview with producer Euan Lloyd about the trials and tribulations of bringing this Louis L'Amour story to the screen, see Cinema Retro issue #2. Before anyone asks, the actor to the left of Clint Eastwood is Robert Vaughn in the Man From U.N.C.L.E. feature film The Spy With My Face.