It arrived with a high pedigree and high intentions, produced and written by equally high-minded Carl Foreman ("High Noon", "The Bridge On The River Kwai", "Guns Of Navarone").
We're speculating here, but we're guessing that Foreman, ever message-intensive, envisioned this as a blending of grand high adventure and a blistering treatise on human greed.........with the entire cast of characters on an avaricious quest to find a legendary lost canyon of gold, zealously guarded by the Apaches.....
Not a bad idea for an epic horse opera, but in execution by Foreman and his 'Navarone' director J.Lee Thompson, the film invited nothing but ridicule.......featuring a huge roster of icons in cameo roles, the film resembled a pretentious way-out-West version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Half of it is visually stunning.......the other half looks like outtakes from an Ed Wood Jr. aborted western, filled with some of the worst special effects ever committed to celluloid......
The fatal problem......... these two competing halves of the movie, the splendid, scenic outdoor stuff and the blatantly fake, 1930's-level soundstage shots are intercut throughout the entire running time......one moment you're gazing wide-eyed at sun-drenched Arizona landscapes, the next moment you're groaning at the sight of actors posed in front of paper-mache rocks and galloping their fake hobby horses in front of fuzzy rear-projection images. It's a visually jarring experience to watch....a constant back-and-forth between the gorgeous location footage and the embarrassing Hollywood fakery.
Vultures glide over Monument Valley while Jose Feliciano wails out 'Old Turkey Buzzard'....a ludicrous song, but just try getting it out of your head after you've heard it. Our hero, Marshall Mackenna (a bemused Gregory Peck, barely containing his boredom with the role), views a map to the mythical gold canyon taken off a dying old Apache who took a shot at him.....(this ancient wheezing Native American, played by Eduardo Cianelli, presumably comes from the Italian Apache branch)
Mackenna's promptly kidnapped by his longtime bandido nemesis Colorado (a grossly miscast Omar Sharif, doing a pale, lame imitation of Eli Wallach's "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly" character......ironic, considering Wallach himself turns up later in the movie). Forcing Mackenna to lead him to the canyon, Colorado launches a punishing trek across the real and fake scenery, along with his gang and another hostage (Camilla Sparv, one of many bland, blonde starlets who wandered through 60's movies, to no effect whatsoever...)
A swift pace might have helped here (and possibly make you forget the rickety wooden bridge sequence where Peck and his horse are replaced by toy miniatures....), but Carl Foreman needs to instruct us on the perils of greed........so crashing the party (and stopping the film cold) come the 'men from Hadleyburg', formerly upstanding citizens now salivating for their share of the gold. Incredibly, this bunch is played by a Hollywood dream team, Wallach, Burgess Meredith, Lee J. Cobb, Raymond Massey, Anthony Quayle, and Edward G.Robinson.
Only Massey and Robinson get to briefly strut their acting chops before both a cavalry troop and the Apaches take turns decimating this collection of sleazeballs. That frees the way for our leading cast members to keep on gold-trekkin', stopping only for a picturesque pond swim......(Peck, Lincoln-esque to a fault, bathes with his clothes on, Sharif strips and demurely poses like a l950's porn actor hiding his privates, Sparv survives an attempted drowning murder by one of Sharif's two mute Cigar Store Indians (statuesque, black bewigged Julie Newmar......the other one's played by the 'Addams Family' Lurch himself, Ted Cassidy)
After close to two hours, we finally arrive at the promised gold canyon, once again rendered with a combination of vivid location footage and ridiculously phony models and matte shots. Supposedly a young George Lucas was part of the 'Making of..' documentary crew for this movie....and may have gotten 'Indiana Jones' inspirations from the climax in which the canyon, annoyed at the intrusion of gold-hunters, decides to conveniently self-destruct and crumble during an earthquake. Cut to the miniature shots that looked borrowed from 'Land Of The Lost' episodes.......
The visual schizophrenia of "Mackenna's Gold" is still remarkable......because amid all the cringe-worthy special effects, the film will suddenly throw in some truly astonishing location shots taken from a galloping horse point-of-view......as if 'Mackenna' had been planned for a wrap-around Cinerama presentation. (God only knows how those tinker-toy model shots would have appeared blown up on a huge curved screen)
Since we found more guilt than pleasure in this guilty pleasure, we'll dig up just two small gold nuggets for 'Mackenna's Gold' (**)......now if we could only stop singing 'Old Turkey Buzzard' in the shower......
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