Actor turned director Sam Wanamaker and Academy Award winning "King and I" lead Yul Brynner teamed up for the second time as director and star respectively in "Catlow," a harmless, featherweight adaptation of bestselling western writer Louis L'Amour's novel. Wanamaker and Brynner collaborated earlier on the espionage thriller "The File of the Golden Goose." Anyway, this 101-minute, PG-13 rated oater deals with the camaraderie between roguish cattle rustler Jed Catlow (Yul Brynner), and Richard Crenna's determined, arrow-straight, U.S. Marshal Ben Cowan."Star Trek" star Leonard Nimoy is cast against type as Catlow's nemesis who wants to put a bullet in him. Daliah Lavi and Jo Ann Pflug provide suitably distracting love interests for both Brynner and Crenna. The austere scenery around Almeria, Spain, substitutes marvelously for the Old West in this frivolous frontier yarn about maverick steers, two million dollars in stolen Confederate gold, Mexican soldiers, and savage, bloodthirsty Indians. Roy Budd's orchestral soundtrack enlivens this tolerably entertaining epic.One of the gags in the average but unexceptional Scot French and J.J. Griffith screenplay appears to have been lifted from Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West." Our amiable anti-hero Catlow surprises a bad guy and shoots at him through the sole of his boot with his six-shooter concealed in his footwear. Jason Robards performed a similar stunt in the train sequence of Leone's classic. The most distinctive feature of this otherwise ordinary but entertaining oater is Nimoy's hand-to-hand combat with Brynner in the nude. That's right. Mr. Spock shows his butt and a glimpse of something else when our protagonist catches him off-guard with his britches down. Nothing dirty, mind you.As "Catlow" unfolds, Cowan has a warrant to bring Catlow in for rustling cattle, but the charges have been trumped up by greedy cattlemen who don't want anybody rounding up maverick steers. It seems that their own hands demand extra pay that their bosses refuse to pay for the hardship involving in such activities. Ben Cowan is on Catlow's trail when Apache's jump him, wound him in the leg with an arrow and about about to kill, when Catlow's opportune intervention saves Ben's bacon. Meantime, the cattlemen have hired a hardcase, Miller (Leonard Nimoy), and several gunslingers to corral Catlow. During a showdown in the desert, Catlow spoils Miller's necktie party. As he is putting on his boot, Catlow shoots at Miller through the sole with a gun. A brief gunfight erupts, and Catlow's men scatter Miller's minions. After Catlow sells his steers for $23 dollars a head, he allows Ben to take him into custody. Ben claps Catlow in irons, and they take a stagecoach back to Fort Smith. Catlow's men rescue him in route. Naturally, the cattlemen aren't happy about Catlow's escape.Cowan rides into Mexico and Miller trails him. In a border town, Cowan finds Catlow long enough for our hero to lock him up. Catlow has set his sights on a mule train loaded with stolen Confederate gold that the Mexican army has discovered in a cave. Audaciously, Catlow hijacks the mule train right out from under the Mexican Army's nose. Cowan sounds the alert inadvertently when he stumbles onto the vicious Miller and all hell breaks loose. Catlow leads his unwilling men into the desert with the army nipping at his heels. One of Catlow's oldest accomplishess, Rios, doesn't cotton to Catlow's plans and plots mutiny.No sooner has his men and he plunged into the desert than they find themselves at the mercy of the vicious Seri Indians. Catlow and company reach a fortress in the desert that lays in ruins. Cowan beats them to the fortress and spoils an ambush that the jealous Rosita has set up for Catlow. Catlow and his men cut down most of her gunmen and Catlow ties her up. Meanwhile, Rios decides to double-cross Catlow, join forces with Rosita and take the gold. They steal all the guns from Catlow's men and leave them unarmed to face the advancing Seris. Catlow, Cowan, and the outlaws are between a rock and a hard place when the Mexican Army ride to their rescue.The ending is entirely improbable. Miller's reappearance, however, restores some drama. Nimoy excels as a rough and tumble villain with hate in his heart. Sadly, "Catlow" doesn't have enough grit to qualify as genuinely dramatic. The antics between Catlow and Cowan become rather childish and unbelievable, particularly the last minute reversal. "Catlow" isn't a bad western, but it is neither top drawer. The performances are adequate, the scenery is rugged, and the editing is incisive, but the story unravels toward the end.

This is a rather little entertaining western to watch. It has all of the violence and shooting but still it's made in a sort of more light and fun way.Never thought I would ever see Leonard Nimoy in a western. He made some appearance in western's but mostly in series and TV-movies. I think this is his biggest western's role out of his career. On top of that, he also plays the villain in this one and he does it extremely well. He truly had some real talent for playing the bad guy and I wouldn't had minded seeing him in more roles such as this one. Yul Brynner is also good as always. He really was in his element in westerns. In this movie he takes a more of a kind and humorous approach, which also works out really well for him.The characters are good ones but the character treatment isn't among the greatest. Yul Brynner will disappear out of the movie for some time, then Richard Crenna and then Leonard Nimoy. He's supposed to be the main villain, but nevertheless he gets hardly featured in the second halve of the movie at all. Consistency is not a too common thing within this movie.It's fine that the movie concentrates mainly on two characters, that are different and also on the other side of the law, but still great friends, although they are not afraid to punch, or shoot at each other either to get what they want. This sort of approach of an unlikely friendship isn't of course uncommon in a western.The story is a fine one, that leaves plenty of room for action. There a lot of shootouts, also involving villainous Indians. It all makes sure that the movie at all time is a fast going, with plenty happening on the screen.It's a real '70's western. '70's westerns are a total different thing from westerns from any other decade. It has that typical kind of '70's rawness all over it and in this case the movie also features some experimental techniques, such as some extremely fast editing in some scenes. Not sure if it truly helps or uplifts the movie but it still makes it a tiny bit more interesting to watch.Really a movie I enjoyed watching, though it's obviously no genre classic. It's just too small and insignificant for that.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

This decent but little known comedy-western is all about acting! Especially Yul Brunner has the time of his life portraying a smooth cattle-thief who just promoted himself to gold-robber. His name is Catlow and he rides through the Texan desert with his gang of thugs, chased by Sheriff Richard Crenna (the two are buddies even though they ought to be enemies) and hired hit man Leonard Nimoy. Everybody – Catlow as well as his pursuers – encounters trouble on their ways, such as aggressive Indians, sneaky Mexican villains and deadly ladies… The script of this film (which I believe was filmed in Spain, like many contemporary westerns) isn't very special and lacks coherence. Sam Wanamaker's direction is very hammy and it looks like though the cast is pretty much doing what they feel like. Still, it often is enormous fun to see the comic interactions between Brunner and Crenna when they're trying to outsmart each other with lists and dialogues. Leonard Nimoy is terrific as well, but unfortunately he has little screen time. The beautiful camera-work and exhilarating Country & Western music make you regret that the story is so weak.

Yul Brynner plays the cheerfully lawless rogue "Catlow", perpetually on the run from lawman and friend "Ben" (Richard Crenna) and malevolent bounty hunter "Miller" (Leonard Nemoy - in one of his early post-Star Trek roles). Great music, obviously 'influenced' by the soundtrack to "The Magnificent Seven", and an over-the-top plot involving stealing mexican gold stolen from the confederacy, Apaches, alternatively willing and vengeful women, banditos, and enough captures and escapes for several movies. Lightweight fun (in that lightheartedly violent way of late-1960's/early 1970's movies, in which any character whose name we didn't know was liable to receive instant death from the hero or villain -- a characteristic, of course, of many action movies to this day), with just enough actual danger (from the Apaches and Miller) to keep it interesting.