To put it mildly, the film is unrewarding at best.At times, the film is so slow moving that you can actually start to feel the heat from the desert and you still can't empathize or sympathize with the characters.The Spanish thespians only speak Spanish so there is the constant need to be reading the English sub-titles below the screen.Yvette Mimieux mumbles and you know that Fernandez is as greedy as they come and will ultimately want all the reward money in question, no matter what it takes to attain it.It actually takes a while before you can get the gist of whatever a story there is. Fortunately, for the boy who was accidentally killed, he is not seen in the film.A very poor imitation of The Treasure of the Sierre Madre.

Max van Sydow and Yvette Mimieux in a western? With Efrem Zimbalist? What were they thinking? Even the presence of Emilio Fernandez (the great Mapache from "The Wild Bunch"), Gilbert Roland, and Henry Silva can't rescue this strange re-make of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre".The story itself is not so bad and with different actors and a different director it might have been better. Director Serge Bourguignon is a Frenchman best known for "Sundays and Cybele" and "Two Weeks in September", not exactly the kinds of films that you think of when looking at someone to work in the Western genre.When you think of the good westerns made in the mid 60s ("Ride the High Country", "Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", "A Fistful of Dollars". "Cheyenne Autumn", "Cat Ballou", "Shenandoah", "Sons of Katie Elder", "The Wild Bunch") this film pales in comparison.

A dream come true for anyone who wants to watch six people listlessly plod across desert terrain while speaking 65% of the dialogue in a language that not everyone knows, this deadening film will likely put most viewers to sleep. Von Sydow (not yet free of his contemplative, expressionless Jesus faces from "The Greatest Story Ever Told") plays a crop dusting pilot who loses everything, including his future freedom, after he crashes his plane on one final flight and destroys a water tank. He strikes a deal with Mexican police captain Roland to pay his fines off by aiding in the capture of a wanted man. Zimbalist plays the man, an American who attempted to kidnap a small boy, the act of which accidentally led to his death. With gal pal Mimieux in tow, he set outs across the desert in her convertible (!), only to be tracked down by Roland, von Sydow and a trio of helpers (police sergeant Fernandez and two young Mexican lads Castelnuovo and Silva.) Once it's discovered that Zimbalist has a $50,000 reward on his head, the five men begin to fracture at the seams, causing disagreement and death. Though this story idea has merit and sounds intriguing, the finished result couldn't be more muddled, dull or disengaging. There is virtually no dramatic thrust or momentum to the film. What's more, the bulk of the dialogue is in Spanish! So, without subtitles, almost nothing being discussed can be fully understood by a solely English-speaking viewer. Naturally, one can get the basic gist of the actions (and this sort of thing is all right in small doses), but it is extremely tiresome to have to try to figure out what is being said between characters over the course of an entire movie! The film also has obnoxiously loud sound effects and incidental music. (The broken guitar scene occurs way too late!) This is especially difficult since what little English dialogue there is is spoken by Swedish (!) von Sydow, Mexican-accented Roland, soft spoken Zimbalist and willowy Mimieux, who apparently used the Leigh Taylor-Young acting handbook here which requires every line to be whispered as breathily as possible. Von Sydow gives a vague and noncommittal performance. Roland attempts to inject a bit of character into his role, but has nothing to work with. Zimbalist is saddled with a smallish part that has confusing motivations. Every clichéd aspect of a Mexican character (loudness, annoying belly laughing, drinking, guitar-playing, obesity, etc...) is brought to the table by Fernandez and his portrayal is quite unpleasant. Mimieux is very attractive with her golden locks blowing and her lovely figure getting rained on, but she has nothing to say or do of consequence. Her role is complete window-dressing. Silva is intriguing and seems slightly homosexual in his role with his shirt tied like Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island". It's hard to gather what his character is about since all of his lines are in Spanish. One of the few assets to the film is Castelnuovo as a handsome, hunky, upstanding young man. His toothy smile and snug jeans go a long way in relieving the relentless tedium of this pointless film. The worthlessness of the story is brought home for good in it's non-ending.

A good cast, interesting premise and catchy direction all come to not-very-much here. Max Von Sydow and Gilbert Roland do very well in off-beat parts as a weary pilot desperate for money and a sickly Mexican Cop unwillingly heading up a rag-tag posse chasing across the desert after Ephram Zimbalest as a wanted killer. Emilio Fernandez and Henry Silva add solid support, and Yvette Mimieux is nice to look at, but as the movie goes on -- and on -- there's not much for anyone to do. Serge Bourguignon's direction has its moments, but he apparently didn't care much about keeping up the pace. The result is a film that's sometime interesting to look at but not to watch. It also has the disjointed look of a film that was chopped up rather badly before release. The print aired recently on the Fox Movie Channel also lacks subtitles, which may make the long stretches of conversation in Mexican rather tedious for viewers who don't speak Spanish.