SAVAGE PAMPAS, a justly forgotten actioner from the mid-60s, a South American western, is included here for four reasons. First off, it’s basically a compendium site, and we try to play fair, whether the entry is Citizen Kane or The Slime People.  Second, it has a major, albeit fading, star in the lead. Third, for such a dud, at least the backstory is interesting. Lastly, your dutiful hunter-gatherer happened to be in Argentina upon lassoing (make that boloing) the gaudy item and can vouch that the now peaceful and lushly beautiful pampas  looks zip-nada like the parched shot-in-Spain locations for the ambitious yet doofy movie. We see. We report. We go figure. *

Si, the bad guy.

Argentina, the 1870s. The army is trying to pacify the frontier, but they face not just understandably obstinate indigenous warriors but craven bandits and deserters who ally with the tribes (shades of The Comancheros) and are so corrupt they provide captured women as prizes for deserters. Hard-bitten ‘Captain Martin’ (Robert Taylor) also provides female companionship for his horned-up troopers, shepherding a flock of prostitutes (naturally cine-hot in a mid-60s Euro-trash fashion) to keep the soldiers on the job while he figures out how to best the vile ‘Padron’ (Ron Randell), leader of the Honest Tribe & Scurvy Scum coalition, and the real motives of ”Carreras’ (Ty Hardin), a suspect journalist (aren’t they all?). Much violence occurs, a lot of shouting, plenty of riding.

Stick with “The Magnificent Seven”. Rosenda Monteros, 1935-2018

The frontier fighting between Argentine colonials and native tribes (dubbed the ‘Conquest of the Desert’) that took place between 1870 and 1884 was marked by slaughter on both sides, and a similar event took place in Chile. The setting and clashing make ample source material for a movie or two, and in 1945 Argentinian director Hugo Fregonese co-directed Pampa Bárbara, a major film in the Argentine roll call. Fregonese worked in Hollywood in the 50s, steering effective items like My Six Convicts, The Raid and Black Tuesday. Then he shifted to Europe, where he eventually retooled the script from Pampa Bárbara, with the help of John Melson (who”d helped fictionalize Battle Of The Bulge) and directed this version. Though Jaime Prades is credited as producer, he was working under the command and with the money of legendary titan Samuel Bronston, who despite taking financial losses from the huge epics 55 Days At Peking, Circus World and especially The Fall Of The Roman Empire, somehow had enough (possibly leftover from hits El Cid and King Of Kings) to lay out for this, though on a markedly less opulent scale. Still, it was outfitted in 70mm and stereo sound and cameraman Manuel Berenguer had logged sturdy credits on big scale pictures. Waldo de Los Rios’s scoring makes a pass at an Ennio Morricone flavor but comes up a good wail or tres short.

Ivanhoe would not put up with this…

Robert Taylor, 55, was a durable—and underrated—star from the mid-30s to mid-50’s, topping out with huge wins like Quo Vadis and Ivanhoe. As the 50s wore into the 60s his films declined in popularity and quality (he got a break from TVs The Detectives) and this grab-the-dough toiler ranked second to the bottom in his resume; only The Day The Hot Line Got Hot earned less. Done in the US, Hardin was already in Spain, first for Battle Of The Bulge, then the awful Custer Of The West, and Australian import Randell’s Hollywood career had fallen away so he made do with Europe as well. Co-star Marc Lawrence had also shifted cross-Atlantic. Mexican actress Rosenda Monteros, best known for The Magnificent Seven, gets the “good woman” role in a script that doesn’t exactly treat female characters with much more finesse than the randy soldiers and gross ruffians in the story.

Some decent camera touches and a plenitude of well-done stunts (particularly horse-falls) are the best of slim pickings. Once again cast as a short-tempered officer, Taylor tries but the script is just terrible. Randell and Lawrence overact outrageously, Hardin wastes his time, Monteros is thrown away. The dubbing is poor, the editing jagged, the sound effects are lazy—note: don’t have rifles and pistols make the exact same noise!  Also in the cast, and mugging like mad, is German/Javanese exotic dancer/actress Laya Raki, va-vooming wildly as one of the strumpets: she and Randell were married from 1957 until his death in 2005.

This daft opus was also known as THE DAMNED OF THE PAMPAS and THE CURSE OF THE PAMPAS, from its restored releases in Germany, which cite a running time of 94 minutes. They insist the US running time of 112 minutes listed at the IMDb is gone with the Rio de la Plata wind. Other lengths vary depending on the print and TV-chopped venue. To some fans of director Fregonese for his German-made western Old Shatterhand, the rediscovery of Savage (or whatever) Pampas is a cause for celebration.  Our advice, if you must watch, pick the shortest, with your trigger finger on ff.

* Once more with El Boxoffice Figurosos, already!  Cogerson shows it making $1,000,000 in the States, but they list it from 1965, so some beef missed the barbecue because it wasn’t released until the following year in Europe and not in the US until 1967. Insert colorful Spanish swearwords. And visit Argentina—it’s stunning.

Q: why was traveling by stagecoach popular?  Laya Raki, 1927-2018