Friday, March 23, 2012

Movie review - "Among Vultures" (1964) **

My first experience of a German Western - a massively popular genre in Europe based on the success of the novels of Karl May. Pierre Brice became a star playing the Uncle Tom Indian Winnetou who usually teamed up with Lex Barker as the cowboy Shatterhand.

Apparently in 1964 the producers realised they could get Stewart Granger, whose career was on the slide but was a bigger name than Barker, and hired hum to play another cowboy from May, Surehand, for three movies. Surehand is an old gunslinger, quick on the draw.

The plot has some outlaws committing crimes and blaming them on Indians. A posse of goodies get together to help, including the son of the murder victims, Winnetou and Surehand - plus Elke Sommer, who shows off her cleavage a few times leaning out of windows. 
 
It's not really a star vehicle - everyone takes turns at doing something heroic. Granger's voice is dubbed but is authentic enough as a cowboy hero and has a jaunty air about him - his old star appeal is welcome in a movie where I only recognised Sommer and him.

The best sequence is when some Indians fire arrows at Surehand and he has to shoot the arrows - a version of the William Tell legend. The rest of it isn't as good - I didn't buy how the head baddy whimpered like a coward at the end (it felt too pat), the dubbing was distracting, the acting poor. 
 
There is some action and the locations (snow capped mountains, greed fields, forests) are pretty. And it was fascinating to watch.

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