Mackenna's Gold Movie Review.

James M Sandbrook

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Mackenna's Gold

1969

‪Action/Adventure‬, ‪Thriller/Mystery‬ - ‪2 Hours 8 Minutes.

On Saturdays in Huntly, New Zealand as a child, my mother wanting to get us children out of the house (she would tell us so) would sometimes give us money for the movies at the local Movie Theatre/Cinema. I have read in various biographies that this was common in all Western Countries.

Often we would see Westerns on the Saturday mornings. The likes of John Wayne type movies, and war movies etc. There were often many reruns, movies of the past. Mackenna's Gold was such a movie for me.

I remember as a child myself and my male friends, we all disliked females in Western movies because they made the movie all mushy and lovey dovey. In this movie there are some nude scenes that were probably taken out in the movie theatre when I was a child because I have no recollection of them at all. Censorship was more powerful back then.

There is far more violence in Mackenna's Gold than I remembered as well. I guess that explains why we children often played Cowboys and Indians games, we probably saw a lot of violent movies.

The movie is about a Marshall called Mackenna who see's a map that has the path to some gold and Mackenna not believing in the gold stories of this certain map burns the map thinking its a lie. He is kidnapped by a bad guy called outlaw John Colorado after he finds out that the map does not exist anymore and is only in Mackenna’s mind.
John Colorado and his band of outlaws that kidnap Mackenna believe that the gold is there and they want Mackenna to lead them to the gold. There are some rather strange editing scenes that look unnatural, especially the part on the swing bridge, but the storyline is reasonable. The movie shows what greed does to people.

There is Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif, and Telly Savalas, in the movie, yet I felt that the production was lacking.

Savalas is a bad guy along with Omar Sharif as Mexican outlaw John Colorado plays his part well, while Gregory Peck is a poker playing Marshall trying to get his life in order.

The movie did not do well and it probably shows why when you watch the movie with what appears to be bad editing. It is still exciting, but probably more killing than was needed and the nude scenes not needed either.

I watched the movie out of curiosity to see if it was what I remembered it to be.

The ending is rather dramatic and exciting, with the usual gold hunger and mentality that greed brings with it, Mackenna is pleasantly blessed in a certain way at the end of the movie.

All the best from

James M Sandbrook.

8th of March, 2021.

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