Chato's Land (1972)

Director:

Michael Winner

Writer:

Gerald Wilson (written by)

Release Date:

30 June 1972 (Denmark)

Genre:

Adventure | Western

Tagline:

The scream of his victims is the only sound he makes.

Plot:

After Pardon Chato, a mestizo, killed a US marshal in self-defense, a posse pursues him, but as the...

Plot Keywords:

Posse | Rape | Beans | Corncob Pipe | Vulture

Cast

Charles Bronson	...	Pardon Chato
Jack Palance	...	Capt. Quincey Whitmore
James Whitmore	...	Joshua Everette
Simon Oakland	...	Jubal Hooker
Ralph Waite	...	Elias Hooker
Richard Jordan	...	Earl Hooker
Victor French	...	Martin Hall
Sonia Rangan	...	Chato's woman
William Watson	...	Harvey Lansing
Roddy McMillan	...	Gavin Malechie
Paul Young	...	Brady Logan
Lee Patterson	...	George Dunn
Roland Brand
Peter Dyneley	...	Ezra Meade
Hugh McDermott	...	Bartender

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Australia:M | Singapore:PG | West Germany:16 (f) | New Zealand:R16 | Netherlands:16 | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 (1972) | Sweden:15 | USA:PG | UK:18 (cut)

Filming Locations:

Almería, Andalucía, Spain

Company:

Scimitar Films

Trivia:

The Hooker ranch house and barn are the same as the McBain house and barn in C'era una volta il West (1968).

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Several times as the posse rides through the desert, the saguaro cacti props in the background can be seen jiggling and flapping their arms in the wind.

Quotes:

Jubal Hooker: I don't want to bury him here. It's an empty place... empty... nothing to remember.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in My Best Friend's Birthday (1987)

Cynical British Western attacks US Patriarchy.

After virtually inaugurating the British Western with 1970's "Lawman", director Michael Winner returned to the quintessential American genre in 1971, for this film, again scripted by Gerald Wilson. Wilson would be the scripter for many of the director's 1970s films. For "Chato's Land", they managed to attract star Charles Bronson, in the decade of his peak popularity. Winner and Bronson would work together many times over the next 15 years, most notably perhaps for "Death Wish".

The intention of this Western was to debunk the genre's notion of the validity of the social compact upon which social order is founded: ie. Patriarchy. Winner showed law and justice as emerging out of pettiness and boredom instead of any greater good. Thus, the traditional cowboy hero, and lawman, was a mere sadistic thug, with Indian Bronson being Winner's noble savage, using what Winner suggests is an innate violence to protect himself and his property. In that respect, one can see the influence of Sam Peckinpah.

Winner depicts Patriarchal codes as revealing only the base, bestial nature of man. And he does so with a gleeful relish that borders on sensationalism. Thus, the scaled to essentials plot of a Posse chasing down a renegade Indian, is a vehicle for the bitter condemnation of the American heritage. The brutality of both sides makes the film an intriguing companion piece of sorts to Robert Aldrich's much praised Vietnam allegory "Ulzana's Raid" which was released about the same time. However, it is unlikely that Winner will ever be accorded the same status as Aldrich.

To Winner, cinema is inherently sensationalist, and he lingers on every unpleasant detail with lurid and distorted angles. Justice is a concept here equated, much as in Aldrich's film, with a sport, a hunt and kind of boy's night out with the guns. But, further than that, Winner suggests that justice is ironically based on the need to counter or indulge man's inherently brutal nature, prone to sadism and revenge. It is an amoral and cynical film wherein Winner takes the themes of his previous Western, about a man obsessed with the law to the point where he becomes a danger, and shuffles them in favour of the outlaw. Jack Palance's vile lawman in "Chato's Land" is the end result of Burt Lancaster's character in "Lawman". Justice is personalized and twisted into violent expression.

This film, like most Michael Winner films, has very little critical reputation behind it, but has a stark, raw quality that borders on the exploitational. What is perhaps disturbing is the humour with which violence, especially sexual violence, is treated by Winner,who seeks to make the audience participate in such violation, but not for moral aims: just for kicks.