In 1945, Argentinian filmmaker Hugo Fregonese co-directed
his first feature with Lucase Demare called Savage Pampas, a rough and
ragged Spanish historical film set in the nineteenth century in the Argentinian
Dry Pampas region which saw a tough captain of the Argentine Army battling
outlaws comprised of Indians and Argentine soldiers on the cusp of the Conquest
of the Desert.Five years later, Fregonese
secured a job in Hollywood and began making crime dramas and historical
pictures, sometimes alternating with Italian film directing projects as
well.Some of his final films wound up
being produced by multiple countries and in 1966 such a coproduction came about
with what turned out to be an English language remake of the film that put him
on the map in the first place, Savage Pampas. In this newer Savage Pampas, set during the 1870s, Captain
Martin (Robert Taylor) is watching his conscripted armies split apart at the
seams with much of his troops defecting to the Native American side after being
promised women in reward for joining their ranks.His arch-rival is a confident and cunning
bandit named Padron (Ron Randell) takes full advantage of this proposition and
builds his own army made up of deserters and Indians.Enlisting Miguel Carreras to gather together what
will be Captain Martin’s own armada of women to satisfy his soldiers with the
hopes of luring back some of the deserters into his own ranks, the film becomes
a heated battle between the warring armies as Martin and Padron fight for
dominance over the region and respective companies, growing ever more bloody
and violent as time presses on.
While the original Spanish film was a tightly composed black
and white picture often focused on medium close-ups of the actors, in contrast the
English language work is a Superpanorama 70mm widescreen production replete
with 6-track sound, making this revisitation of the story of Savage Pampas a
huge forward step in technological innovation.Lensed exquisitely by Doctor Zhivago camera operator Manuel
Berenguer, often in wide angled shots to capture as much of the natural Earthly
wonderments as the camera can, the look of this new improved Savage Pampas is
breathtaking if not startlingly exhilarating at times.Take for instance a chase sequence where a man
is lassoed off his horse, and the whole animal falls to its side with a hoof
coming very close to striking the camera lens.Such images as these help cement the film’s striking look and further
augment’s the film’s abrupt explosions of violence. The musical component provided by Murders in the Rue Morgue
composer Waldo de los Rios helps set the lawless, brutal tone of the world
of Savage Pampas where the sun beats down relentlessly across the rugged
desert terrain and death seems to lurk around every corner.A straightforward orchestral score with
overtones of the melancholic Morricone spaghetti western on the soundtrack when
it doesn’t branch off into moments of stark terror and excitement, the score
perfectly complements the film’s lush but also harsh visuals, capturing the
Argentinian countryside in all of its beauty and ugliness.
While largely populated by a Spanish speaking cast, veteran
actor Robert Taylor of the grandiose screen epic Quo Vadis is no
stranger to the gargantuan 70mm epic film and as with Vadis makes a
formidable leading man with a gruff roughness to his character.Equally as strong is his opponent played by
Ron Randell, also a patron of the big Hollywood widescreen epic with King of
Kings as well as the WWII saga The Longest Day, giving the bandit
Padron a sociopathic, psychotic edge where even as he starts to see his own men
falling away from him, he doubles down on the violence and mania.Though an ensemble action adventure as
American western, the central conflict essentially boils down to these two fiercely
bitter enemies seemingly locked in eternal combat. In a curious turn of events given the multi-country
production, with the film’s 65mm camera being provided by German producer
Rudolf Travnicek initially, the film which was largely thought to be lost to
time was rescued by Schauburg Digital Division in 2015 in a new 4K scan made
from one of the last surviving 70mm prints.Though faded, Vincent Koch who oversaw the restoration of Vigilant
Switzerland supervised a full color correction of the footage alongside
fixing blemishes and other signs of print damage.Though the finished restoration still harbors
a wealth of print problems with portions of the sound occasionally patched up
with newly recorded audio, this is as complete of a version of Savage Pampas
as we’re likely to receive in our lifetime.
In the pantheon of historically based American westerns, Savage
Pampas while not an undiscovered gem or misunderstood classic is
nevertheless an important contribution to the big screen western at a time when
Hollywood was experimenting with high-definition film formats. Moreover, it’s not often you hear of directors
outside of maybe Cecil B. DeMille reevaluating and remaking their own works decades
later from 1.33:1 Academy Ratio black-and-white features to sprawling 2.20:1
Superpanorama 70mm widescreen color cinematography. If nothing else, fans of the mid-60s American
western will find probably the best group of ragtag miscreants fighting amongst
each other in the old west since Sam Peckinpah’s Major Dundee!
