The Reward (1965)

THE REWARD  (1965)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Serge Bourguignon
    Max von Sydow, Yvette Mimieux, Gilbert Roland, 
    Emilio Fernandez, Henry Silva, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. 
At a quick glance, this looks like what you might get if Sam Peckinpah were to remake "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre". It's about a handful of adventurers trekking across an endless expanse of Mexican desert. One of them has a $50,000 price on his head, and the others hope to cash in. One of them's played by Emilio Fernandez, who played the cutthroat Mapache in Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch". Max von Sydow plays what would probably be the Bogart role, a bush pilot who's at loose ends, without a plan or a plane. Gilbert Roland's a dying lawman. Henry Silva's an Indian whose knowledge of the hot, dry country could keep them all alive. He doesn't talk much, but he plays the flute. Yvette Mimieux plays the girl. She doesn't talk much, either. You just know some of them aren't going to make it, and maybe none of them will. It's a long way back to town, food and water are scarce, and now a couple of the horses have run off. It's not "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and it's not Peckinpah, but if you're in the market for something offbeat and fatalistic set south of the border, you could do worse.