New in today . . . Tom Chantrell's original movie poster painting for SHALAKO.
SHALAKO was a British 1968 Western movie directed by Edward Dmytryk, starring Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot. It was filmed in Almería, Spain.
The cast also included Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, and Honor Blackman, Connery's co-star from GOLDFINGER. It was based on a novel by Louis L'Amour.
Producer Euan Lloyd was introduced to Louis L'Amour, author of numerous Western adventure novels, by his actor friend Alan Ladd. Over the years as Lloyd dreamed of becoming an independent producer, he kept in touch with L'Amour. He wanted to film his 1962 novel SHALAKO.
At one time Lloyd had lined up Henry Fonda and Senta Berger to star in the film, planning to shoot it in Mexico. Lloyd recounted that, at the time, many film distributors were reluctant to back a film starring Fonda, and increases in the cost of filming in Mexico made it impossible to pursue.
During a meeting with L'Amour, Lloyd recounted long lines at the cinemas in New York for the latest James Bond adventure film. L'Amour remarked that Sean Connery, who starred in the role, would certainly "look tall in the saddle". When Lloyd met Sean Connery and discussed the work with him, he learned that Connery was a Western fan since childhood. He was also keen to do the film as he had been promised $1.2 million and 30% of the profits out of the $5 million budget. Connery was available, as he had turned down playing Bond in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.
Lloyd obtained the film's planned original co-star Brigitte Bardot, Bond cinematographer Ted Moore, and Bond stuntman and action scene arranger Bob Simmons.
Bardot was paid $400,000 plus 12.5% of the profits.
Once Lloyd had Connery on board, many European and other film distributors were keen to finance the film. Distributors in 35 different countries agreed to provide promissory notes worth $5 million payable on delivery of the film. This enabled Lloyd to raise the $3 million necessary to start production and to sign Connery and Bardot. $1,455,000 came from ABC in the USA, with $2 million from elsewhere. Dimitri de Grunwald became involved in helping finance.
The film was shot in Almería, Spain. Whilst scouting locations when planning to film in the United States, Lloyd had noticed that many Native Americans were overweight. He did not think they looked menacing enough. Simmons recruited a "war party" of lean and mean Romani people (gypsies), whom he trained to ride and act like war-bent Apaches.
Simmons talked Connery into shaving off the droopy moustache which he had grown for the historic period. The investors perhaps remembered Gregory Peck's moustache in THE GUNFIGHTER, which was believed to have discouraged some of the public from attending. They feared the same might happen with SHALAKO.
Almería province was a favoured location for filming spaghetti Westerns. But, when SHALAKO was in production, Harry Saltzman's Second World War film, PLAY DIRTY, set in the Libyan Desert, was being filmed on the same locations. One film crew had to wipe out the tyre tracks in the sand before filming the Old West, whilst the other had to pick up the horse droppings before shooting the Second World War battles. Once the gypsy Apaches, mounted on horseback, rode by mistake headlong into an attack on a Long Range Desert Group!
Lloyd gathered a strong international cast, including Connery's former co-star Honor Blackman from GOLDFINGER, as well as Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd, Woody Strode, Peter van Eyck, Alexander Knox, Eric Sykes and Don Barry.
