John Mills is Father Keough, a Catholic priest who arrives in the small town of Quantana south of the border, a town where the word of a young man named Anacleto (Dick Bogarde) is law.
The previous priest gave up trying to battle Anacleto long ago and has let the church fall into ruin. Oh, at first, he tried to win the dressed-all-in-black gunman over to the ways of the church.
But Anacleto answered that early determined by staging accidents that killed villagers in alphabetical order. By the time he finished with C, Father Gomez was finished.
Anacleto will find Father Keough to be a more determined, more persistent foe, one seemingly so filled with trust and goodness that it intrigues the badman.
But both of these men has a soft spot for a young blonde beauty named Locha.
And her love for the priest could determine who wins their war of wills.
Review:
Interesting tale of good versus evil, faith versus disbelief, duty versus love with homosexual undertones thrown in for good measure. Bogarde’s character, dressed in black leather pants, finds himself strangely drawn to our priest.
According to the TCM into and exit to the film, few involved wanted to make it. Director Baker was coming off his highly successful “A Night to Remember” and had other ideas about what his next project should be. Bogarde was roped into doing the film by contractual obligations.
Strange thing is, in spite of their reluctance, they made an intriguing film that doesn’t seem as long as it is. Mylene Demongeot, who plays Locha, was a French sex symbol in the late 1950s and 1960s who went on to have a long career in films, just not Westerns.
Directed by:
Roy Ward Baker
Cast:
Dick Bogarde … Anacleto
John Mills … Father Michael Keough
Mylene Demongeot … Locha
Laurence Naismith … Old Uncle
John Bentley … Police Captain
Leslie French … Father Gomez
Eric Pohlmann … Presidente
Nyall Florenz … Vito
Roger Delgado … Pedro de Cortinez
Philip Gilbert … Phil Brown
Selma Vaz Dias … Chela
Laurence Payne … Pablo
Jacqueline Evans … Dona Marian
Lee Montague … Pepe
Serafina Di Leo … Jasefa
Runtime: 132 min.
Memorable lines:
Bus driver: “Well, father, here is Quantana … Around here, people say that is where the devil lives.”
Father Keough: “Perhaps there might be room for me, too.”
Bus driver: “Not in Quantana.”
Anacleto, speaking of Father Keough: “He has a kind heart. And a kind heart is a weak heart.”
Anacleto: “Goodbye, father. How liberating it must be. And how truly fascinating it must be, to be a truly good man.”
Anacleto: “I want to know whether you are an exceptional man, of whom your church is quite unworthy or whether it’s your chuch that makes men like you. Is it the song which is good? Or maybe the singer makes it so?”
Locha, speaking of her village: “I don’t think God worries his head much about this place.”
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