User Reviews

In 1966 the western genre was pretty tired – only the Italians, with their stylistic spaghetti westerns, were finding new angles to keep the genre fresh. American westerns were becoming thinner on the ground, and those that did still get made were often entirely routine. It would be the sprightly caperish-ness of Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid and the slow-motion violence of The Wild Bunch a few years later which would briefly reinvigorate the Hollywood horse opera. An unusual film from this era is Savage Pampas, which is more of a semi-western than a fully-fledged western. Co-written and directed by Hugo Fregonese, it is an American-Spanish-Argentinian co-production set on the pampas of 19th century Argentina. Maybe the best label for it would be a "southern"?

At an army outpost in Argentina commanded by the ball-busting Captain Martin (Robert Taylor), the soldiers consist of a number of ex-cons, fugitives and desperadoes. For several years they have been locked in conflict with bandits and hostile Indians. All the while, the army soldiers have been kept away from women. Morale is low among the sex-starved soldiers, and many are deserting to the side of the bandits where they are promised women and pleasures of the flesh. Martin realises that urgent changes are needed and arranges for a number of women – whores and ne'er-do-wells – to be brought into the camp to satisfy his remaining men. The women have to be transported across miles of perilous terrain, personally accompanied by Martin and some of his best soldiers. The journey is fraught with danger, and the men and women undertaking find themselves unexpectedly developing mutual respect – love, even – as they go.

Savage Pampas is intriguing for its very unusual plot threads – an examination of the effect celibacy on fighting men; temptations of the flesh; the fragility of morale; primitive attitudes towards women, etc. The film is handsomely shot, with some very good-looking panoramic sequences. There is action and violence in spurts, some of it is surprisingly hard-edged for 1966, though at other times the film is relatively sombre and slow-moving. Taylor holds it together well enough, playing a John Wayne-like authority role (he even drawls his lines like the Duke!) Waldo de los Rios provides a flavoursome score which adds to the rich South-'o'-the-Border atmosphere. Overall Savage Pampas is a smooth and watchable flick – it does not deserve to have fallen into relative obscurity.

You really can't call this film set in old uncivilized Argentina a western. It's a war drama with elements of the American western, set in the desert of the growing South American country, filmed among the open country of sunny Spain. Robert Taylor is the captain of a troop of very lonely soldiers who threaten to dessert if they don't get women. There are battles between the natives, banditos, deserters and those who have stayed around, and the number of soldiers willing to stick around is dwindling..if they don't get love...fast...or at least physical love.

So you get singing gauchos, easy women of virtue with no real prospects, resigned to their fate to just be playthings for soldiers for the good of the country. It's a silly but perverted film, with Ron Randell over-the-top as Taylor's main foe, and Ty Hardin as a young rebel. The story is in very interesting but the filming is stunning with the pastel colors so vivid they practically fly off of the screen. It's like a painting come to life with a visual that soon won't be forgotten. Taylor tries too hard to look like he did during his earlier MGM years 20 years before, but his performance is a wooden as the forts.

This is one of the worst Westerns I have ever seen. Sad that it was one of Robert Taylor's last movies. It has some things that you have never seen in a movie before. Often that would be a good thing -- edgy, bold innovation, cutting edge, push the envelope, etc. Here you know it was never done before because it is so awful! ***spoilers*** The biggest theme of the movie seems to be that soldiers will fight, dessert and re-enlist if they are offered prostitutes. That might be interesting if there was some nudity, raw realistic language, believable characters, etc. But no. There are no interesting characters for the audience to follow, none to commiserate with hero Taylor -- no girlfriends, no male friends even. Plus the dubbing is awful. There must be good stories involving Argentina, the Pampas, Indians, deserters, and civil war there, but you won't find it in this silly movie. Most of the movie involves Taylor's Captain character escorting jailed-women-let-free if they would "comfort" the soldiers. On the way to the fort, the women and their soldier escorts fall in love (!!), so the soldiers refuse to continue to the fort. Meanwhile they are attacked by white rebels (many of them deserted soldiers joining the rebellion because they are offered prostitutes) and Indians. The soldiers and comfort women end up in a church surrounded by the rebel-bandit-Indian forces. Taylor leaves to get help from the fort. He is captured by the bad rebel leader and staked out to die alone slowly in the sun. A friendly girl rescues him. He continues to the fort and returns with a small number of soldiers. The larger rebel-deserter-Indian force has the church surrounded and are having fun waiting/stretching out the time to attack the church. Nice guys. Taylor sneaks into the bad guys camp and kills the chief, sneaks back out, and the superstitious Indians decide to leave. There is still the matter of the larger rebel-deserter force, but Taylor tells them they will have amnesty if they retire to the fort with their prostitutes. That leaves the rebel leader alone to fight Taylor -- man to man. They fight with swords and spears, but Taylor ends things by drawing his revolver to shoot the rebel leader dead! Really. Then Taylor dies from his wounds.

I'm familiar with only 2 English language films that deal with the cultural conflicts of the late 19th century pampas regions of Argentina, which were at least as horrific as those on the US plains during the same period. I recently reviewed "Way of the Gaucho", released in '52, and filmed entirely in various regions of Argentina, including the Andes, in Technicolor. The present film was released later and filmed mainly in Spain, in terrain that somewhat resembles the drier pampas, and is about 25 min longer, nearing 2 hours. Both films I caught on Encore Westerns, although they also have DVD releases. Both films deal with the conflicts between the Argentine army and Native Americans, as well as rebellious gauchos, who resisted the ongoing transformation of the Argentine open range into private ownership livestock ranches and grain farms. In both films, army deserters, assigned to the army in lieu of a prison sentence, are an integral part of the story. However, the former film follows the history of one particular deserter and his unlikely relationship with a high class city woman. The present film suggests that army deserters were 'a dime a dozen' without female companionship, and that the Argentine army was mostly composed of former gaucho 'jail sweepings', which I doubt was true. It features a troop of good looking, mostly voluptuous, prostitutes, who are being transported to a frontier fort as 'comfort women', in lieu of jail. In addition, there is another group of plain-looking European women(apparently abducted) brought by a gaucho rebel(Padron) for trade to the Native Americans(NAs) or army deserters. Both the NAs and gaucho rebels want to steal the prostitutes. The NAs attack the patrol, but are beaten off. Later, a huge combined force of NAs and gaucho rebels attack the patrol while they are recuperating in a small village. Thus, NAs play a much bigger role in this film than in "Way of the Gaucho". In both films, they carry long lances and bola slings as their primary weapons, with only the rare bow and arrow.(Historically, they also had some rifles).

The cavalry uniforms, with red caps and blue uniforms, look rather similar to those in "Way of the Gaucho", with differences in details. It's remarkable that, although this is supposed to take place in the famous cattle-rich pampas, I remember seeing only one cow in the film!. Actually, the sparsely vegetated terrain doesn't look like it could support many more. It's hardly the 'sea of grass' we imagine the pampas to be. Thus, presumably, we are in the drier interior of Argentina,to where the NAs retreated, as immigrants gradually took over their more desirable lands.

Along with the issue of trying to keep the soldiers from deserting to their supposed enemy: the rebel gauchos, the plot involves a somewhat mysterious personal vendetta between Captain Martin(Robert Taylor) and the leader of the rebels (Ron Randell,as Padron). As the padre of the village briefly explains, Martin loved Padron's wife, who hated the pampas as well as Padron, deserting him, and eventually dying of some fever. We should have been given more info on this matter. Also, Padron roped Martin from his horse and dragged him around, just after Martin had killed Padron's brother. Martin was saved by a pursuing soldier, who shot Padron's horse. Later, Padron escaped from the fort, after being staked spread-eagled in the sun. There's plenty of action, dispersed through the film, including several fights between individuals, as well as the mass actions. The climactic tussle between Martin and Padron we expected seems to settle things, after the rest of the deserter-rebels agree to an offered pardon, if they agree to end the siege of the soldiers plus women in the village church. See my review title for the essential result(not telling the specifics).

During the stay in the small village, the soldiers and women have an amorous party, the not choosy women having agreed to marry the soldier who picked them out. One of the soldiers does quite a fancy dance on the dining table and floor: perhaps an authentic gaucho dance? Even gruff Martin breaks down, and agrees to their marriages.

Ty Hardin plays a Lincoln-looking dandy: an anarchist political prisoner, who gradually becomes sort of Martin's alter ego, until he is killed by Padron. Anarchists and socialists were included in the mass immigration from mostly Spain and Italy during the late 19th century.

Mexican and American actress Rosenda Monteros plays a Mayan-looking mysterious silent NA maiden(Rucu), who Martin takes an immediate sexual interest in and buys. She rescues a staked spread-eagled Martin, courtesy of Padron, from certain death. She is also the last person seen in the film, when she slaps her horse on the rump, followed by the horse racing across the wilderness: symbolic of the, as yet, untamed portion of the pampas, and perhaps her own new freedom, perhaps even a magical ritual to insure pregnancy?

I don't understand the previous complaints about English dubbing. I had no problem. Chain-smoking Taylor looked prematurely old, especially in the early part, and would die a few years later of lung cancer.