Good concept, poorly executed.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Quincy Jones' opening score and the theme song Old Turkey Buzzard are so emotionally powerful (especially combined with the magnificent photography) that sometimes I will just play the beginning of the film for my enjoyment. This grand, sprawling western is an entertaining picture with mega cast names that results in an enjoyable adventure. Don't  look on it as a typical western. It just happens to be set in a western setting. This movie is centered around GREED. Its directed by J. Lee Thompson (The guns of navarone, cape fear). The direction is generally good, there is some striking photography of the desert landscapes, and sequences such as the fight scene between Mackenna and Colorado and the final earthquake are well handled. We also have quality thespians like Omar Sharif (Hidalgo, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago). Eli Wallach ( The good, the bad n the ugly). Edward G. Robinson ( The Cincinnati Kid, The Ten Commandments). Raymond Massey ( How the West Was Won). Telly Savalas (dirty dozen, cape fear, on her majestys secret service). Burgess Meredith (Rocky, clash of the titans). Lee J. Cobb ( The Exorcist, Our Man Flint, 12 angry men, On the waterfront). Keenan Wynn (The Mechanic, Point Blank, The Night of the Grizzly), Anthony Quayle (Lawrence of Arabia, The guns of navarone) n Ted Cassidy ( The Addams Family, Poor Pretty Eddie). Screenplay by Carl Foreman ( The Bridge over the River Kwai, High Noon, Guns of navarone). Cinematography by Joseph MacDonald ( The Sand Pebbles, Taras Bulba). Edited by Bill Lenny.

A favorite of mine since a kid. Read the Will Henry book many times (the book is of course better). Very enjoyable western however. Stellar visuals, music that is memorable, excellent cast. Omar Sharif does great as 'Colorado' the bandit leader but if anyone reads the book, Colorado is described much as Telly Savales looks but it's Hollywood, having said that Sharif does a great job IMO.A lot of people knock the effects, I can over look it, its' a great old school western that really tries to be a spectacle & mostly it succeeds; one can forgive the occasional visual short comings when U consider the intent & desire of all involved was to make it as good as possible.Lottsa great actors here! Crazy cameos & they almost all are wasted in terms of screen time or contribution to the plot. The central actors are very good. I am not a huge Peck fan but he's good. Julie Newmar is fantastic needless to say.All in all one of my favorites since it was such an early influence on me, I owe to this movie & of course WIll Henry's source novel which I highly recommend as well.

Though Mackenna's Gold came out in 1969, I saw it for the first time recently and wish I hadn't. When it hit the silver screen, it was notable for Julie Newmar's topless scene, and that scene may be the only one in the movie worth watching. If Mackenna's Gold appears on TV with that scene deleted, it's a total waste of time. The producers shove impossibilities in the viewer's face that are simply too insulting to ignore. Apache Indians who are 6'9" tall and have big muscles? A magic shadow that ignores the basic laws of physics? A huge vein of pure gold that runs through a sandstone cliff? Add to that bad special effects, a waste of beautiful scenery and the complete waste of the performances of some truly great character actors and you have a movie that is both frustrating and obnoxious.

I first saw MACKENNA'S GOLD on TV when I was a kid and loved it; to me it was the perfect mix of the western and adventure genres. And I have always been a sucker for a treasure hunt story. It didn't matter that the film was considered to be a big overblown failure; a ridiculous attempt at a western epic, the kind of film that was going out of favor with moviegoers when it was released in 1969.I will gladly concede to the critics that everything they say is wrong with MACKENNA'S GOLD is valid: the script meanders; most of the acting is over the top; interesting characters wander into the action and then are promptly disposed of for no good reason; the whole thing runs too long.None of that matters, because MACKENNA'S GOLD is just plain fun; even after all these years. It was made by the same duo that gave us THE GUNS OF NAVARONE: producer Carl Foreman and director J. Lee Thompson, and if they did not recapture the greatness of that earlier classic, it was not for want of trying.Like NAVARONE, MACKENNA'S GOLD is a about a mission, but this time the mission is to find a mythical valley of gold hidden away in the badlands of the Southwest and guarded by fearsome Apaches. The plot concerns a motley group of various and sundry individuals who brave the dangers and each other to find a fortune. Gregory Peck (who was in NAVARONE) is Marshall Sam MacKenna, the only man who knows where to find the valley; he's being forced by the outlaw Colorado, played by Omar Sharif, to lead him and his gang there. Along the way, they pick up and discard a collection of greedy fools all driven to forsake their homes by the lure of gold.This group includes Telly Savalas as a treacherous Army Sergeant; Eli Wallach as a store keeper; Raymond Massey as a preacher; Lee J. Cobb as a newspaper editor; Edward G. Robinson as a blind old man who saw the gold when he was young; Anthony Quayle (another veteran of NAVARONE) as a traveling English gentleman; Keenan Wynn as a bandit. Add to them, Julie Newmar and Ted Cassidy as Apaches and Camilla Sparv as a hostage taken captive by Colorado. Everyone, except for Peck and Sparv (who naturally fall in love along the way) are driven by the dream of getting rich instantly, and before it's over, even those two will succumb to the itch for gold.Besides the cast, what makes MACKENNA'S GOLD so memorable? The great location scenes, some of them shot in the legendary Monument Valley. The sequence at the deep water desert spring, where villains Newmar and Sharif go skinny dipping while Peck, ever the hero, dives in with his clothes on. The laughable miscasting of Arabs and Italians as Mexicans and American Indians (The great Eduardo Ciannelli as Prairie Dog); the equally great Victor Jory's narration. Ted Cassidy and his awesome voice. Telly Savalas in one of his best bad guys roles after THE DIRTY DOZEN. Jose Feliciano's rendition of the unforgettable theme song, Old Turkey Buzzard (with music by Quincy Jones). Did I mention Julie Newmar swims in the nude? And then tries to drown Sparv because she has a thing for Peck? The way Peck plays Mackenna like it's still 1958 and he's in THE BIG COUNTRY and working for William Wyler, while the rest of the cast hams it up. Even little things like the sound effects of rifle fire echoing off the canyon walls stick in the mind.If the ambition of MACKENNA'S GOLD was to be a serious commentary on human greed, then it fell short. But in its own way, it went somewhere better: into the hearts of legions of fans who don't care that it's not THE WILD BUNCH, TRUE GRIT or ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, three classics westerns that came out the same year that MACKENNA'S GOLD was released. And if Quentin Tarantino is looking for a follow up to DJANGO UNCHAINED, I'd suggest he dust off the screenplay for MAKENNA'S GOLD. It has a lot of possibilities.