Too much of everything

The acting in this movie is really good.

Blistering performances.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Although "The Jackals" is set in South Africa during the gold rush era, what will really strike viewers is how American most of it feels. The locations resemble American deserts, and the story and characters feel right out of an American cowboy movie. Only the occasional view of wildlife and native people break the illusion this is an American western. Anyway, I though the movie was a disappointment. It's cheap- looking at times, very slow, and directed in a style that severely lacks passion of some kind during key moments (like action sequences). Vincent Price gives a hammy performance, though his scenes all the same give some life to the movie. There is also a bizarre musical score that sounds WAY out of place for this type of movie. I would only recommend the movie for viewers who are really curious about what a western made by South Africans would look like, and even they might be squirming in their seats at times.

My main reason for seeing The Jackals was Vincent Price. And while he has given better performances before, he still gives amusement and sometimes creepiness to the role of the grizzled grandfather figure. Other redeeming qualities are the final gunfight, the most exciting and original of the fight scenes in the film, Diana Ivarson's beauty and the striking photography and scenery. There are however major debits with The Jackals, which I think outweigh the good things. The rest of the cast(particularly from tall and ruggedly handsome Robert Gunnar), and actually Ivarson is the same, are very stiff and do nothing with their cardboard characters, who are to me little more than Western cliché bookends. The violence is more at home in a network television programme from the mid-1960s, while the story is overall dull and bland as well as playing it far too safe. The dialogue, of which is very faithful to Yellow Sky, word-for-word often actually, because of the blandness of the pacing and story seemed very wordy and stilted here. While the score is really out-of-place, it is difficult to take seriously a jazzy xylophone-like score that adds nothing to the mood in a Western. Overall, has some bright spots like Price and the scenery but because of the story, the rest of the acting and the music especially The Jackals did little for me. 4/10 Bethany Cox

In rugged South Africa, scavengers arrive from a US-styled western. The group's laconic leader is tall Robert Gunner (as Roger "Stretch" Hawkins). Mr. Gunner has a great name for westerns. He and his men find local blonde Diana Ivarson (as Wilhemina "Willie" Decker) attractive. She has a natural sway in her hips. Gunner kisses Ms. Ivarson roughly and you know they are falling in love. Her grandfather is prospector Vincent Price (as Oupa Decker). He is amusing. This is an anachronistic and unnecessary re-make of "Yellow Sky" (1948), which was an adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" (1623).*** The Jackals (11/67) Robert D. Webb ~ Robert Gunner, Diana Ivarson, Vincent Price, Patrick Mynhardt

In what is probably the only entry in the category of 'voortrekker' westerns, Vincent Price plays a gold miner whose haul is the target of five bank robbers. Love interest is provided by the oddly effective Diana Ivarson (who apparently never made another film) as Price's granddaughter. It's all enjoyable if somewhat disconcerting due to the British and Afrikaaner accents of the leading players who are also decked out in typical 'western' garb. A fun diversion.