The Reward (1965) ***

Max von Sydow’s Hollywood career might have gone in a different direction had this brooding modern western remake of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) taken off. Instead of a screen persona as a heavily-accented somewhat awkward foreigner, he would have been viewed as a lean adventurer in the laconic Steve McQueen mold.

There’s no actual gold here, American airline pilot Scott Swenson (Max von Sydow) and his impromptu gang chasing into the Mexican desert human prey worth $50,000. Frank Bryant (Efrem Zimbalist Jr) is wanted for kidnapping and killing his own child. His virtually monosyllabic girlfriend Sylvia (Yvette Mimieux) is viewed as a bonus, clearly rape in the mind of some of his pursuers.

In normal circumstances, Swenson would spend his time dusting crops but he is being held for inadvertently destroying a water tower that will cost $20,000 to repair. But when he spots old buddy Bryant drive into town, he turns bounty hunter, cutting local English-speaking sheriff Capt Carbajal (Gilbert Roland), an exile in this remote town, in on the deal to repay the debt. The rest of the posse, led by his guitar-playing deputy Sgt Lopez (Emilio Fernandez) are initially misled as regards reward. So,when they do find out, greed will out.

When the escapees run out of road, they take to horses, but are located pretty quickly by the posse, also on horseback. Finding them was easy compared to getting them back. In fact, the posse seems to return via a different route that takes them through an abandoned town complete with church bell that Lopez makes ring through the simple device of battering it with his head.

It’s that kind of movie, filled with odd scenes that reflect character. In one episode, at the start of the chase and in a truck, a flat tyre is caused by one dumb occupant chucking his beer bottle in front, rather than to the side, of the vehicle. Flute-playing Joaquin (Henry Silva) tames a wild horse which, when he’s not around, has a bit of a rebellious streak, apt to lead the other mounts astray.

But it’s realistic, too. There’s not enough food to go round and even that seems limited to tortilla. There’s no reason to tie up the prisoners because there’s no escape in the desert hell. But although Swenson has betrayed an old friend in order to get himself out of a hole, there’s none of the guilty dialog you might expect and Sylvia turns out to be more cynical, not intent on building romance out of a brief fling in Acapulco, and only too aware of what captivity might mean. As is pointed out, the reward will be paid out for a decapitated head as much as a complete living person.

Rather than being devastated at killing his son, Bryant wants sympathy. It was an accident. Blame the police for starting a shoot-out that ended with the child dying in the crossfire. Blame his wife for taking the child away in the first place.

Nobody comes out of this well, except Sylvia whose good deed might result in rape, but whose motives you would also question, given she is harboring a child killer, an action not excused as would be the norm by being rapturously in love with him. She is resigned to her fate rather than flirting  with the gang as a way of avoiding it.

So it’s tension all the way, Lopez working on the principle that the fewer claimants of the reward the better. But it’s not just lack of water that’s the most dangerous element in this perilous landscape, but lack of horses. Water isn’t in dramatically short supply anyway not when you can count on the occasional thunderstorm, which, unfortunately, makes Sylvia a more attractive reward when she is soaked to the skin.

The body count, as you might expect, mounts as Lopez takes control, his boss, coming down with a fever, growing weaker by the day.

But it’s not as noir as you might imagine. Mostly, it’s just characters trudging through the desert, enlivened by some flute- and guitar-playing, heading into a doom of their own making. There’s very little in the way of heated dialog and there’s a very bold decision to dispense with subtitles – only the sheriff and Swenson are bilingual, helping them devise a  conspiracy to keep the reward to themselves  – but it’s easy enough to work out what’s going on with the Spanish-speaking Mexicans and it does explain why Sylvia says so little.

If you managed to get hold of The Picasso Summer (1969) – reviewed earlier in the Blog – this is for you since it has the same director Serge Bourguignon whose style is elliptical to say the least. But cutting down on expository consequence is spot-on. We don’t need characters bewailing their fate to know the potential outcome. Circumstance makes menace implicit rather than explicit.

The actors are good enough not to be laden down with overwrought dialog. This is certainly presents a refreshing aspect of Max von Sydow (The Quiller Memorandum, 1966). Yvette Mimieux (The Picasso Summer) is mostly a bewildered fragile beauty. Emilio Fernandez (The Wild Bunch, 1969) would be at his scene-stealing best except he has to contend with Henry Silva (Secret Invasion, 1964) in one of his few heroic parts. Veteran Gilbert Roland (Cheyenne Autumn, 1964), who made his name as The Cisco Kid, is the surprise turn, authority sapped as illness takes hold.

If you want a peek at a curiosity, it might as well be this one.