Chato's Land - 1972
What Chato's land doesn't kill, Chato will
Director
Michael Winner
Writer
Gerald Wilson
Producer
Michael Winner
Cast
Charles Bronson - Pardon Chato
Jack Palance - Capt. Quincey Whitmore
Richard Basehart - Nye Buell
James Whitmore - Joshua Everette
Simon Oakland - Jubal Hooker
Ralph Waite - Elias Hooker
Richard Jordan - Earl Hooker
Victor French - Martin Hall
Sonia Rangan - Chato's woman
William Watson - Harvey Lansing
Roddy McMillan - Gavin Malechie
Paul Young - Brady Logan
Raúl Castro - Mexican scout
Lee Patterson - George Dunn
Roland Brand -
Review by Theo Robertson
Chato's Land (1972)
Fairly Good For A Winner Film,
CHATO`S LAND was shown alongside DEATH WISH on BBC1 tonight as a tribute to the late Charles Bronson . To be honest this isn`t much of a tribute down to the simple fact that Bronson has very little dialogue and only a few scenes in a film that concentrates more on the posse than their pray . A far better tribute would have been that Bronson movie that contains the classic line " Put down those melons "
On its own merits CHATO`S LAND is a fairly entertaining and intelligent film featuring a ( White ) posse on the trail of an ( Apache ) fugitive . It`s one of those Vietnam allegories as seen in TOO LATE THE HERO , ULZANA`S RAID and THE CRAZIES . Don`t believe me ? , well check out the scenes with the Mexican being the surrogate South Vietnamese and Ezra Meade a metaphor for the anti war movement and just to hit the audience over the head with the point there`s a sequence of a village being burned to the ground
Michael Winner is hardly the greatest film maker who`s ever lived ( Check out the very obvious day for night filming ) but he does deserve some credit for casting someone who actually looks like an Indian in the title role and it`s not often you see a couple of Scottish characters in a western who give a very , very accurate description of rain soaked Greenock
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