Year: 1969
Director: Charles Warren
Country: US
Language: English
Charro! is Elvis Aaron Presley's 29th picture! Despite having had a Hollywood career that spanned over a decade by now, this film had several "firsts" for The King. It was his first and only movie produced by National General Pictures, which became the sixth Hollywood studio to turn out at least one Elvis movie. It was the first to open in the Southern United States, before the rest. It was also the first in which Elvis sported facial hair.
Jess Wade (Elvis Presley) is falsely accused of having stolen a cannon from the Mexican revolutionary forces. He tries to find the real culprits, a gang of criminals.
Elvis himself had been very keen on making this picture, realizing that it would get him out of the rut that was the formulaic cheap musical numbers he had been churning out. This was his opportunity to be seen as a serious actor but he was hugely disappointed when he showed up on the first day of filming to find that the script had been completely rewritten. It was less a Shane-level Western and more of a tedious chore due to a slow and sluggish script that would have driven any actor up the wall.
Presley’s impassive portrayal of gunslinger Jess Wade was the actor’s own interpretation or the director’s. Elvis shows little emotion in the role, when he does it's just a long menacing stare that would have taken little to no acting ability. When the script does allow Elvis to speak, his dialogue is riddled with such hackneyed lines that even Tommy Wiseau would have blushed.
Elvis does not sing in the film, other than the title song, however Hugo Montenegro’s score gives a “spaghetti western” feel to the movie. The score adds great tension to the flick, even when there is no tension to be had. Overall it's a very flawed picture that has little to keep it from being one of the worst Elvis films.
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