Where can one buy this movie? I have long loved my Italian Westerns, and not long after that I discovered how much I loved British Horror (especially Hammer) and Michael Carreras directed some of my favorites. As long as it has either audio or subtitles in English, I can know what is going on . . . I’m able to play discs from any region. If you know of a place, please let me know! Thank you!
Tierra brutal has been updated to the new layout (3.0). Let us know if you can add anything: pictures, posters, trivia, facts, figures, links, etc… We need a better Spanish poster…
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Trivia facts:
- In December 1959, Hammer Films announced a western The San Siado Killings from a script by Peter Newman who had written a war film, Yesterday’s Enemy (1959) for the company. Stanley Baker, who had starred in Yesterday’s Enemy was down to play ‘a retired gunfighter forced to bare arms one last time’. This movie was never made and it is unclear whether Newman’s script, or treatment, formed the genesis of The Savage Guns. Newman is not credited on the print nor mentioned in any of the pre-publicity. The most likely reason the movie was not made is that Columbia Pictures, Hammer’s main financial backer at that time, refused to fund it. There is a whole host of unfilmed Hammer movies that Columbia declined to finance.
- Capricorn Films was formed by Michael Carreras in 1960 as he was trying to break from Hammer. At the time Carreras was known mainly as a producer, not a director and The Savage Guns was third attempt at directing. Carreras has recently made a mess of The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll for Hammer and was keen to get out of horror films which he didn’t really like and IMHO, wasn’t very good at.
- The film is credited as a Spanish/USA co-production because Capricorn USA is stated as the production company. Not mentioned as a British film on the credits and you will find it on the AFI website listed as an American film although it was set up by Brits and director/producer were Brits.
- Carreras got money from MGM to finance the movie.. The credited writer, Edmund Morris, is not an ‘alias’, as stated in Sherpschutter’s review, but was a real person. Morris was an American writer who wrote mostly on TV. He had written 19 episodes of the Lawman TV series and other western TV episodes. Morris had no previous connection with Carreras so I am speculating here but guessing Morris was hired by MGM and wrote the script in Hollywood (or fleshed out Newman’s script, although there is no evidence the film originated from Newman’s script ). Jimmy Sangster, Carreras’s mate at Hammer was hired to be line producer as Carreras was directing and also to re-write Morris’s script when necessary because Morris never went to Spain so the script would need re-writing for the actors and the locations. Sangster confirms in his autobiography that he re-wrote someone else’s script. Sangster is uncredited, I assume, because MGM had commissioned Morris’s script. Obviously, Shane is an influence in the script.
- According to Variety it started filming on 26 October 1961. It was originally announced as The Brutal Land and Kerwin Matthews was announced as the star. Matthews, who made two movies for Hammer in 1961/1962 seems to have been replaced close to production (author Wayne Kinsey thinks Matthews was due to play the Don Taylor role but Matthews was too young for that surely and must have been down for the Basehart role). Matthews was probably replaced because he was under contract to Columbia and this was an MGM film.
- Richard Basehart had been in Visa to Canton for Hammer in 1960, directed by Carreras. Don Taylor had starred as Robin Hood in Men of Sherwood Forest in 1954, produced by Carreras. Alex Nicol had been in a Hammer film called Face the Music (1954), produced by Carreras. Nicol had also shot Jimmy Stewart through the hand sadistically in The Man From Laramie which may have influenced his casting. So, Carreras knew all 3 of these guys. All of them are over 40 though which I don’t think helps the movie. Basehart looks especially miscast and uncomfortable. Matthews, over 10 years younger, would have been a better fit.
- The title was stated to be The Savage Guns when filming finished. The Spanish production title translates as ‘The Brutal Land’..
(NB: amended 29/9 to change Fox to MGM and comment on writing credits)