Behold A Pale Horse 1964 Torrent

Behold a Pale Horse features sparse and staccato Spanish guitar, fitting for both the location and the nervous and somewhat melancholic story. This is far from being a war movie, but it is a picture of great solemnity, atmosphere and touching humanity.

There is an unforgettable moment in Behold A Pale Horse when Fred Zinnemann brings two of Hollywood’s greatest action stars together at last, in an unforgettable sequence of unrelenting tension. We see Omar Sharif, dressed in a black priest’s robe, walking peacefully down a road in the French countryside when a car suddenly pulls up beside him, and Gregory Peck steps out. Angry and impatient, he grabs Sharif by the arm. “Get in, priest!” he growls. “Beg your pardon?” Sharif asks, confused. “I said GET IN, PRIEST!” Peck roars. He shoves Sharif into the car with two other people, interrogates him, mocks him and—at one unexpected moment—smacks him hard across the face.

Up until now, we haven\'t been too involved in the movie. But now Peck and Sharif have finally been brought together, and suddenly we\'re drawn in. A $3.9 million movie headed by a strong director with an impeccable cast, Behold A Pale Horse was a notorious box office flop in the summer of 1964, grossing a mere $900,000 and embarrassing Columbia Pictures’ reputation in international cinemas overseas. The movie, a political thriller about the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, was made at a time when Franco was still in power in Spain; the Spanish government was reportedly so offended by the film’s subject matter that Columbia was even forced to sell its Spanish distribution business.

Advertised as a reunion between Peck and Anthony Quinn after The Guns of Navarone (1961), and also as a reunion between Quinn and Sharif after Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Behold A Pale Horse promised audiences an action-packed Hollywood vehicle and gave them, instead, a moody, meditative morality play. If Behold A Pale Horse has been all but forgotten today, it’s easy to see why.

Shortly before his death in 1997, Fred Zinnemann, “The film didn’t really come together it was interesting, but it did not really feel right except in a few spots.” Zinnemann may have been ruminating over the film’s disappointing finale, in which Peck—portraying an aging Spanish assassin—walks out to San Martin for a final showdown with Anthony Quinn, who plays a military police captain. We expect Peck to kill Quinn at the end.

Instead, Peck wastes his ammo on a former friend—a “traitor”—and dies in a hail of bullets, while Quinn walks off scot-free. The movie\'s ending was not a happy one, but that\'s not the only reason why audiences didn\'t take a liking to it. The ending was bad for a variety of reasons. It offered no catharsis. It failed to deliver on the promise of the film\'s earlier, greater sequences. Most importantly, the dying actions of the protagonist were not in the least sympathetic.

The Day of Jackal (1973), arguably Zinnemann\'s richest masterpiece, is another film that ends with the hero getting killed immediately after failing his mission, but at least in that film the hero has an excuse: he simply misses his target. The same cannot be said for Behold A Pale Horse, in which the hero fails not because of bad aiming, but because of his own stupidity; it doesn\'t make for very exciting cinema, nor does it do much in the way of inspiring intelligent critical perspectives. The film’s central question (why doesn’t Peck shoot Quinn at the end?) is not a very compelling one. Watching Behold A Pale Horse today, I’ve found that the most compelling aspect of the film is the onscreen relationship between Peck and Sharif, both of whom are, in a sense, playing quintessential Zinnemann-type heroes in the film. Peck’s character, the Spanish bandit Manuel Artiguez, is a lone gunman plagued with feelings of self-doubt, much like Robert Ryan’s Joe Parkson in and Gary Cooper’s Will Kane in.

Behold a Pale Horse features sparse and staccato Spanish guitar, fitting for both the location and the nervous and somewhat melancholic story. This is far from being a war movie, but it is a picture of great solemnity, atmosphere and touching humanity.

There is an unforgettable moment in Behold A Pale Horse when Fred Zinnemann brings two of Hollywood’s greatest action stars together at last, in an unforgettable sequence of unrelenting tension. We see Omar Sharif, dressed in a black priest’s robe, walking peacefully down a road in the French countryside when a car suddenly pulls up beside him, and Gregory Peck steps out. Angry and impatient, he grabs Sharif by the arm. “Get in, priest!” he growls. “Beg your pardon?” Sharif asks, confused. “I said GET IN, PRIEST!” Peck roars. He shoves Sharif into the car with two other people, interrogates him, mocks him and—at one unexpected moment—smacks him hard across the face.

Up until now, we haven\'t been too involved in the movie. But now Peck and Sharif have finally been brought together, and suddenly we\'re drawn in. A $3.9 million movie headed by a strong director with an impeccable cast, Behold A Pale Horse was a notorious box office flop in the summer of 1964, grossing a mere $900,000 and embarrassing Columbia Pictures’ reputation in international cinemas overseas. The movie, a political thriller about the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, was made at a time when Franco was still in power in Spain; the Spanish government was reportedly so offended by the film’s subject matter that Columbia was even forced to sell its Spanish distribution business.

Advertised as a reunion between Peck and Anthony Quinn after The Guns of Navarone (1961), and also as a reunion between Quinn and Sharif after Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Behold A Pale Horse promised audiences an action-packed Hollywood vehicle and gave them, instead, a moody, meditative morality play. If Behold A Pale Horse has been all but forgotten today, it’s easy to see why.

Shortly before his death in 1997, Fred Zinnemann, “The film didn’t really come together it was interesting, but it did not really feel right except in a few spots.” Zinnemann may have been ruminating over the film’s disappointing finale, in which Peck—portraying an aging Spanish assassin—walks out to San Martin for a final showdown with Anthony Quinn, who plays a military police captain. We expect Peck to kill Quinn at the end.

Instead, Peck wastes his ammo on a former friend—a “traitor”—and dies in a hail of bullets, while Quinn walks off scot-free. The movie\'s ending was not a happy one, but that\'s not the only reason why audiences didn\'t take a liking to it. The ending was bad for a variety of reasons. It offered no catharsis. It failed to deliver on the promise of the film\'s earlier, greater sequences. Most importantly, the dying actions of the protagonist were not in the least sympathetic.

The Day of Jackal (1973), arguably Zinnemann\'s richest masterpiece, is another film that ends with the hero getting killed immediately after failing his mission, but at least in that film the hero has an excuse: he simply misses his target. The same cannot be said for Behold A Pale Horse, in which the hero fails not because of bad aiming, but because of his own stupidity; it doesn\'t make for very exciting cinema, nor does it do much in the way of inspiring intelligent critical perspectives. The film’s central question (why doesn’t Peck shoot Quinn at the end?) is not a very compelling one. Watching Behold A Pale Horse today, I’ve found that the most compelling aspect of the film is the onscreen relationship between Peck and Sharif, both of whom are, in a sense, playing quintessential Zinnemann-type heroes in the film. Peck’s character, the Spanish bandit Manuel Artiguez, is a lone gunman plagued with feelings of self-doubt, much like Robert Ryan’s Joe Parkson in and Gary Cooper’s Will Kane in.