Charro!

Charro! (1969)

On his neck he wore the brand of a killer. On his hip he wore vengeance.

Vince Hackett's gang steals a prized victory canon from Mexico and blames the deed on ex-member Jess Wade, who wants to go straight.

Date of release
1969-03-13
TMDB
5.4 / 10 (55)
Runtime
1h 38m
Genres
Action, Drama, Western
Director
Charles Marquis Warren

Casting

Interesting facts

Charro! is a 1969 American Western film starring Elvis Presley, shot on location at Apacheland Movie Ranch and Old Tucson Studios in Arizona. This was Presley's only film in which he did not sing on-screen; the film featured no songs at all other than the main title theme, which was played over the opening credits. It was also the only movie in which Presley wore a beard. The film was novelized by Harry Whittington.

Background

The role of Jess Wade was originally offered to Clint Eastwood, who turned it down. The budget for the movie was estimated at $2.5 million and Elvis was paid his now standard $850,000 plus 50% of the profits.

Committed to the role of a rough gunfighter in the film, Elvis grew a beard for the only time in a movie. His Memphis Mafia cohorts showed their support for Elvis by also growing beards at this time. Elvis also did his own horse riding in the film, which was helped by the experience he had with horses on his own ranch, the Circle G.

Elvis had long been a gun owner and collector of firearms, and he used to practice his quick draw with Clint Eastwood. Elvis made sure that he could show off his skills with firearms in this film.

Working titles for the film included Jack Valentine, Johnny Hung, and Come Hell or Come Sundown. Presley signed up to the project with high hopes after reading the serious, song-free script, but was left disappointed when he arrived for his first day of shooting on July 22, 1968, to find that the script he had originally signed up for had been changed beyond recognition, although Elvis ensured the main characters name of Jesus Wade was changed to…

The original opening scene, which was to feature female nudity, was dropped and focused instead on the film's opening gunfight. Frederick Louis Fox's original story for Charro! contains many violent scenes that were dropped from the film altogether, such as a closeup and longer edit of the branding scene. Harry Whittington based his novelization of Charro! on Fox's story, and included the scenes that Warren deemed too violent for the film.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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