Mackenna's Gold - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Mackenna's Gold or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Mackenna's Gold

[jamie]

Gregory Peck was unhappy with this movie, saying that "Mackenna's Gold was a terrible western. Just wretched."

[michele]

When the raft/ferry carrying the treasure seekers across the river is cut free, it's swept down stream and everyone jumps off and swims ashore. There's an aerial shot of the raft supposedly breaking up in the rapids then a shot looking up at a waterfall as the wreckage comes over the top. The waterfall is actually High Force in Teesdale, Co Durham, England.

[chris]

This is one of two movies in which Telly Savalas is part of a group that finds a large amount of gold, the other being Kelly's Heroes (1970).

[caroline]

Filming for this movie prevented Julie Newmar from appearing as Catwoman in the third season of Batman (1966).

[kristina]

One of George Lucas' projects while a student in film school was documenting the making of this movie. While he was on-set, he made suggestions (which were used) on how to rehearse and shoot some scenes.

[bryan]

Acording to a 1996 biography, Clint Eastwood was first offered the lead role, but turned it down to make Hang 'Em High (1968) instead.

[amber]

This film reunites J.Lee Thomson with Gregory Peck and Sir Anthony Quayle, who had all previously worked together on The Guns Of Navarone..

[ella]

Although not well received by critics and audiences, this movie was released internationally to some success.The movie was popular in the Soviet Union. It was first shown at the VIII Moscow International Film Festival in 1973, followed by a cinematic premiere in 1974. It was viewed by sixty-three million people, and now stands fourth in the all-time rating of a foreign film distribution in the Soviet Union. The title song "Old Turkey Buzzard" was dubbed with Russian lyrics by Leonid Derbenyov, a Russian poet and lyricist widely regarded as one of the stalwarts of twentieth century Soviet and Russian pop music. It was performed by then-popular Soviet singer Valery Obodzinsky.

[aaron]

During the swimming scene at the pool, Hesh-Ke (Julie Newmar) was supposed to be topless with a loincloth. In an interview, Miss Newmar stated that at the last minute she decided to do the scene nude and no-one, especially the actors and crew, argued with her about the decision.

[steve]

In 1966, Carl Foreman was looking for Richard Burton to play the lead but he found the script to be " standard". In his diary he remarked " Christ , what a load of rubbish we read". He read parts of 2 other scripts on the same day!

[manuel]

Although the novel title and hero shared the same spelling of the name "Mackenna", and the title, according to the studio, is "Mackenna's Gold", Gregory Peck's character is listed in publicity materials as "MacKenna".

[lonnie]

Steve McQueen was considered for the lead role.

[charlie]

Three actors who played villains in the 1966-1968 Batman TV series appeared in this movie: Julie Newmar (Catwoman), Burgess Meredith (Penguin), and Eli Wallace (Mr. Freeze).

[kylie]

Burgess Meredith only has four lines.

[jessica]

Senator Robert F. Kennedy visited the set as a guest of star Gregory Peck, one of his staunchest supporters.

[melinda]

This movie was originally planned to be shown in single lens Cinerama with reserved seat roadshow engagements, but Columbia executives changed their minds and pulled the plug on that idea. This movie was drastically cut down from nearly three hours plus an intermission, to just over two hours. Although most of the movie was photographed on 65mm stock, to save a buck, a handful of scenes were filmed in 35mm anamorphic and then optically blown-up with disastrous results. The blown-up scenes are exceedingly grainy and have bad color.

[chad]

Gregory Peck initially turned down this movie, but Director J. Lee Thompson talked him into it.

[darrell]

The pool and waterfall where part of the action takes place was man-made and the water had to be hauled in by tanker truck.

[elmer]

This was Raymond Massey's final movie before his death on July 29, 1983 at the age of eighty-six.