The Appaloosa

The Appaloosa which portrays the title character was actually a registered Appaloosa stallion named Cojo Rojo.

He was born in 1960 and just prior to being used for the film he was racing on the California tracks.

He sired several foals, including several race champions.

During filming a few other similarly marked horses were used as stunt horses, but the majority of work was done by Cojo Rojo.

In the final scene with Chuy, Brando weaves his leather poncho belt with his hat band, to lasso his rifle.

When the shooting is finished and he stands up, the belt is back on his poncho, although there was no time to unweave the lasso and retie the belt.

The Nineteen-sixties was a time of great change in the movies. For the first time, the Anti-Hero was coming into his own.

I have many western movies from Marlon Brando, Viva Zapata is my favorite, Appaloosa has a special meaning for me, a compelling story about an American orphan child raise by a Mexican family at border, Matt the little gringo became Matteo, he grew up from a hard labor of his stepfather on a scarce corn crop, then he went away in search for gold, many years he finally goes back, two hundred dollars on the pocket and a rare Appaloosa stallion, he plains with his Mexican brother with a large family build a ranch, therefore his horse drawing attention of a powerful Mexican farmer Chuy Medina (John Saxon) who he knew previously and already had refused 500 bucks for the horse, then Chuy stolen the horse, against all family's advices he goes toward to Cocatlan to get his stallion back, he passing through for some Mexican villages until to meet the lonely old farmer Ramos (Frank Silvera) living in a small house with goats, when he reach at Cocatlan he is easily caught by Chuy's hoodlums, then came up the famous highlight scene arm wrestling with scorpions, even lost he bleed his arm with a broken bottle, left to die on an empty church he was taken by Trini (Anjanette Comer), afterwards a remarkable sequence at windy Ramos's farmer where Matt and Trini were hidden in a empty grave, superior western spurned criminally to ostracism even having strong elements bespoke on purpose as the hate among two neighbors, the Mexicans and the Americans that Brando dared to expose, also he display those stereotyped scary outlaws covered by large sombreros showing their dirty teeth and scars sounds great, highly underrated!!!Resume:First watch: 2006 / How many: 3 / Source: Cable TV-DVD / Rating: 8.

The Appaloosa (1966)** (out of 4) Rather bizarre Western has Matt (Marlon Brando) having his horse stolen by Chuy (John Saxon) so he sets out to get him back. The two men had previous run-ins over a woman (Anjanette Comer) who will come into play as the story plays out.

This is a good, compelling, gritty western that kept my attention from beginning to end. I saw it back in 1970 as a youngster and it made a huge impression on me.

Although the final duel between Marlon Brando and John Saxon should have been much more epic "The Appaloosa" (1966) is an extremely underrated western... Brando is great as always, all about in the scenes where his character has to pretend that he is a Mexican, but John Saxon performance is one of the greatest in all movie history, his portrayal of a Mexican villain speaking with a more than perfect Mexican accent is terrific...

A Marlon Brando western. Not the best use of Brando's considerable talents.

Marlon Brando's career was almost as comatose as his performance when he made this spaghetti western wannabe. Don Corleone was still six years ahead of him and the bloated epic Mutiny on the Bounty, his last sizeable hit, four years in the past.

Matt Fletcher (Marlon Brando) is returning home with his beautiful Appaloosa horse intending to start a horse ranch with it. Powerful bandit Chuy Medina (John Saxon) steals his horse.

Interesting but slowly paced Western follows Brando's attempts to recover an Appaloosa horse stolen from him by Mexican villains . Being based on a novel by Robert MacLeod and screenplay by also filmmakers , James Bridges and Roland Kibbee .