Chino (film)

Chino

Theatrical release poster
Directed by John Sturges
Produced by John Sturges
Dino De Laurentiis
Screenplay by Clair Huffaker
Based on the novel The Valdez Horses 
by Lee Hoffman
Starring Charles Bronson
Jill Ireland
Marcel Bozzuffi
Vincent Van Patten
Music by Guido De Angelis
Maurizio De Angelis
Cinematography Armando Nannuzzi
Edited by Luis Álvarez
Vanio Amici
Production
company
Produzioni De Laurentiis
Distributed by Intercontinental Releasing Corporation
Release dates
  • September 14, 1973 (Italy)
Running time
 98 minutes
Country France
Italy
Spain
Language English

Chino (Italian: Valdez, il mezzosangue, UK theatrical title: Valdez the Half Breed) is a 1973 Italian Western film starring Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Marcel Bozzuffi and Vincent Van Patten. The original English language title shown at the beginning of the film was The Valdez Horses, the same title that the novel on which the movie is based. It was an Italian-Spanish-French co-production filmed in Spain, with Italian and French funding.[1]

Plot

Chino Valdez (Bronson) is a lonely horse breeder, whose life is thrown into turmoil when a young runaway (Van Patten) turns up at his door looking for work and, later, he falls in love with a beautiful woman (Ireland) whose brother (Bozzuffi) hates him.

Cast

Reception

Critical response

Time Out magazine said of the film, "Bronson suffers from galloping symbolism as Valdez, a wild horse-taming Mexican halfbreed representing different things to different people. Overall, he is the mustang, caught in a wild West which is being tamed and fenced in by white settlers... Despite a few dodgy moments when one really fears for Valdez' co-optability by Ireland's well-kept fragility, the film maintains its contradictory stance right through to a bitter-sweet ending. Valdez leaves, sans wife, sans house, but on his own terms, and after ensuring that if he can't tame the wild horses no one else will.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Chino at the American Film Institute Catalog.
  2. ↑ TimeOut. Staff film review, no date. Accessed: June 22, 2013.

External links