# The Appaloosa
**The Appaloosa** is a 1966 American Western directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring [Marlon Brando](https://www.edgepedia.org/marlon-brando) as Matt Fletcher, a buffalo hunter whose prized [Appaloosa](https://www.edgepedia.org/appaloosa) stallion is stolen by the Mexican bandit Chuy Medina, played by [John Saxon](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-saxon). The film was produced by Alan Miller for Universal Pictures from a screenplay by James Bridges and Roland Kibbee, adapted from Robert MacLeod's 1963 novel of the same name, and it opened in New York on 14 September 1966.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | New York opening 14 September 1966 (DeMille and Baronet Theatres); Los Angeles opening 28 October 1966 at the Vogue Theatre[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) |
| Source | Novel *The Appaloosa* by Robert MacLeod (Greenwich, Connecticut, 1963)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) |
| Principal cast | Marlon Brando (Matt Fletcher), Anjanette Comer (Trini), John Saxon (Chuy Medina), Emilio Fernández, Frank Silvera, Rafael Campos[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) |
| Format | 98 minutes, Technicolor, Techniscope widescreen, Westrex sound; 35 mm[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) • [2](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/en-us/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=514150&q=true) |
| Production dates | 25 October 1965 to mid-January 1966, with additional filming in late May 1966[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) |
| Reception | Metascore 46 from four reviews; Tomatometer 46%[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060120/criticreviews/) • [4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/appaloosa) |
| Spanish release | Titled *Sierra Prohibida*; 1,569,780 admissions and a gross of 149,019.88 euros[2](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/en-us/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=514150&q=true) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Matt Fletcher, a buffalo hunter, returns to the border town of Ojo Prieto intending to use his Appaloosa stallion to start a horse-breeding farm with his old friend Paco, an impoverished Mexican farmer. His plans collapse when Trini, a young woman sold by her parents to the bandit Chuy Medina, tells Chuy that Matt molested her in church. Trini escapes on Matt's Appaloosa but is quickly recaptured by Chuy's pistoleros, and Chuy steals the horse and drags Matt by a rope through a rock-strewn brook. The rest of the film follows Fletcher's effort to reclaim the horse and take revenge, during which he falls for a woman with a complicated past.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) • [5](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/the-appaloosa/umc.cmc.40p4qixox3ucv2jipreywojb8)
## Production
**Working titles and casting.** The film went through several titles: *Southwest to Sonora* was changed to *Cocatlan* in October 1965, and *Southwest* also appears among the alternate titles; the phrase "Southwest to Sonora" appeared near the title on advertising posters.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) [Neville Brand](https://www.edgepedia.org/neville-brand) was offered the antagonist role but had a prior commitment to his television series *Laredo*, and the role of Trini was offered to the Italian actress [Claudia Cardinale](https://www.edgepedia.org/claudia-cardinale) before Anjanette Comer took it. Marlon Brando invited Miriam Colon to join the cast after learning she was in Los Angeles; the two had worked together on *One-Eyed Jacks* (1961).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA)
**Filming conditions.** [Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/principal-photography) began on 25 October 1965, with Brando's first day in [St. George, Utah](https://www.edgepedia.org/st-george-utah), filmed while he had a swollen lymph gland and a fever. A month later he was repeatedly dragged through a "boulder-strewn, ice cold" stream, and he told the *Los Angeles Times* that his [Method acting](https://www.edgepedia.org/method-acting) training had not prepared him for such hardships. By early December 1965 the company was filming at Universal Studios.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) Unidentified sources also mention locations in Lancaster, California, and the San Bernardino Mountains near Wrightwood, California.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA)
**Script revisions and clashes.** In mid-December 1965 writer Roland Kibbee revised the screenplay at the request of Brando, producer Alan Miller, and director Sidney J. Furie, all of whom were concerned about weaknesses in the script. Shortly after the completion of principal photography, the *New York Times* reported that Brando and Furie often engaged in heated arguments during production, with the director at one point threatening to abandon the project and return to England.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) Brando returned to the studio for one additional day's work in late May 1966, and composer [Frank Skinner](https://www.edgepedia.org/frank-skinner) began recording the score with a sixty-piece orchestra on 3 May 1966.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA)
## Style and direction
Furie came to the project a year after *The Ipcress File* (1965), and, according to the [Museum of Modern Art](https://www.edgepedia.org/museum-of-modern-art)'s program note, brought with it that film's taste for oblique compositions and unsettling close-up work, pushing the conventions of the border Western into something stranger and more abrasive. [The Mexican](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-mexican) locations were pressed into widescreen compositions that crowd Brando's closed-off face toward the edge of the frame.[6](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11471) The film's reputation has been tied to stories of its difficult production, Brando's hostility toward Furie and the director's compensating visual aggression, but MoMA's note argues that the tension feeds the film's best scenes, including the mano a mano sequences between Brando and Saxon that build like a chess match played under extreme duress.[6](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11471)
Contemporary critics focused on exactly these qualities. Bosley Crowther in the *New York Times* lamented the film's slow pace and odd camera angles, noting several shots that included the back end of a horse in the foreground, which he considered an unintended allegory for Brando's character.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) [Pauline Kael](https://www.edgepedia.org/pauline-kael), writing in *The New Yorker*, called it "a dog of a movie about a horse" and criticized Furie's close-ups of birthmarks, decayed teeth, and bloodshot eyes as arty irrelevance.[7](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/09/24/wrong-turns-2) *Time* found the scenario mulish and the pickings slim for Brando and Saxon.[8](https://time.com/archive/6630328/cinema-hoss-play/) Despite the reviews, *Variety* reported promising opening-week receipts.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA)
## Reception and honors
John Saxon earned a Golden Globe nomination for his performance, and the 1,400 exhibitors at the 1967 Show-a-Rama Convention in [Kansas City, Missouri](https://www.edgepedia.org/kansas-city-missouri), chose him as their Best Supporting Actor of the Year. The Bronze Wrangler, given by the Western Heritage Center and the Cowboy Hall of Fame, went to Saxon, Brando, Comer, Furie, and Robert MacLeod, who wrote the screenplay.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) Aggregated scores have remained modest: a Metascore of 46 from four reviews and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer of 46 percent.[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060120/criticreviews/) • [4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/appaloosa)
In Spain, where the film was distributed as *Sierra Prohibida* by Filmayer Video, it drew 1,569,780 admissions and a gross of 149,019.88 euros, and later Spanish age-rating certifications were issued in 2006 and 2014 for a 98-minute running time.[2](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/en-us/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=514150&q=true) Universal registered the copyright on 15 October 1966 (LP34493), and Universal Home Entertainment released the film on video on 6 September 2016.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA) • [9](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Appaloosa-The-%281966%29)
## Legacy
The film's title was borrowed by a later Western: [Ed Harris](https://www.edgepedia.org/ed-harris)'s *[Appaloosa](https://www.edgepedia.org/appaloosa-film)* (2008), though not a remake, takes its name from the 1966 film.[10](https://theses.gla.ac.uk/4268/1/2012LynchehaunPhD.pdf) The 1966 film itself has been periodically revived; MoMA screened it in June as part of a Universal Westerns series, in a 99-minute DCP restoration.[6](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11471)
## References
1. [The Appaloosa (1966), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22970-THE-APPALOOSA)
2. [SIERRA PROHIBIDA (The Appaloosa), ICAA Film Database, Spanish Ministry of Culture](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/en-us/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=514150&q=true)
3. [The Appaloosa (1966), Metacritic reviews via IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060120/criticreviews/)
4. [The Appaloosa, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/appaloosa)
5. [The Appaloosa, Apple TV](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/the-appaloosa/umc.cmc.40p4qixox3ucv2jipreywojb8)
6. [The Appaloosa. 1966. Directed by Sidney J. Furie, MoMA](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11471)
7. [Brendan Gill, "Wrong Turns," The New Yorker, 17 September 1966](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/09/24/wrong-turns-2)
8. ["Cinema: Hoss Play," Time, 30 September 1966](https://time.com/archive/6630328/cinema-hoss-play/)
9. [The Appaloosa (1966), Box office and financial information, The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Appaloosa-The-%281966%29)
10. [Lynchehaun, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2012](https://theses.gla.ac.uk/4268/1/2012LynchehaunPhD.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Action and adventure films (individual works) › Westerns before 1980 › Released 1961 to 1979*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license