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Viva Zalata
A comedy western coming from Egypt. The title, "Viva Zalata", clearly reminds to "Viva Zapata!" (1952, directed by Elia Kazan). A bandit of Egyptian origins leads a gang of Mexican outlaws terrorizing a small city at the border between Mexico and the U.S..
| Release : | 1976 |
| Rating : | 5.3 |
| Studio : | |
| Crew : | Director, Writer, |
| Cast : | Fouad ElMohandes Shwikar Samir Ghanem Tawfiq Al-Deqen Nabila El Sayed |
| Genre : | Comedy Western |
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Reviews
One of my all time favorites.
I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
An unexpected masterpiece
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Produced by and starring Fouad al-Mohandis, directed by Hassan Hafez and written by Anwar Abdallah, and featuring the popular Egyptian actress Shwikar, the movie tanked at the box office. I can find no information on the director. The movie is pretty much Spaghetti Western comedy/Bollywood...done by Egyptians acting like Mexicans. Fouad el-Mohandes is a legend of the Egyptian screen with a LOT of movies to his credit. Shwikar is his wife (in real life). This was near the end of his career and I get the idea it's a "Hey, I'm going to make my own this time and do it how I want it done". Many, many, many of those kind of projects did much worse than this one did.And it actually works. Make no mistake, it's very much B-movie fare, but there are very few that take on Spaghetti Westerns as comedy and end up with something that's actually worth watching. It's got a solid story for such a light-weight movie. Pretty good sets, some nice extemporaneous touches a la Touche Pas a la Femme Blanche, and EVERY stereotype you will ever see in a SW.So, it's one of the more interesting "also rans" of the genre. How often are you going to get the chance to see a SW that's that different...and it pretty much works? From a director that you've never heard of? And those Egyptians don't make bad Mexicans. :-) I don't know what's available vis a vis releases. It's not easy to find. Mine was in Arabic with French subtitles hard coded. If you're even semi-proficient in French you will have no trouble. It's very simple and straight-forward dialog with the action carrying most of the humor as opposed to arcane puns and such.I'm giving it a seven because I'm as likely to watch it again as the ones I give a seven to. Your mileage may vary, but for fans of the genre, I can't imagine being disappointed (unless you don't know French :-( ). The 5/10 it has on here is *definitely* too low. On every level it's better than that. I was glad I'd seen it. I'll remember it a lot longer than the n+1th Sartana knock-off.
