The Horsemen

1971
PG
1h 49m

IMDb RATING

6.2/10

1.4K

YOUR RATING

Jack Palance, Omar Sharif, and Leigh Taylor-Young in The Horsemen (1971)

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Quest Road Trip Action Adventure Drama

Drama depicting rural life in contemporary Afghanistan and the Afghani people's love for an ancient traditional sport similar to horseback polo.Drama depicting rural life in contemporary Afghanistan and the Afghani people's love for an ancient traditional sport similar to horseback polo.Drama depicting rural life in contemporary Afghanistan and the Afghani people's love for an ancient traditional sport similar to horseback polo.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.2/10

1.4K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Salih
(as Salmaan Peer)

Aziz Resham

Bacha to Ghulam
(as Aziz Resh)

Leon Lissek

Chikana Proprietor

Vida St. Romaine

Gypsy Woman
(as Vida St Romaine)

Florencio Amarilla

Arabian Man
(uncredited)

Ishaq Bux

Amjad Kahn
(uncredited)

Carlos Casaravilla

Messenger
(uncredited)

Director
- John Frankenheimer
Writers
- Dalton Trumbo
- Joseph Kessel
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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A Prayer for the Dying

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The film began shooting using 65mm negative (Super Panavision), but during production Columbia Pictures went through a change in management. The budgets for this and another 65mm production, Mackenna's Gold (1969), were cut and both films were forced to switch over to 35mm anamorphic Panavision. However, both were released in 70mm, with the later-shot sections blown up. In later years, the mix-and-match formats made restoration of the films more time-consuming and expensive than if they'd been shot entirely in 65mm, and they were preserved in 35mm only.

Goofs
When Tursen (Jack Palance) has a flashback to one of his past victories, one can tell that he is swinging a phony, lightweight, stuffed goat carcass around when his horse jumps up on the mud hut.

Quotes
District Chief: What demon has possessed you to mock these good people with that piece of dog-bait?

User reviews17

Review

Featured review

8/10

Better-- much better than average

Omar Sharif and Jack Palance may be the only names in this cast that most will recognize but the story based on an Afghan tale, set in Afghanistan before the Russian invasion, is a classic tale which lays out a great deal of Afghan culture during the period before the great disruption by the West. Afghanistan returned to the public eye after the post-911 invasion to depose the Taliban but the state of knowledge about these marvelous independent people who fought the British Empire to a standstill, still remains obscure. The game of buzgashi, a kind of polo for Weidman, was the core for many of the tribesmen. Its importance as an institution marking the status of tribes and individuals has no real counterpart in Western culture, and this is a tale of intrigue and self-learning, framed in a cultural setting we still have yet to understand.