Cinema: Long Wait Between Spains

Behold a Pale Horse. The bigger they come the harder they pall. This picture, for instance, is very long and very expensive. It was constructed by an important moviemaker (Fred Zinnemann, who also directed From Here to Eternity and High Noon), and it contains an important cast (Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif). But size, as the cannibal said while he munched the midget, isn't everything. Zinnemann's direction is occasional, his characters are trumpery and his actors obviously know it. Worst of all, though, is the picture's plot: something about a Spanish Loyalist guerrilla (Peck) who lives in the French Pyrenees and passes the time nursing his nerves instead of fighting Franco. In fact, he spends nine-tenths of this picture postponing a raid that doesn't amount to much when it finally comes off, and Zinnemann is unable to make drama of delay. Pale Horse is a white elephant.