Part 2 of 4
Following up on the report on the El Condor exteriors, now we move inside the former walls and into the courtyard. Here we find things in a little better shape. Two main buildings remain (as seen above). There are also some traces of the upper wall that meet the last tower.
Chavez's Quarters from El Condor
El Condor carnage - 1969 vs 2018
"Let's just draw!"
Below are the photos of how the location looks today (2015 and 2018). Click to enlarge.
Panoramic shots. Click to enlarge.
A few shots from other films-
A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die (1972)
A Man Called Noon (1973)
March or Die (1977)
Finally, sunset on the last standing tower of El Condor from 2015... now gone in 2018...
El Condor was produced by Andre de Toth who was once married to the lovely Veronica Lake. I always liked the film and it's interesting to see what is left of the sets and the fort. I remember seeing Lee on the Dick Cavett Show and they showed a clip from the film. It was Lee and Patrick O'Neal down in the vault looking at all the goal bats. O'Neal says " Mr. Jaroo if you had this much gold, what would you do with it? Lee says I would just sit down here and look at it. Lee told Dick he was ready to try some new things with his career. That he would love to do some comedy films and he always wanted to star in his own TV series. Captain Kangaroo also was on the show and Lee smoked a couple of cigarettes using a cigarette holder. I was expecting Les to surprise with his next job but it turned out to be Captain Apache. And the roll Les was on as a leading man beginning with For A Few Dollars More came off the rails a little after Rl Condor as the two films had did next in Spain for Scotia International dispute having big stars such as Caroll Baker and James Mason were subpar films to me. Bad Man's River I guess was the comedy he was looking for but it didn't work that well despite being beautifully filmed. But my guess is Lee was expecting to find something in the US such as a comedy or a TV series but the Scotia International was the only offer on the table and it was a 2 picture deal. Scotia International did about 5 westerns in Spain in short order in the early 70s and hired well known stars such as Robert Shaw, Telly Salavas, Chuck Conners, Stella Stevens etc and even the great James Mason but none of those films were well made. I don't know why that happened. Even the director of Bad Man's River had directed Horror Express about that time and it's a good film. Also I've read Lee, Gina Nd Mason got fussy and difficult during the shooting of BMR.
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