Viva Zalata
Viva Zalata
| 24 May 1976 (USA)
Viva Zalata Trailers

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..

Reviews
Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.
FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
adrianswingler 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.