Director Serge Bourguignon coadapted the screenplay for The Reward from a novel by Michael Barrett. Efrem Zimbalist Jr., usually cast on the right side of the law, is here a fugitive from American justice hiding from a murder rap in Mexico. Zimbalist and his girlfriend Yvette Mimieux try to avoid those who'd like to collect the $50,000 dead-or-alive price on his head. Police chief Gilbert Roland captures Zimbalist alive, promising to divvy up the reward with his men. But the police officers greedily turn on each other, leaving the audience to sort out for themselves just who's the real "bad guy" hereabouts.
From the All Movie Guide

Tommy Thompson was the caretaker of the town of Rhyolite at the time that this movie was made. He assisted in set up and watched everything when the actors were in the town of Beatty during off hours. A cemetery was built behind the Cook Bank and it is said that tourists thought it to be real. Even today we have people wanting to know why the cemetery was moved. The Cook Bank was the main building used in this film, if you look at the old pictures you can see the difference in what was and what they wanted it to be. The arches in the doors, the window embellishments and wire grating was added. These are not original to the building. In 2004 the final props from this movie was removed. They did an excellent job making Rhyolite look like an abandoned Mexican town. Unfortunately, I am told that during this period we lost the ruin that was Dr. Grigsby's office and home. I cannot verify this as it was before my time and nothing was left of Dr. Grigsby's by the time we came to Rhyolite. There were more props built and changes made than any movie ever made in Rhyolite. About half of the movie is filmed here. The movie is hard to follow unless you are bilingual. Mostly Spanish with a little English thrown in with no translation captions

Some of the Cast

Max Von Sydow as Scott Swenson

Yvette Mimieux as Sylvia

Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Frank Bryant

Gilbert Roland as Capt. Carbajal

Emilio Fernández as Sgt. Lopez

Henry Silva as Joaquin

Rodolfo Acosta as Patron

Julian Rivero as El Viejo

Screen Shots

The film was directed by Serge Bourguignon
Written by Michael Barrett (novel) and Serge Bourguignon (screenplay )
Production Company Arcola Pictures
Filming locations: Death Valley National Park, California and Rhyolite, Nevada

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