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Poster for The Sons of Katie Elder
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Released
1965 · FILM

The Sons of Katie Elder

Four estranged brothers reunite for their mother's funeral and must battle a ruthless land baron who has seized their family ranch, fighting to reclaim their legacy before the town falls under his grip.

From the four winds they came, the four brothers, their eyes smoking and their fingers itching...

Directed by
Runtime
122 min
DramaWestern

Synopsis

The four sons of Katie Elder return to their hometown of Clearwater, Texas for her funeral and learn that the family ranch is now controlled by Morgan Hastings, a corrupt businessman seeking to exploit the surrounding area.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 18

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Shot by Lucien BallardScored by Elmer Bernstein

Box Office

1965 · Box office

Made its money back — grossed 3.5× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$23.0M

Budget$6.5M
Worldwide gross$23.0M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Die vier Söhne der Katie Elderde
  • Los cuatro hijos de Katie Elderes
  • Les Quatre Fils de Katie Elderfr
  • I 4 figli di Katie Elderit
  • I quattro figli di Katie Elderit

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