This 2011 volume published by I B Tauris presents an analysis of a number of films that may be identified as a sub-genre of a sub-genre, namely Italian or Spaghetti Westerns that have an explicit political (read left) orientation.
Whilst adapted from author Austin Fisher's PhD thesis and thus possibly more theoretically oriented than some fans would like, the author's use of the likes of Louis Althusser and Franz Fanon does not come across as gratuitous name dropping or shoe-horning of the theory into the text, coming across as more bottom-up than top-down.
Fisher begins by establishing the broader context in which his corpus of films emerged, most notably that of the post-war settlement where the anti-Fascist alliance of the resistance (a resistance which was a formative experience for some of the key filmmakers) was represented, with overt and covert US support, benefitting the Christian Democrats party and marginalising the communists.
Turning to the films themselves, the key distinction Fisher makes, responding to the taxonomies of Will Wright, Christopher Frayling, and Bert Fridlund, is that between RSA and insurgency narratives.
The RSA narrative is derived from Althusser's distinction between the Ideological State Apparatus, or ISA, as represented by the education system and the mass media, and the Repressive State Apparatus, as represented by the law. Put crudely the ISA tells you what to think and do, while the RSA then comes into play if you fail to follow the ISA.
The key characteristic of the RSA film, as epitomised by Sergio Sollima's The Big Gundown and Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence, is the power of the law, or the RSA, being (ab)used by the powerful against the weak.
In Sollima's film it is how land baron Brokston sends Corbett off to bring back Cuchillo dead or alive (preferably the former), for the peon's supposed rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl to divert attention from the real perpetrator, his son.
In Corbucci's it is how businessman Policott contrives to have those who refuse to surrender to him outlaws, such that they may be legally murdered by bounty hunters/killers.
For Fisher the key point about The Big Gundown is its ultimate incoherence. Here it is germane to remember a fundamental difference between Sollima's film and Corbucci's. In The Big Gundown the ending of Franco Solinas's screenplay was dropped, so that Corbett did not kill Cuchillo and the real villain was punished -- i.e. an unhappy ending. In The Great Silence Corbucci was asked to provide a happy ending for some territories, one in which Silence triumphed. Corbucci subverted this request by presenting a happy ending that it was difficult to take seriously, reminiscent of the self-consciously ironic coda to Murnau's The Last Laugh.
The insurgency narrative is drawn from Fanon, and is exemplified by Damiano Damiani's A Bullet for the General and Corbucci's Companeros. These are narratives where a US or Anglo character heads south from the US into Mexico and thereby becomes involved with the revolution, whether supporting or subverting it.
The key question these narratives raise, to Fisher, is the place of violence and its justification/rationalisation: how do we distinguish between legitimate violence against an oppressor and illegitimate violence whereby the formerly oppressed becomes the oppressor?
The most important film in this regard is Sollima's Face to Face, with its civilised eastern academic going west for the sake of his health and then becoming a ruthless bandit leader.
Sollima's film is also important for featuring the two key actors within the Italian political western, namely Gian-Maria Volonte and Tomas Milian.
There are perhaps two notable areas of omission in Fisher's discussion. Both are, however, perfectly understandable given the origins of the book in a PhD thesis where (as I was advised) it is better to accentuate the positive by looking for confirmation rather than refutation of one's ideas.
The first of these is where these films fit in relation to the taxonomy proposed by the editors of Cahiers du cinema around the time of May 1968 (and all that). They suggested that films could be divided into five main categories in relation to form and content and whether these were conservative or radical in approach.
Category A encompassed the bulk of films, especially those produced by Hollywood. These films were conservative on both the form and content axes. As such they were condemned by Cahiers. The far rarer category B encompassed films which were radical in both form and content, such as Godard's Wind from the East. Category C encompassed films which were formally radical but conservative in their content. The Cahiers critics felt such films preferable to those in category D, which were formally conservative but politically radical. Finally, category E encompassed films which did not fit into this schema, in that they might initially be taken as conservative texts but then proved to question this through their contradictions.
With this taxonomy Italian political westerns would seem to be closest to category D. But a problem perhaps then arises when it comes to identifying what conservative form means. A key characteristic of the films of Leone and, more pertinently, those who he influenced is, after all, their comparative lack of regard for David Bordwell classical Hollywood style or Noel Burch's Institutional Mode of Representation.
To give one example, in Django Kill there are rapid-fire montage type flashbacks which are tinted and at times appear to be in reverse motion, with bodies rolling uphill rather than downhill. Rather than seeking to conceal his interventions Questi makes them obvious.
What thus arguably emerges is a situation where formal radicalism becomes less clear cut. Django Kill is radical in relation to The Searchers, but conservative in relation to Wind from the East.
The second area where I felt that Fisher might have commented is with regard to Pier-Paolo Pasolini's broadly contemporaneous notion of an “unpopular cinema”. Pasolini identified three approaches to cinema and politics, the first two of which broadly correspond to Cahiers' categories A and B. For Pasolini the popular cinema, as represented by Hollywood, lacked political bite. The avant-garde cinema, as represented by Godard, was critical, but was also self-defeating as it could only ever reach a minority audience and even then implied a fundamentally sado-masochistic relationship between the sadist filmmaker and the masochist spectator. Pasolini's alternative, the unpopular cinema, was political, yet accessible to wider audiences. As such it could be considered as having affinities with Cahiers' category D.
Pasolini himself took an unpopular cinema line with his Trilogy of Life, of The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales, and The Thousand and One Nights, the wider accessibility of which could be directly compared to the films that preceded them, Oedipus Rex, Pigsty and Medea. Pasolini also, however, subsequently repudiated the Trilogy of Life and made Salo as a film which he hoped would be deliberately unwatchable and impossible to recuperate.
Italian political westerns would appear to clearly fit into Pasolini's framework as instances of an unpopular cinema. As such, Fisher's failure to provide a detailed discussion of Carlo Lizzani's Requiescant/Kill and Pray arguably emerges as another structuring absence. Lizzani was, after all, avowedly leftist, as were the actor playing the film's protagonist, Lou Castel, and a performer playing an important supporting role -- none other than Pasolini.
Showing posts with label spaghetti western. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spaghetti western. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Saturday, 29 May 2010
The bar-room brawl in the US and Italian western
One of the distinctive, but little remarked upon, features of the Leone western is the absence of the 'fun' bar-room brawl where no-one really gets hurt. This is, however, seen in most other Italian directors' westerns, even when they are otherwise trying to emulate Leone.
I think this reveals a fundamental thing about violence in Leone: It is always for real, for keeps; when someone gets beaten (Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars, Eastwood and Van Cleef in For a Few Dollars More) it's to near-death.
I think this reveals a fundamental thing about violence in Leone: It is always for real, for keeps; when someone gets beaten (Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars, Eastwood and Van Cleef in For a Few Dollars More) it's to near-death.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Quintana / Quintana: Dead or Alive
This 1969 Euro-western entry comes across as a hybrid of the spaghetti western and the Zorro film, with the former supplying most of the iconography – duster coats, ponchos, six guns – and the latter the bulk of the plot, which revolves around the conflict between the titular masked hero and ruthless landowner Juan De Leyra, happy to see a man executed for a crime he didn’t commit and / or to use this as leverage against the man’s beautiful fiancée.
The result is something which is especially interesting historically, if not always as successful on aesthetic or entertainment grounds.
In his seminal study Sixguns and Society, Will Wright proposes that the structures of western films from 1930 to 1970 could be seen as passing through four broad phases in terms of the relationship between the protagonists, the antagonists and the wider society. In the first phase, the classical western, the protagonists fought on behalf of a weak society. In the last phase, the professional western, society was essentially an irrelevance. Wright saw this shift as relating to changes in the structure of US capitalism, in particular the post-WWII rise of the technocracy.
Being based on the biggest box-office earners in the USA, Wright’s study only included one Italian western, The Good the Bad and the Ugly. He classified Leone’s film as being closest to a professional western, on the grounds that society plays little part in the three men’s treasure hunt. While there are obvious issues here in translating between the US and Italian contexts, as Frayling and others have emphasised, it is nevertheless notable that the protagonist of the spaghetti western is after vengeance – another of Wright’s plots, with another configuration of protagonist, antagonist and society relations – and / or money the majority of the time. Though the wider society might benefit as well, it tends to do so indirectly.
Quintana surprises his American would-be killers
Here Quintana is very much integrated into the society he is both a member and defender of. Though he might thus be understood in terms of the kind of bell tower loyalty seen in the spaghetti, the difference is that his action is selfless – few know his real identity, although the viewer does – and not geared towards the benefit of a family type group but rather the class of the peasantry as a whole. The defeat of De Leyra and his forces is thereby more a collective rather than individual good.
One particularly significant scene in this regard is the one where Quintana mounts a daring solo raid on De Leyra’s stronghold that results in the successful rescue of one prisoner – admittedly the one he was primarily concerned with – and the gunning down of a dozen or so others. Back home, Quintana’s actions and motives are called into question, whether his display of individualism wasn’t that of a glory seeker detrimental to the wider goal.
Another point of note here is the relationship between Quintana and the local monks. If the poor man’s choice is between becoming a bandit or a beggar, as per the discussion between Tuco and Padre Ramirez in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, both bandit and priest are here presented as social roles.
Actor turned producer-writer-director Vincenzo Musolini / Glen Vincent Davis's visuals are dominated by zooms and Dutch angles. Unfortunately these tend to come across style for its own sake more than style that adds to substance. Nonetheless, it can at least be said that he tried hard and had the potential to develop into a decent filmmaker had he learnt some restraint – a potential that was to remain unfulfilled by his death in 1969 aged only 39.
Leading man Osvaldo Ruggieri / George Stevenson’s film career appears to have been even similarly short, with only one other film to his name according to the IMDB. He spends most of his time here beneath a mask and unfortunately doesn’t do much to bring his character to life beyond it.
Felice de Stefano’s at times over-emphatic music takes obvious inspiration from Ennio Morricone, with strongly-strummed guitar, a pipe organ in some of the religious scenes, and a borderline plagiarist cue taken from For a Few Dollars More.
The result is something which is especially interesting historically, if not always as successful on aesthetic or entertainment grounds.
In his seminal study Sixguns and Society, Will Wright proposes that the structures of western films from 1930 to 1970 could be seen as passing through four broad phases in terms of the relationship between the protagonists, the antagonists and the wider society. In the first phase, the classical western, the protagonists fought on behalf of a weak society. In the last phase, the professional western, society was essentially an irrelevance. Wright saw this shift as relating to changes in the structure of US capitalism, in particular the post-WWII rise of the technocracy.
Being based on the biggest box-office earners in the USA, Wright’s study only included one Italian western, The Good the Bad and the Ugly. He classified Leone’s film as being closest to a professional western, on the grounds that society plays little part in the three men’s treasure hunt. While there are obvious issues here in translating between the US and Italian contexts, as Frayling and others have emphasised, it is nevertheless notable that the protagonist of the spaghetti western is after vengeance – another of Wright’s plots, with another configuration of protagonist, antagonist and society relations – and / or money the majority of the time. Though the wider society might benefit as well, it tends to do so indirectly.
Quintana surprises his American would-be killers
Here Quintana is very much integrated into the society he is both a member and defender of. Though he might thus be understood in terms of the kind of bell tower loyalty seen in the spaghetti, the difference is that his action is selfless – few know his real identity, although the viewer does – and not geared towards the benefit of a family type group but rather the class of the peasantry as a whole. The defeat of De Leyra and his forces is thereby more a collective rather than individual good.
One particularly significant scene in this regard is the one where Quintana mounts a daring solo raid on De Leyra’s stronghold that results in the successful rescue of one prisoner – admittedly the one he was primarily concerned with – and the gunning down of a dozen or so others. Back home, Quintana’s actions and motives are called into question, whether his display of individualism wasn’t that of a glory seeker detrimental to the wider goal.
Another point of note here is the relationship between Quintana and the local monks. If the poor man’s choice is between becoming a bandit or a beggar, as per the discussion between Tuco and Padre Ramirez in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, both bandit and priest are here presented as social roles.
Actor turned producer-writer-director Vincenzo Musolini / Glen Vincent Davis's visuals are dominated by zooms and Dutch angles. Unfortunately these tend to come across style for its own sake more than style that adds to substance. Nonetheless, it can at least be said that he tried hard and had the potential to develop into a decent filmmaker had he learnt some restraint – a potential that was to remain unfulfilled by his death in 1969 aged only 39.
Leading man Osvaldo Ruggieri / George Stevenson’s film career appears to have been even similarly short, with only one other film to his name according to the IMDB. He spends most of his time here beneath a mask and unfortunately doesn’t do much to bring his character to life beyond it.
Felice de Stefano’s at times over-emphatic music takes obvious inspiration from Ennio Morricone, with strongly-strummed guitar, a pipe organ in some of the religious scenes, and a borderline plagiarist cue taken from For a Few Dollars More.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Lo chiamavano Tresette... giocava sempre col morto / In the West There Was a Man Named Invincible / Man Called Invincible / Tricky Dicky
Recently I revisited a couple of Giuliano Carnimeo / Anthony Ascott's Sartana films as part of the box set. These proved to be an ideal grounding for watching this 1973 comedy spaghetti from the director, which stars George Hilton, Cris Huerta and Evelyn Stewart.
The plot, which involves the secret transportation of a shipment of gold – one that everyone and their dog seems to know about, indicating that things are not entirely on the level – is as complicated as any of the official Sartana entries.
Technological gimmicks are similarly prevalent, most notably in Tresette/Tricky Dicky's (Hilton's) music boxes, which variously also function as Gatling guns and explosively in a proto “candygram for Mongo” fashion.
The general tone of the film, however, is more akin to the Trinity series, with plenty of cartoon and slapstick humour, including an actual pie-fight and a gag in which the heroes escape from (the sheriff's own) jail by painting out the bars of their cell to make it look like they have escaped; nor does anyone ever gets killed by one of the music boxes, only humiliated.
Hilton and Huerta likewise form a kind of Hill and Spencer pairing, of brains and brawn respectively – Huerta's Bambi (Bambino?) having been appointed sheriff in MacPherson/MacPiedish's (sic) town, Apple Pie City, because he appears a born loser (read honest) whose career so far has been a series of moves to less and less prestigious posts, beginning with Kansas City. (This also provides a clue: those in power in that notoriously corrupt place didn't want him around, given the tendency of Dicky to follow in his wake.)
One thus gets the impression that Carnimeo and his collaborators took a Sartana script, renamed their protagonist and chose to play up the comedy aspect. This is perhaps best epitomised by the black clad gunfighter Twinkletoes who doggedly follows Dicky around challenging him duel after duel, without ever winning nor being taken out in the more serious “playing for keeps” manner Sartana would have employed when necessary.
Stylistically the film is very much like most other Carnimeo films I have seen: He is not afraid to try out just about any technique you can think of – crash zooms, whip pans, accelerated motion etc. – but does so in a way that makes even a Sergio Corbucci appear disciplined by comparison.
Examples of the comic-book visuals
Needless to say it doesn't all work – the likes of the Bent Gang and the Closet Cousins are somewhat lazy gags, with the double-entendres and one-liners equally hit and miss (“I find her a bit dykey, Dicky” another example of going for easy targets) – but enough of it does for the film to be worth a look if you are in the right mood, with Hilton's easy charm and the fact that everyone involved was clearly having fun themselves definite plus points.
Finally, it was a strange coincidence that on the IMDB today the quote of the day came from Frost/Nixon. Richard: “That's our tragedy, you and I Mr. Frost. No matter how high we get, they still look down at us.”
[See also: http://www.europeanfilmreview.co.uk/eurowestern/man_called_invincible.htm and http://www.doomedmoviethon.com/reviews2/203mancalledinvincible.htm]
The plot, which involves the secret transportation of a shipment of gold – one that everyone and their dog seems to know about, indicating that things are not entirely on the level – is as complicated as any of the official Sartana entries.
Technological gimmicks are similarly prevalent, most notably in Tresette/Tricky Dicky's (Hilton's) music boxes, which variously also function as Gatling guns and explosively in a proto “candygram for Mongo” fashion.
The general tone of the film, however, is more akin to the Trinity series, with plenty of cartoon and slapstick humour, including an actual pie-fight and a gag in which the heroes escape from (the sheriff's own) jail by painting out the bars of their cell to make it look like they have escaped; nor does anyone ever gets killed by one of the music boxes, only humiliated.
Hilton and Huerta likewise form a kind of Hill and Spencer pairing, of brains and brawn respectively – Huerta's Bambi (Bambino?) having been appointed sheriff in MacPherson/MacPiedish's (sic) town, Apple Pie City, because he appears a born loser (read honest) whose career so far has been a series of moves to less and less prestigious posts, beginning with Kansas City. (This also provides a clue: those in power in that notoriously corrupt place didn't want him around, given the tendency of Dicky to follow in his wake.)
One thus gets the impression that Carnimeo and his collaborators took a Sartana script, renamed their protagonist and chose to play up the comedy aspect. This is perhaps best epitomised by the black clad gunfighter Twinkletoes who doggedly follows Dicky around challenging him duel after duel, without ever winning nor being taken out in the more serious “playing for keeps” manner Sartana would have employed when necessary.
Stylistically the film is very much like most other Carnimeo films I have seen: He is not afraid to try out just about any technique you can think of – crash zooms, whip pans, accelerated motion etc. – but does so in a way that makes even a Sergio Corbucci appear disciplined by comparison.
Examples of the comic-book visuals
Needless to say it doesn't all work – the likes of the Bent Gang and the Closet Cousins are somewhat lazy gags, with the double-entendres and one-liners equally hit and miss (“I find her a bit dykey, Dicky” another example of going for easy targets) – but enough of it does for the film to be worth a look if you are in the right mood, with Hilton's easy charm and the fact that everyone involved was clearly having fun themselves definite plus points.
Finally, it was a strange coincidence that on the IMDB today the quote of the day came from Frost/Nixon. Richard: “That's our tragedy, you and I Mr. Frost. No matter how high we get, they still look down at us.”
[See also: http://www.europeanfilmreview.co.uk/eurowestern/man_called_invincible.htm and http://www.doomedmoviethon.com/reviews2/203mancalledinvincible.htm]
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Pistols Don't Argue / Pistole non discutono
Correctly surmising that most of the town will be busy with Sheriff Pat Garrett’s wedding, Billy the Kid takes the opportunity to rob the town bank. When his younger brother George accidentally drops his mask, Billy tells him to silence the bank tellers with his knife – partly to punish his brother, partly because gunshots would likely alert the townsfolk. With George proving unable to kill the men in cold blood, Billy shoots them anyway.
Thus alerted to the crime, Garrett and his deputies go in pursuit, but are unable to catch the Clanton brothers before they cross the border into Mexico.
Garrett decides to continue on anyway, while his deputies turn back. To simply give up, Garrett rationalises, would lead to a wave of similar robberies all along the border.
Apprehending the brothers proves relatively straightforward for the wily Sheriff. His greater challenge is returning them and the stolen gold back to the US. For Mexican bandit leader Santero has now become aware of the gold, forcing Garrett to take it and the Clantons back across the desert...
Directed by Mario Caiano, Pistols Don’t Argue was the bigger-budgeted portion of the two film package that also gave rise to Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars. If this explains why Pistols isn’t terribly well known, except among spaghetti western enthusiasts, it also makes it a significant film in other ways: Simply put, what did Fistful do that Pistols didn’t, or vice-versa?
Logically, after all, Pistols should have been the more successful film. It had more money behind it along with a more recognisable – albeit still B-list / fading – star in the form of Rod Cameron. It also had more familiar characters in Garrett and the Kid, as the clear-cut hero and villain respectively, plus romance and plenty of good old fashioned “a man’s gotta do...” isms.
A number of reasons can be advanced for Pistols’ relative failure and Fistful’s massive success. Most revolve around the distinction between the Italian western, represented by Pistols, and the Italian western, represented by Fistful.
Around twenty westerns had been produced or co-produced by Italian companies prior to them. All, like Pistols, had been made in imitation of the Hollywood western, with producers seeking to hide their Italianness to convince domestic audiences that what they were seeing was “the real thing”.
While it is true that Leone, Volonte, Morricone and others hid their identities behind Anglo-sounding pseudonyms on Fistful, the film itself looked, sounded and was different, principally in attitude.
As Morricone also scored Pistols, we can start by comparing his work on the two films. The score for Pistols contains suspense and action cues that would not be out of place in one of Leone’s films, while the cues that are used to convey the oppressive desert heat could easily have fitted into The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’s desert scenes. Strings, piano and percussion are used in an recognisable way. What is missing are the more distinctive touches and timbres: There is no whistling, no hammer and anvil percussion, no whip cracks, gunshots or vocalism. What is present, in the “Ballad of Lonesome Billy” is precisely the kind of thing that Leone encouraged Morricone to get away from.
Visually, Pistols is a lot brighter looking, with things lacking the lived-in ness of their counterparts in Fistful and the colour palette being more varied, less drab. Indeed, a deserted ghost town in the desert looks to be in almost as good a condition as the still sort-of inhabited town in Leone’s film. In fairness to Caiano and cinematographer Massimo Dallamano, Pistols’ night work is however better than Fistful’s; inasmuch as Dallamano worked on both films, this discrepancy may then be attributed to having more time and money on Pistols than Fistful. Though explained in part by the fact that it was his wedding day – a traditional romantic element that Leone took pains to avoid in his films, and which is reprised here in the developing relationship between George and a frontier homestead family in need of a man – Garrett starts off clean and gets dirtier as the film progresses, rather than being scruffy and unshaven from the off.
Whereas Leone’s films are about unstable meanings, that the Good is good only in relation to the Bad, Pistols presents straightforward 1930s Hollywood style characterisations for Garrett and the Kid. George is the more interesting character, in that he’s torn between idol-worshipping his brother and his growing realisation that Billy really doesn’t care about anyone except himself.
In relation to the 1930s western, meanwhile, those familiar with John Ford’s Stagecoach will see a couple of familiar tropes come in at the end, with the 11th hour arrival of the cavalry to save the day – albeit reconfigured spaghetti style with Mexican bandits rather than Indians – and the lawman’s willingness to let the sympathetic lawbreaker go free to settle down with a good woman, one Agnes (of) Goddard.
I would normally label this a spoiler, but to me a spoiler implies that a film of this sort does something that you would not expect, whereas here we are dealing with convention.
Besides the killing of the innocent who could identify someone (Once Upon a Time in the West) and the forced march through the desert (The Good the Bad and the Ugly), a third trope which re-appears in a Leone western is a trick Garrett plays on the Kid, of removing the bullets from his gun (GBU again). The distinction in each case, and elsewhere, seems one of Leone’s cynicism against Caiano’s romanticism, that Garrett’s forced march is not a vengeful attempt to torture a foe to death, for instance.
Another key difference between the filmmakers is their treatment of the Mexican: Other than a couple of Mexican labourers on the Goddard stead (or those who know their place in the Anglo-dominated hierarchy?) all the Mexicans seen in Pistols are corrupt and villainous. As such, Garrett’s territorial intrusion along with his justification for it, are vindicated. Leone would again be more questioning: Yes, the Rojos are worse than the Baxters in Fistful, but we’re dealing with shades of (dark) grey.
In sum, a fascinating failure.
Thus alerted to the crime, Garrett and his deputies go in pursuit, but are unable to catch the Clanton brothers before they cross the border into Mexico.
Garrett decides to continue on anyway, while his deputies turn back. To simply give up, Garrett rationalises, would lead to a wave of similar robberies all along the border.
Apprehending the brothers proves relatively straightforward for the wily Sheriff. His greater challenge is returning them and the stolen gold back to the US. For Mexican bandit leader Santero has now become aware of the gold, forcing Garrett to take it and the Clantons back across the desert...
Directed by Mario Caiano, Pistols Don’t Argue was the bigger-budgeted portion of the two film package that also gave rise to Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars. If this explains why Pistols isn’t terribly well known, except among spaghetti western enthusiasts, it also makes it a significant film in other ways: Simply put, what did Fistful do that Pistols didn’t, or vice-versa?
Logically, after all, Pistols should have been the more successful film. It had more money behind it along with a more recognisable – albeit still B-list / fading – star in the form of Rod Cameron. It also had more familiar characters in Garrett and the Kid, as the clear-cut hero and villain respectively, plus romance and plenty of good old fashioned “a man’s gotta do...” isms.
A number of reasons can be advanced for Pistols’ relative failure and Fistful’s massive success. Most revolve around the distinction between the Italian western, represented by Pistols, and the Italian western, represented by Fistful.
Around twenty westerns had been produced or co-produced by Italian companies prior to them. All, like Pistols, had been made in imitation of the Hollywood western, with producers seeking to hide their Italianness to convince domestic audiences that what they were seeing was “the real thing”.
While it is true that Leone, Volonte, Morricone and others hid their identities behind Anglo-sounding pseudonyms on Fistful, the film itself looked, sounded and was different, principally in attitude.
As Morricone also scored Pistols, we can start by comparing his work on the two films. The score for Pistols contains suspense and action cues that would not be out of place in one of Leone’s films, while the cues that are used to convey the oppressive desert heat could easily have fitted into The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’s desert scenes. Strings, piano and percussion are used in an recognisable way. What is missing are the more distinctive touches and timbres: There is no whistling, no hammer and anvil percussion, no whip cracks, gunshots or vocalism. What is present, in the “Ballad of Lonesome Billy” is precisely the kind of thing that Leone encouraged Morricone to get away from.
Visually, Pistols is a lot brighter looking, with things lacking the lived-in ness of their counterparts in Fistful and the colour palette being more varied, less drab. Indeed, a deserted ghost town in the desert looks to be in almost as good a condition as the still sort-of inhabited town in Leone’s film. In fairness to Caiano and cinematographer Massimo Dallamano, Pistols’ night work is however better than Fistful’s; inasmuch as Dallamano worked on both films, this discrepancy may then be attributed to having more time and money on Pistols than Fistful. Though explained in part by the fact that it was his wedding day – a traditional romantic element that Leone took pains to avoid in his films, and which is reprised here in the developing relationship between George and a frontier homestead family in need of a man – Garrett starts off clean and gets dirtier as the film progresses, rather than being scruffy and unshaven from the off.
Whereas Leone’s films are about unstable meanings, that the Good is good only in relation to the Bad, Pistols presents straightforward 1930s Hollywood style characterisations for Garrett and the Kid. George is the more interesting character, in that he’s torn between idol-worshipping his brother and his growing realisation that Billy really doesn’t care about anyone except himself.
In relation to the 1930s western, meanwhile, those familiar with John Ford’s Stagecoach will see a couple of familiar tropes come in at the end, with the 11th hour arrival of the cavalry to save the day – albeit reconfigured spaghetti style with Mexican bandits rather than Indians – and the lawman’s willingness to let the sympathetic lawbreaker go free to settle down with a good woman, one Agnes (of) Goddard.
I would normally label this a spoiler, but to me a spoiler implies that a film of this sort does something that you would not expect, whereas here we are dealing with convention.
Besides the killing of the innocent who could identify someone (Once Upon a Time in the West) and the forced march through the desert (The Good the Bad and the Ugly), a third trope which re-appears in a Leone western is a trick Garrett plays on the Kid, of removing the bullets from his gun (GBU again). The distinction in each case, and elsewhere, seems one of Leone’s cynicism against Caiano’s romanticism, that Garrett’s forced march is not a vengeful attempt to torture a foe to death, for instance.
Another key difference between the filmmakers is their treatment of the Mexican: Other than a couple of Mexican labourers on the Goddard stead (or those who know their place in the Anglo-dominated hierarchy?) all the Mexicans seen in Pistols are corrupt and villainous. As such, Garrett’s territorial intrusion along with his justification for it, are vindicated. Leone would again be more questioning: Yes, the Rojos are worse than the Baxters in Fistful, but we’re dealing with shades of (dark) grey.
In sum, a fascinating failure.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Un buco in fronte / Hole in the Forehead
A nicely executed deliberately paced, mood-heavy opening sequence sets the scene as gunman Bill Blood (Antonio Ghidra) arrives at a monastery and takes advantage of the monks' hospitality.
Blood's first distinctive feature is that he does everything with his left hand. We soon learn his second, and what is his right hand is reserved for as bandit Murienda arrives at the monastery with an acute case of lead poisoning courtesy of General Munguya's men: Blood is a deadly shot with his right hand, invariably planting a bullet in the forehead of his target, right between the eyes.
With Munguya's men dealt with, we learn that Blood had been waiting for Murienda because was in possession of a playing card on which is written one-third of the location of a fortune in stolen pesos.
General Munguya has the second of card and clue, another bandit, Garrincha, the third. Bill thus goes in search of Munguya to see if they might make a deal and share the treasure...
Yes, what we are dealing with here is essentially a The Good, The Bad and the Ugly knock-off. It is also, however, one distinguished from its model in that, once the leisurely opening sequence is out of the way, everything else comes at us quickly and with a minimum of fuss.
Blood, the General and Garrincha are already aware of the treasure and that it is somewhere nearby. Nor are there any external obstacles in their way: Though Munguya's title and acquisition of some arms hint at civil war in Mexico, and thus the possibility of discussing revolution and social banditry in the manner of the more political spaghetti, no such context or subtext emerges. Munguya remains thus just being another Mexican bandit whose excessively large sombrero is only matched by his excessive sadism, cruelty and talent for betrayal. (Yes, the arms include a Gatling gun and, yes, it is used for some summary executions, amongst other things.)
Hole in the Forehead's attitude towards its model is made most clear at the finale: It momentarily looks like we are going to get a truel, or three-way duel, as one of the characters (I won't say which) makes an unexpected entrance from out of frame to establish a triangular rather than linear re-arrangement of figures. Then, before we get any serious discussion of the dynamics of the situation, of the possibilities for alliances and betrayals, or the building of tension through the score and the ritualised close-ups, the three are reduced back to two by the summary removal of one (again I won't say which).
Hole in the Forehead also has a distinctive approach to the kind of figures who would have represented its primary Southern Italian audience. Leone's film is ultimately more Tuco's than Blondie's. Here, by contrast, we are placed with the non Mexican Blood against unsympathetic Mexican antagonists in Munguya and Garrincha. Crucially, however, note that I do not say Anglo: If Blood is an Anglo he's also appears to be a decidedly Catholic, non-WASP one considering his relationship to the monks whose monastery has the misfortune to be located right at the centre of the treasure hunt.
Joseph Warren / Guiseppe Vari's direction is efficient and effective, if a touch heavy on the shock zoom - a trope which, ironically, undercuts its impact precisely because we come to expect it.
The dialogue is agreeably pared down and the production design, costuming and cinematography pleasing. Roberto Predagio's contributes an memorable Morricone-styled score. Coupled with Serbian-born actor Anthonio Ghidra's / Dragomir Bojanic's successful conveyance of Blood's self-confident invulnerability, the net result is to make one wish Vari had been more thoughtful in his own contribution at times.
Robert Hundar plays the General with his customary gusto, making for a nice those who talk / those who don't talk 'two kinds of people' pairing with the taciturn Ghidra.
Blood's first distinctive feature is that he does everything with his left hand. We soon learn his second, and what is his right hand is reserved for as bandit Murienda arrives at the monastery with an acute case of lead poisoning courtesy of General Munguya's men: Blood is a deadly shot with his right hand, invariably planting a bullet in the forehead of his target, right between the eyes.
With Munguya's men dealt with, we learn that Blood had been waiting for Murienda because was in possession of a playing card on which is written one-third of the location of a fortune in stolen pesos.
General Munguya has the second of card and clue, another bandit, Garrincha, the third. Bill thus goes in search of Munguya to see if they might make a deal and share the treasure...
Yes, what we are dealing with here is essentially a The Good, The Bad and the Ugly knock-off. It is also, however, one distinguished from its model in that, once the leisurely opening sequence is out of the way, everything else comes at us quickly and with a minimum of fuss.
Blood, the General and Garrincha are already aware of the treasure and that it is somewhere nearby. Nor are there any external obstacles in their way: Though Munguya's title and acquisition of some arms hint at civil war in Mexico, and thus the possibility of discussing revolution and social banditry in the manner of the more political spaghetti, no such context or subtext emerges. Munguya remains thus just being another Mexican bandit whose excessively large sombrero is only matched by his excessive sadism, cruelty and talent for betrayal. (Yes, the arms include a Gatling gun and, yes, it is used for some summary executions, amongst other things.)
Hole in the Forehead's attitude towards its model is made most clear at the finale: It momentarily looks like we are going to get a truel, or three-way duel, as one of the characters (I won't say which) makes an unexpected entrance from out of frame to establish a triangular rather than linear re-arrangement of figures. Then, before we get any serious discussion of the dynamics of the situation, of the possibilities for alliances and betrayals, or the building of tension through the score and the ritualised close-ups, the three are reduced back to two by the summary removal of one (again I won't say which).
Hole in the Forehead also has a distinctive approach to the kind of figures who would have represented its primary Southern Italian audience. Leone's film is ultimately more Tuco's than Blondie's. Here, by contrast, we are placed with the non Mexican Blood against unsympathetic Mexican antagonists in Munguya and Garrincha. Crucially, however, note that I do not say Anglo: If Blood is an Anglo he's also appears to be a decidedly Catholic, non-WASP one considering his relationship to the monks whose monastery has the misfortune to be located right at the centre of the treasure hunt.
Joseph Warren / Guiseppe Vari's direction is efficient and effective, if a touch heavy on the shock zoom - a trope which, ironically, undercuts its impact precisely because we come to expect it.
The dialogue is agreeably pared down and the production design, costuming and cinematography pleasing. Roberto Predagio's contributes an memorable Morricone-styled score. Coupled with Serbian-born actor Anthonio Ghidra's / Dragomir Bojanic's successful conveyance of Blood's self-confident invulnerability, the net result is to make one wish Vari had been more thoughtful in his own contribution at times.
Robert Hundar plays the General with his customary gusto, making for a nice those who talk / those who don't talk 'two kinds of people' pairing with the taciturn Ghidra.
Monday, 22 December 2008
Il Tempo degli avvoltoi / Time of Vultures / Last of the Badmen
Directed by Nando Cicero, this is one of those spaghetti westerns which deserves to be a lot better known than it would appear to be, with only two comments on the IMDB.
Featuring the winning combination of George Hilton and Frank Wolff, giving one of the best performances of his under-rated, all too brief career, alongside a solid supporting cast including Eduardo Fajardo, John Bartha, Femi Benussi and Pamela Tudior, it's an unusually harsh and cynical tale even by the standards of the genre.
Hilton plays Kitosch, a gun for hire who is caught in bed with his boss Don Fernando's wife Steffy, for which he is punished with a branding. Kitosch escapes the Don's clutches, makes it to the nearest town and asks for protection from the sheriff. Instead, he is arrested and thrown into jail, to be handed over to the Don's men once they arrive.
At this point another outlaw, Wolff's black-clad Joshua Tracy, intervenes. He kills the sheriff and the two outlaws take off and team up. It doesn't take long, however, for Kitosch to realise that his erstwhile rescuer and partner is literally mad, bad and dangerous to know, prone to fits and consumed by a desire for revenge on his ex-wife and her current lover.
It is almost as if the characters of Mortimer and El Indio from Leone's For a Few Dollars More had been fused into the one man - a difficult role, full of contradictions for the performer to embody. The versatile Wolff, equally comfortable in Francesco Rosi's Salvatore Guiliano and Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence, was one of the few actors fully capable of tackling the role.
Under these circumstances, everyone else's contributions, while perfectly adequate and to type - Fajardo is the villainous Don, Bartha the sheriff etc. - are overshadowed somewhat. Nevertheless, the film is always watchable, with plenty of action and twists in the tale to keep things interesting even when Wolff isn't on screen.
Featuring the winning combination of George Hilton and Frank Wolff, giving one of the best performances of his under-rated, all too brief career, alongside a solid supporting cast including Eduardo Fajardo, John Bartha, Femi Benussi and Pamela Tudior, it's an unusually harsh and cynical tale even by the standards of the genre.
Hilton plays Kitosch, a gun for hire who is caught in bed with his boss Don Fernando's wife Steffy, for which he is punished with a branding. Kitosch escapes the Don's clutches, makes it to the nearest town and asks for protection from the sheriff. Instead, he is arrested and thrown into jail, to be handed over to the Don's men once they arrive.
At this point another outlaw, Wolff's black-clad Joshua Tracy, intervenes. He kills the sheriff and the two outlaws take off and team up. It doesn't take long, however, for Kitosch to realise that his erstwhile rescuer and partner is literally mad, bad and dangerous to know, prone to fits and consumed by a desire for revenge on his ex-wife and her current lover.
It is almost as if the characters of Mortimer and El Indio from Leone's For a Few Dollars More had been fused into the one man - a difficult role, full of contradictions for the performer to embody. The versatile Wolff, equally comfortable in Francesco Rosi's Salvatore Guiliano and Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence, was one of the few actors fully capable of tackling the role.
Under these circumstances, everyone else's contributions, while perfectly adequate and to type - Fajardo is the villainous Don, Bartha the sheriff etc. - are overshadowed somewhat. Nevertheless, the film is always watchable, with plenty of action and twists in the tale to keep things interesting even when Wolff isn't on screen.
Sunday, 26 October 2008
I Padroni della città / Mr Scarface / Blood and Bullets / Rulers of the City / The Big Boss / Zwei Supertypen räumen auf
Though not quite as accomplished as the “milieu trilogy” of Milan Calibre 9, Manhunt and Murder Inferno, this 1976 entry is nevertheless the kind of poliziotto that confirms Fernando Di Leo’s position as one of the key players in the filone in terms of style and themes alike.
We open with a slow-motion flashback sequence in which Jack Palace’s ‘Mr Scarface’ / Manzini guns down his partner in crime before the man’s son, whom he then punches out after the boy picks up an empty firearm and tries to shoot his father’s assassin.
The opening scene
What’s odd, however, is that the meaning of this traumatic fragment, beyond the basic fact that Manzini is clearly a badass, though not quite so unremittingly evil as to kill a child who might recognise him like Once Upon a Time in the West’s Frank – is that subsequent sequences appear completely unconnected to it.
Most poliziotto directors would have made it clear that the next character we’re introduced to, Tony, played by German actor and frequent Fassbinder collaborator Harry Baer, is the grown up version of the child who in now in search of revenge. Di Leo leaves us wondering and, indeed, thereafter appears to drop this plot thread. It’s not bad moviemaking, more another sign that he was willing to take risks and do things other filone filmmakers wouldn’t.
Is this the same child grown up?
Much the same can be said of his tendency to avoid straightforward identification figures. Baer’s Tony, like Gastone Moschin in Milan Calibre 9 and Mario Adorf in Manhunt, is clearly a more attractive proposition than the rest of the gang he’s with.
Is this Eleonora Fani?
He adheres to the gangster’s code, as also fore-grounded by his old-timer friend, Napoli, whom the others regard as a has-been or never-was and treat with attitudes ranging from disregard to contempt. (“You know you old guys are pretty funny, all that talk about practice. Give me a Honda and I’d make more snatches than you anyday. Works faster these days,” remarks one younger member, whose pocket Napoli then surreptitiously picks to demonstrate the value of his supposedly outmoded practice.)
He’s also a likeable, light hearted kind of guy – a characterisation further at odds with the conventional figure on a vendetta, if he is indeed such – whose goal is less to be padrone of the city than to make some money and retire to Brazil.
Moreover, he’s reluctant to use violence unnecessarily or to excess, despite being more capable in a hand-to-hand fight than anyone else in either gang. (“You’re beginning to tire me. If I have to fight you like this every week for what you pay our friend, one of us might get hurt,” as he says to one reluctant – and armed – debtor he knocks out with his hands and feet alone, leaving no doubt as to who might get hurt next time round.)
Yet, despite all this, there’s nevertheless the sense that, like the protagonists of the spaghetti westerns Di Leo co-authored, Tony’s the hero because he’s the one who wins the fights, rather than the one who wins the fights because he’s the hero. It’s a subtle, but important, distinction.
The relatively complicated plot really gets going as one of Manzini’s gang, Rick, played by Al Cliver, visits the illegal gambling den run by Tony’s boss, Luigi Cherico, played by Edmund Purdom and clearly cast, like Palance, for special guest star type marquee value.
Rick gets thrown out of the place after complaining – rightfully as it turns out – that its games are rigged by the house, but issues the warning that he or his boss will be back. Whilst Manzini makes a visit to the club to restore face, he is also displeased that Rick should have been fooled and expels him from the gang following a punishment beating. (“If you don’t know which table to sit at don’t go gambling. I stepped in because my men don’t get taken, but if a man gets taken for a sucker he can’t be one of mine”)
Joining a card game and claiming to be out of money, Manzini convinces the dealer to let him cash a cheque for three million lire. In the morning it’s discovered that the cheque is no good. After fighting and defeating his rival Peppi, who considers himself Cherico’s rightful number two, Tony rashly announces that he will get the money back from Manzini.
Back home, it is Rick, whom Tony had conveniently found and taken home to recuperate following his beating, who provides the method: The two men hire an actor from a variety hall and he and Tony then visit Manzini’s offices posing as tax inspectors, compelling the absent boss to pay up ten million lire to avoid an official investigation whilst also helping illustrate the world of corruption and collusion in which the 70s poliziotto as a whole is so firmly embedded.
Keeping seven million for themselves, Tony gives Cherico back his three million, expecting him to be pleased. Instead, however, his boss – encouraged by Peppi – is furious, fearful that Tony has just escalated the conflict with Manzini still further. Disgusted at the gang’s all-talk and little action approach, Tony announces that he is going it alone.
As Manzini makes his next move, sending his men to take care of the music hall performer, whose identity they have uncovered, Tony and Rick realise that continuing to play both ends against the middle – to introduce another spaghetti western theme Di Leo would have been familiar with – is going to prove a challenge, even when assisted by Napoli’s and his wise counsel. (“If you want to take this seriously you’ve got to learn. But a lot of these punks today have never passed the third grade – what do they know?”)
One of the numerous fight scenes
While taking some time to get up to full speed, it would be wrong to give the impression that Mr Scarface is all talk and little or no action, with several decently executed fight scenes affording Tony the opportunity to demonstrate his skills and – more importantly – nature even at this stage, not to mention one of those signature Di Leo girl dancing / camera dancing around girl scenes. But unlike Milan Calibre 9’s Barbara Bouchet, she’s strictly there for decoration, with this proving one of the more masculine films out there and, in the process, reminding one of Leone’s Dollars trilogy westerns.
The definitive Di Leo shot?
Much the same can be said of Gisela Hahn’s nightclub singer cum moll, Clara, clearly included as part of the German side of the co-production given the notable absence of any subplot between her and Tony; if we get no sign that Tony prefers men to women, as per one of Peppi’s taunts, romance isn’t a particular interest / weakness of his either.
Purdom and Hahn
Moreover, after the midway point those more interested in action than auteurism should be more than satisfied with the procession of chases and shootouts that ensue, especially when these culminating in a settling of accounts set against the always welcome abandoned slaughterhouse setting in which also we get an exploding car and a the running down of another bad guy by a motorcyclist doing a wheelie.
Note the various carnival posters expressing Tony's desire to go to Brazil
With a good cast featuring plenty of familiar faces amongst the supporting players, like Fulvio Mingozzi as Manzini’s initial victim; well-chosen locations and adroit use of the camera, and an effective score by regular Di Leo composer Luis Enrique Bacalov – albeit one lacking anything matching the brilliance of his outstanding, oft-used Preludio from Milan Calibre 9, but featuring some nice percussion and funky flute work nonetheless – Masters of the City is well worth a look for fans of the Di Leo or the poliziotto as a whole.
We open with a slow-motion flashback sequence in which Jack Palace’s ‘Mr Scarface’ / Manzini guns down his partner in crime before the man’s son, whom he then punches out after the boy picks up an empty firearm and tries to shoot his father’s assassin.
The opening scene
What’s odd, however, is that the meaning of this traumatic fragment, beyond the basic fact that Manzini is clearly a badass, though not quite so unremittingly evil as to kill a child who might recognise him like Once Upon a Time in the West’s Frank – is that subsequent sequences appear completely unconnected to it.
Most poliziotto directors would have made it clear that the next character we’re introduced to, Tony, played by German actor and frequent Fassbinder collaborator Harry Baer, is the grown up version of the child who in now in search of revenge. Di Leo leaves us wondering and, indeed, thereafter appears to drop this plot thread. It’s not bad moviemaking, more another sign that he was willing to take risks and do things other filone filmmakers wouldn’t.
Is this the same child grown up?
Much the same can be said of his tendency to avoid straightforward identification figures. Baer’s Tony, like Gastone Moschin in Milan Calibre 9 and Mario Adorf in Manhunt, is clearly a more attractive proposition than the rest of the gang he’s with.
Is this Eleonora Fani?
He adheres to the gangster’s code, as also fore-grounded by his old-timer friend, Napoli, whom the others regard as a has-been or never-was and treat with attitudes ranging from disregard to contempt. (“You know you old guys are pretty funny, all that talk about practice. Give me a Honda and I’d make more snatches than you anyday. Works faster these days,” remarks one younger member, whose pocket Napoli then surreptitiously picks to demonstrate the value of his supposedly outmoded practice.)
He’s also a likeable, light hearted kind of guy – a characterisation further at odds with the conventional figure on a vendetta, if he is indeed such – whose goal is less to be padrone of the city than to make some money and retire to Brazil.
Moreover, he’s reluctant to use violence unnecessarily or to excess, despite being more capable in a hand-to-hand fight than anyone else in either gang. (“You’re beginning to tire me. If I have to fight you like this every week for what you pay our friend, one of us might get hurt,” as he says to one reluctant – and armed – debtor he knocks out with his hands and feet alone, leaving no doubt as to who might get hurt next time round.)
Yet, despite all this, there’s nevertheless the sense that, like the protagonists of the spaghetti westerns Di Leo co-authored, Tony’s the hero because he’s the one who wins the fights, rather than the one who wins the fights because he’s the hero. It’s a subtle, but important, distinction.
The relatively complicated plot really gets going as one of Manzini’s gang, Rick, played by Al Cliver, visits the illegal gambling den run by Tony’s boss, Luigi Cherico, played by Edmund Purdom and clearly cast, like Palance, for special guest star type marquee value.
Rick gets thrown out of the place after complaining – rightfully as it turns out – that its games are rigged by the house, but issues the warning that he or his boss will be back. Whilst Manzini makes a visit to the club to restore face, he is also displeased that Rick should have been fooled and expels him from the gang following a punishment beating. (“If you don’t know which table to sit at don’t go gambling. I stepped in because my men don’t get taken, but if a man gets taken for a sucker he can’t be one of mine”)
Joining a card game and claiming to be out of money, Manzini convinces the dealer to let him cash a cheque for three million lire. In the morning it’s discovered that the cheque is no good. After fighting and defeating his rival Peppi, who considers himself Cherico’s rightful number two, Tony rashly announces that he will get the money back from Manzini.
Back home, it is Rick, whom Tony had conveniently found and taken home to recuperate following his beating, who provides the method: The two men hire an actor from a variety hall and he and Tony then visit Manzini’s offices posing as tax inspectors, compelling the absent boss to pay up ten million lire to avoid an official investigation whilst also helping illustrate the world of corruption and collusion in which the 70s poliziotto as a whole is so firmly embedded.
Keeping seven million for themselves, Tony gives Cherico back his three million, expecting him to be pleased. Instead, however, his boss – encouraged by Peppi – is furious, fearful that Tony has just escalated the conflict with Manzini still further. Disgusted at the gang’s all-talk and little action approach, Tony announces that he is going it alone.
As Manzini makes his next move, sending his men to take care of the music hall performer, whose identity they have uncovered, Tony and Rick realise that continuing to play both ends against the middle – to introduce another spaghetti western theme Di Leo would have been familiar with – is going to prove a challenge, even when assisted by Napoli’s and his wise counsel. (“If you want to take this seriously you’ve got to learn. But a lot of these punks today have never passed the third grade – what do they know?”)
One of the numerous fight scenes
While taking some time to get up to full speed, it would be wrong to give the impression that Mr Scarface is all talk and little or no action, with several decently executed fight scenes affording Tony the opportunity to demonstrate his skills and – more importantly – nature even at this stage, not to mention one of those signature Di Leo girl dancing / camera dancing around girl scenes. But unlike Milan Calibre 9’s Barbara Bouchet, she’s strictly there for decoration, with this proving one of the more masculine films out there and, in the process, reminding one of Leone’s Dollars trilogy westerns.
The definitive Di Leo shot?
Much the same can be said of Gisela Hahn’s nightclub singer cum moll, Clara, clearly included as part of the German side of the co-production given the notable absence of any subplot between her and Tony; if we get no sign that Tony prefers men to women, as per one of Peppi’s taunts, romance isn’t a particular interest / weakness of his either.
Purdom and Hahn
Moreover, after the midway point those more interested in action than auteurism should be more than satisfied with the procession of chases and shootouts that ensue, especially when these culminating in a settling of accounts set against the always welcome abandoned slaughterhouse setting in which also we get an exploding car and a the running down of another bad guy by a motorcyclist doing a wheelie.
Note the various carnival posters expressing Tony's desire to go to Brazil
With a good cast featuring plenty of familiar faces amongst the supporting players, like Fulvio Mingozzi as Manzini’s initial victim; well-chosen locations and adroit use of the camera, and an effective score by regular Di Leo composer Luis Enrique Bacalov – albeit one lacking anything matching the brilliance of his outstanding, oft-used Preludio from Milan Calibre 9, but featuring some nice percussion and funky flute work nonetheless – Masters of the City is well worth a look for fans of the Di Leo or the poliziotto as a whole.
Friday, 6 June 2008
Vivi o, preferibilmente, morti / Alive or Preferably Dead / Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid
This Duccio Tessari western reunites the director with his Ringo star Giuliano Gemma to intermittently amusing if ultimately decidedly less noteworthy than these and their other collaborations together.
Gemma plays city slicker Monty Mulligan (his forename presumably a reference to Gemma's frequent Anglophone billing as Montgomery Wood) whose financial worries may be over if he can find his brother Ted, played by Nino Benvenuti, out west and get him to agree to their spending six months together in order to fulfil the criteria of their uncle's will and collect $300,000.
The first obstacle is that there's no love lost between the two brothers with their very different lifestyles and attitudes. The second through umpteenth come via a series of episodic adventures with outlaw Jim and his gang and some bumbling attempts at criminality by the brothers themselves, most notably when they kidnap banker's daughter Scarlett only to discover that he's quite glad to be rid of her and is in no hurry to pay the ransom. (Cue invitable “I don't give a damn” punchline.)
Thought distributed in the US under the title Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid and the more defensive please don't sue us tagline of “Don't confuse them with the other two,” one suspects that the more immediate model for the film and reference point for “the other two” were Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, with the brothers relationship and their slapstick antics more remiscent of the Italian than Hollywood caper western.
This is most apparent in the resolution of the bankers daughter subplot: whereas in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the broadly comparable Katherine Ross character is there to attempt to refute the homosexual or homosocial hints that the two men might be something other than conventional red-blooded heterosexuals (how successfully it does so being another matter, in that the selfsame need to make a point of demonstrating their heterosexuality and masculinity also inevitably raises these other spectres) here we get a more juvenile, non-sexual, fraternal resolution to the whole scenario that seems to suggest that boys will be boys but little more. (Unless, of course, one wants to read the film as some sort of paean to homosexual incest.)
The film's main asset beyond Gemma's irrepressible charm, and the sense that no-one – including Tessari or such reliable supporting players as George Rigaud, who plays the wily old banker; Cris Huerta, as comic book sadist bandit; and Sydne Rome, as Scarlett – is taking things all that seriously anyway, is the operatic (well, horse opera) chorus provided by Italian country and western duo John and Wayne, whose yee-ha ballads provide an amusing commentary on the action throughout and a nice counterpoint to Gianni Ferrio's more conventional themes. (John and Wayne are also featured in the Frank Wolff narrated documentary / promo on the Italian western that was included as one of the extras in the old Blue Underground Spaghetti Western Box Set; they were a real duo of Italian country and western fans, not just an invention of this film.)
Gemma plays city slicker Monty Mulligan (his forename presumably a reference to Gemma's frequent Anglophone billing as Montgomery Wood) whose financial worries may be over if he can find his brother Ted, played by Nino Benvenuti, out west and get him to agree to their spending six months together in order to fulfil the criteria of their uncle's will and collect $300,000.
The first obstacle is that there's no love lost between the two brothers with their very different lifestyles and attitudes. The second through umpteenth come via a series of episodic adventures with outlaw Jim and his gang and some bumbling attempts at criminality by the brothers themselves, most notably when they kidnap banker's daughter Scarlett only to discover that he's quite glad to be rid of her and is in no hurry to pay the ransom. (Cue invitable “I don't give a damn” punchline.)
Thought distributed in the US under the title Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid and the more defensive please don't sue us tagline of “Don't confuse them with the other two,” one suspects that the more immediate model for the film and reference point for “the other two” were Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, with the brothers relationship and their slapstick antics more remiscent of the Italian than Hollywood caper western.
This is most apparent in the resolution of the bankers daughter subplot: whereas in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the broadly comparable Katherine Ross character is there to attempt to refute the homosexual or homosocial hints that the two men might be something other than conventional red-blooded heterosexuals (how successfully it does so being another matter, in that the selfsame need to make a point of demonstrating their heterosexuality and masculinity also inevitably raises these other spectres) here we get a more juvenile, non-sexual, fraternal resolution to the whole scenario that seems to suggest that boys will be boys but little more. (Unless, of course, one wants to read the film as some sort of paean to homosexual incest.)
The film's main asset beyond Gemma's irrepressible charm, and the sense that no-one – including Tessari or such reliable supporting players as George Rigaud, who plays the wily old banker; Cris Huerta, as comic book sadist bandit; and Sydne Rome, as Scarlett – is taking things all that seriously anyway, is the operatic (well, horse opera) chorus provided by Italian country and western duo John and Wayne, whose yee-ha ballads provide an amusing commentary on the action throughout and a nice counterpoint to Gianni Ferrio's more conventional themes. (John and Wayne are also featured in the Frank Wolff narrated documentary / promo on the Italian western that was included as one of the extras in the old Blue Underground Spaghetti Western Box Set; they were a real duo of Italian country and western fans, not just an invention of this film.)
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
Gli Uomini dal passo pesante / The Tramplers
The casual viewer can be forgiven for confusing this 1965 spaghetti western from hypenate writer-producer-director Albert Band with Sergio Corbucci's 1966 entry The Hellbenders, also produced and co-authored by Band.
Both films see Joseph Cotten playing much the same character, the southern patriarch who refuses to accept that the war is over and that things are changing, spurring a familial and generational conflict that pits father against son and brother against brother.
The chief differences are that here Cotten's character is less interested in making the south rise again as in re-establishing his iron rule over his own little community and that the lines of conflict are quicker to be drawn.
The story starts with the men of the Cordeen clan returning to the Texas town, El Crossing, that Temple Cordeen (Cotten) had built up, along with his cattle business, from nothing.
Their first act is to take advantage of a legal technicality to lynch Fred Wickett for having spread abolitionist messages at a time when it was illegal to do so, thereby sending a strong message to northerners, ex-slaves and other 'undesirables' that their presence is not welcome here. “Cordeen's waiting for them all and he's not running out of rope,” as the sheriff, powerless to do anything, later explains.
One of the family, Lon Cordeen (Gordon Scott), is late to the necktie party and proves to take a dim view of the rest of his clan's activities, even attempting to express his regrets to Wickett's daughter Edith, who has resolved to have Temple brought to justice for his actions: “I'll build me a scaffold with the help of the law. The real law.” But when Edith learns of Lon's parentage she rebuffs him. (“That's my family, not me,” you can almost imagine Lon saying.)
The battle lines are confirmed when Temple then sends Lon and another of his sons, Hoby (James Mitchum), to convince Charlie Garvey (Franco Nero, billed as Frank Nero) that he should not marry their sister, Bess, and ought to leave the territory and his new ranch for the good of his health.
Temple's plan that this will effect Lon's return to the fold backfires however when he sides with the good-natured Garvey and convinces Hoby to go along with him.Worse, Garvey also brings his new brothers-in-law in on a lucrative cattle driving scheme that puts them in competition with Temple for control of the town and its future...
Unfolding almost like an Elizabethan or Greek Tragedy at times, The Tramplers is a curious example of its type that blends the traditional generic material of fist fights, gun fights and so forth with a rare degree of dramatic weight and rounded characterisations that give the players plenty to work with.
Though Cotten probably takes the acting honours, he is pushed every inch of the way by the other leads, most notably James Mitchum's Hoby, who returns from his mission to track down an elusive drover minus an arm and with a whole load of new psychological hang-ups. Nero's role is a small, straightforward one.
While the pan and scan presentation doesn't help, Band's direction is unfortunately more routine, with the budgetary limitations show through in the presentation of the cattle drive via stock footage accredited to Bovril Argentina (!)
Angelo Francisco Lavagnino's score is effective, though again somewhat more generic than it might be.
Both films see Joseph Cotten playing much the same character, the southern patriarch who refuses to accept that the war is over and that things are changing, spurring a familial and generational conflict that pits father against son and brother against brother.
The chief differences are that here Cotten's character is less interested in making the south rise again as in re-establishing his iron rule over his own little community and that the lines of conflict are quicker to be drawn.
The story starts with the men of the Cordeen clan returning to the Texas town, El Crossing, that Temple Cordeen (Cotten) had built up, along with his cattle business, from nothing.
Their first act is to take advantage of a legal technicality to lynch Fred Wickett for having spread abolitionist messages at a time when it was illegal to do so, thereby sending a strong message to northerners, ex-slaves and other 'undesirables' that their presence is not welcome here. “Cordeen's waiting for them all and he's not running out of rope,” as the sheriff, powerless to do anything, later explains.
One of the family, Lon Cordeen (Gordon Scott), is late to the necktie party and proves to take a dim view of the rest of his clan's activities, even attempting to express his regrets to Wickett's daughter Edith, who has resolved to have Temple brought to justice for his actions: “I'll build me a scaffold with the help of the law. The real law.” But when Edith learns of Lon's parentage she rebuffs him. (“That's my family, not me,” you can almost imagine Lon saying.)
The battle lines are confirmed when Temple then sends Lon and another of his sons, Hoby (James Mitchum), to convince Charlie Garvey (Franco Nero, billed as Frank Nero) that he should not marry their sister, Bess, and ought to leave the territory and his new ranch for the good of his health.
Temple's plan that this will effect Lon's return to the fold backfires however when he sides with the good-natured Garvey and convinces Hoby to go along with him.Worse, Garvey also brings his new brothers-in-law in on a lucrative cattle driving scheme that puts them in competition with Temple for control of the town and its future...
Unfolding almost like an Elizabethan or Greek Tragedy at times, The Tramplers is a curious example of its type that blends the traditional generic material of fist fights, gun fights and so forth with a rare degree of dramatic weight and rounded characterisations that give the players plenty to work with.
Though Cotten probably takes the acting honours, he is pushed every inch of the way by the other leads, most notably James Mitchum's Hoby, who returns from his mission to track down an elusive drover minus an arm and with a whole load of new psychological hang-ups. Nero's role is a small, straightforward one.
While the pan and scan presentation doesn't help, Band's direction is unfortunately more routine, with the budgetary limitations show through in the presentation of the cattle drive via stock footage accredited to Bovril Argentina (!)
Angelo Francisco Lavagnino's score is effective, though again somewhat more generic than it might be.
Monday, 2 June 2008
Il 13º è sempre Giuda / The Last Traitor / The 13th is Always a Judas
Following the Civil War, retired gunman Ned (Donal O'Brien) invites twelve of his closest friends to a ranch on the Mexican border to outline his plans for their future. He is going to marry Marybelle and thus inherit an old silver mine once belonging to her father, Old Man Owens, which they will the work together, putting their pasts and differences, including fighting for different sides, behind them:
“Bellman: he has a nasty little habit of letting his hands get into the collection boxes. I don't want to know about it.”
“The Ross brothers: they have $2,000 price tags on their heads. I can't recall, I got a lousy memory.”
And so on.
The plan soon goes awry when the stagecoach arrives with all on board, including Marybelle, dead.
Worse, the other passengers are soon revealed as undercover government agents, whose deaths are sure to soon bring further unwanted attention.
Ned professes not to care about this, however, only wanting revenge against Marybelle's killer or killers, whom he suspects to be amongst the assembled party.
The most likely suspect is cardsharp Tim (Maurice Poli) who arrived late and makes a hasty exit, along with Joe the Mexican, soon thereafter.
But is everything as straightforward as it seems? What if, for example, Tim is a Judas goat?
Directed by Guiseppe Vari under his Joseph Warren pseudonym, The 13th is a Judas is an intriguing spaghetti western with a pronounced mystery element to it. Though relatively short on action, it benefits from strong central performances from O'Brien and Poli that keep you guessing as to their motives; a rousing yet tense score from Carlo Savina; a well-crafted story from writer Adriano Bolzoni, and some reasonaby clever incorporation of Christian religious references into the material, like the arrangement of the 13 men at the wedding table a la the last supper or Ned's reminding his bickering friends that the Reverend Bellman has prepared a sermon for a wedding, not a funeral.
Trivia buffs may care to note that Ted Rusoff has a credit for additional dialogue, while it sounds like Carolyn De Fonseca provides the voice for one of the Mexican women.
“Bellman: he has a nasty little habit of letting his hands get into the collection boxes. I don't want to know about it.”
“The Ross brothers: they have $2,000 price tags on their heads. I can't recall, I got a lousy memory.”
And so on.
The plan soon goes awry when the stagecoach arrives with all on board, including Marybelle, dead.
Worse, the other passengers are soon revealed as undercover government agents, whose deaths are sure to soon bring further unwanted attention.
Ned professes not to care about this, however, only wanting revenge against Marybelle's killer or killers, whom he suspects to be amongst the assembled party.
The most likely suspect is cardsharp Tim (Maurice Poli) who arrived late and makes a hasty exit, along with Joe the Mexican, soon thereafter.
But is everything as straightforward as it seems? What if, for example, Tim is a Judas goat?
Directed by Guiseppe Vari under his Joseph Warren pseudonym, The 13th is a Judas is an intriguing spaghetti western with a pronounced mystery element to it. Though relatively short on action, it benefits from strong central performances from O'Brien and Poli that keep you guessing as to their motives; a rousing yet tense score from Carlo Savina; a well-crafted story from writer Adriano Bolzoni, and some reasonaby clever incorporation of Christian religious references into the material, like the arrangement of the 13 men at the wedding table a la the last supper or Ned's reminding his bickering friends that the Reverend Bellman has prepared a sermon for a wedding, not a funeral.
Trivia buffs may care to note that Ted Rusoff has a credit for additional dialogue, while it sounds like Carolyn De Fonseca provides the voice for one of the Mexican women.
Saturday, 31 May 2008
Red Blood Yellow Gold / Professionals for a Massacre
Having just been caught by Captain Richardson (Milo Quesada) and his men selling Confederate arms to the Union, three outlaws, Frank the Preacher (George Hilton), Ramirez the Mexican (George Martin) and Chatanooga Jim (Edd Byrnes) are court martialled and sentenced to death.
One and two halves of the three
Two and a half of the three...
Finally all three in the one shot, apparently about to be shot
Things get more complicated when you add a fourth...
After Frank asks the Lord for a small sign of grace that will stay their execution, the trio receive it from an unexpected source in the form of Sibley's hitherto trustworthy right-hand man Major Lloyd (Gerard Herter) who makes off with a gatling gun and a consignment of Union gold earmarked for buying much needed munitions for the Confederacy.
Reasoning that it takes a thief to catch a thief, General Sibley offers Frank, Ramirez and Jim a full pardon if they can recover the gold and bring in Lloyd, dead or alive. Reasoning that they can't be trusted, Sibley also sends Richardson along with them. He also has his own motive in that Lloyd had accused him of being a union spy.
The four men soon pick up the trail of Lloyd and his men by dint of a characteristic piece of spaghetti western logic. Finding tracks going off in four directions, they split up and take one route each. Three provide evidence of their quarry's passage – bullets, a stirrup and a saddle. The fourth produces no such traces and, as such, is clearly the way to go.
Things become a bit more complicated when, after various incidents, a Mexican bandit clan headed by a wizened old matriarch whose sons all seem to be called after their birth order take the gold off Lloyd and his men...
Red Blood Yellow Gold / Professionals for a Massacre is one of those films which illustrates the distinction between those that work for the critic and those that work for their intended audiences.
Viewed from the mainstream critic's perspective Red Blood, Yellow Gold must seem fairly derivative stuff, with a confusing narrative; stereotypical characters like the sadistic, grotesque Mexican and the honourable “Old South” Confederate, and generally lacklustre direction that springs to life only during the action scenes, the old standbies of brawls, chases and shoot themselves being in lieu of anything more demanding of filmmaker or spectator alike.
Yet, viewed from the perspective of the film's likely audience – so far as I can presume to assume it, of course, given cultural and temporal distance – it is precisely these same features that make the film work.
The confusing narrative and stereotypical characters come to emerge as a comment on the notions of campanellisimo and amoral familism referred to by Christopher Frayling, that one's only loyalties are to family, friends and so on rather than to any wider notions such as nation and class, and that anyone who believes or acts otherwise is a gullible fool whose lack of guile is to be exploited. In these terms, alliances are temporary and strategic and no-one outside the group can be trusted except for to betray or change allegiances when it suits their purposes, it's not something personal, just following of the codes of professional, business and social life.
The action sequences emerge as variant of the “electrocardiogram” model of the audience discussed by Christopher Wagstaff, of giving the terza visione spectator some thrills or other pay off every few minutes to attract his attention away from the social space of the theatre and back to the screen. In such terms it could also be argued that the confused narrative doesn't really matter insofar as this audience weren't necessarily following it and, to the extent that they were, probably had a better intuitive understanding of what was going to happen next and why than the outsider.
The distinction between the good and bad guys can also be drawn in these terms. If the good guys aren't really good by the standards of the American western, they are loyal to one another, have an infectious sense of fun, and don't indulge in quite the same kind of indiscriminate lethal violence as their enemies, who massacre a family of civilians merely to take their clothes. (A further irony sees the sole survivor of the massacre, who was absent at the time, believe that our heroes were responsible for it, leading her to alert the real perpetrators to an ambush.)
The film is on DVD from Wild East; I suspect that it looks a lot better than the old video sourced copy I viewed here, which was panned and scanned and suffers, as the screenshots indicate, from a tendency not to be able to fit everyone in on screen.
One and two halves of the three
Two and a half of the three...
Finally all three in the one shot, apparently about to be shot
Things get more complicated when you add a fourth...
After Frank asks the Lord for a small sign of grace that will stay their execution, the trio receive it from an unexpected source in the form of Sibley's hitherto trustworthy right-hand man Major Lloyd (Gerard Herter) who makes off with a gatling gun and a consignment of Union gold earmarked for buying much needed munitions for the Confederacy.
Reasoning that it takes a thief to catch a thief, General Sibley offers Frank, Ramirez and Jim a full pardon if they can recover the gold and bring in Lloyd, dead or alive. Reasoning that they can't be trusted, Sibley also sends Richardson along with them. He also has his own motive in that Lloyd had accused him of being a union spy.
The four men soon pick up the trail of Lloyd and his men by dint of a characteristic piece of spaghetti western logic. Finding tracks going off in four directions, they split up and take one route each. Three provide evidence of their quarry's passage – bullets, a stirrup and a saddle. The fourth produces no such traces and, as such, is clearly the way to go.
Things become a bit more complicated when, after various incidents, a Mexican bandit clan headed by a wizened old matriarch whose sons all seem to be called after their birth order take the gold off Lloyd and his men...
Red Blood Yellow Gold / Professionals for a Massacre is one of those films which illustrates the distinction between those that work for the critic and those that work for their intended audiences.
Viewed from the mainstream critic's perspective Red Blood, Yellow Gold must seem fairly derivative stuff, with a confusing narrative; stereotypical characters like the sadistic, grotesque Mexican and the honourable “Old South” Confederate, and generally lacklustre direction that springs to life only during the action scenes, the old standbies of brawls, chases and shoot themselves being in lieu of anything more demanding of filmmaker or spectator alike.
Yet, viewed from the perspective of the film's likely audience – so far as I can presume to assume it, of course, given cultural and temporal distance – it is precisely these same features that make the film work.
The confusing narrative and stereotypical characters come to emerge as a comment on the notions of campanellisimo and amoral familism referred to by Christopher Frayling, that one's only loyalties are to family, friends and so on rather than to any wider notions such as nation and class, and that anyone who believes or acts otherwise is a gullible fool whose lack of guile is to be exploited. In these terms, alliances are temporary and strategic and no-one outside the group can be trusted except for to betray or change allegiances when it suits their purposes, it's not something personal, just following of the codes of professional, business and social life.
The action sequences emerge as variant of the “electrocardiogram” model of the audience discussed by Christopher Wagstaff, of giving the terza visione spectator some thrills or other pay off every few minutes to attract his attention away from the social space of the theatre and back to the screen. In such terms it could also be argued that the confused narrative doesn't really matter insofar as this audience weren't necessarily following it and, to the extent that they were, probably had a better intuitive understanding of what was going to happen next and why than the outsider.
The distinction between the good and bad guys can also be drawn in these terms. If the good guys aren't really good by the standards of the American western, they are loyal to one another, have an infectious sense of fun, and don't indulge in quite the same kind of indiscriminate lethal violence as their enemies, who massacre a family of civilians merely to take their clothes. (A further irony sees the sole survivor of the massacre, who was absent at the time, believe that our heroes were responsible for it, leading her to alert the real perpetrators to an ambush.)
The film is on DVD from Wild East; I suspect that it looks a lot better than the old video sourced copy I viewed here, which was panned and scanned and suffers, as the screenshots indicate, from a tendency not to be able to fit everyone in on screen.
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Ammazzali tutti e torna solo / Go Kill Everybody and Come Back Alone
We open with a long essentially dialogue free pre-credits sequence in which six “bandits, killers and thieves” infiltrate a Confederate stronghold using a combination of stealth, strength, skill, acrobatics and technological gimmicks, most notably a kind of dynamite firing gun.
It perhaps plays a bit more like a Gianfranco Parolini / Frank Kramer sequence than an Enzo Castellari one, but otherwise very much sets the scene for what is to follow: lots of action and comparatively little talk; adept utilisation of the widescreen Techniscope frame, with some beautiful foreground / background compositions and uses of the arid Spanish landscapes; a rousing Francesco De Masi score and, above all, a strongly masculine world.
Indeed, throughout the film's 90 odd minute running time we see absolutely no female faces whatsoever, never mind any stock types let alone rounded characters.
Rather, as the closing theme states, the thing that “all men desire” is GOLD
The six:
Clyde MacKay, the group's spokesman, de facto leader and brains.
Deker, “the smart one,” “who can do anything with dynamite – anything unpleasant, that is”
Bogard, “strong enough to break a man in two with his bare hands” and “the kind that doesn't need much of a reason” to do so.
Blade, a half-indian, half-Mexican knife specialist who “likes to cut – people mainly”.
Hoagy, “a strange boy – light fingered, especially with a gun. He'll kill if he has to but then he's sorry afterwards”
Kid, who “moves like a monkey” and has “one virtue – he's a pure killer”
Their mission, accepted by Clyde: to penetrate a Union stronghold and steal one million dollars in gold which is intended for use in purchasing armaments. The treasure is located in a munitions store, intermixed with explosives – one spark or stray bullet and the whole lot will be blown sky-high.
It maybe doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you think about it too much, especially when a first complicating factor, from which the film takes its title, is revealed to Clyde alone: to dispose of any survivors amongst his team, should there be any, and make sure he's the only one who returns.
Why exactly? Why don't the confederates wan't the gold for themselves?
It also gets still more improbable when the team is unexpectedly joined by a would-be seventh member in the form of Lynch, the apparently loyal Confederate counter-espionage agent who first discovered the Union's scene and the location of the gold.
Lynch; note that he is the only one of the three characters to be framed in the mirror
Still, how many other spaghetti westerns featured similarly unstable identities and shifting allegiances and required similar leaps of faith to accept their (il)logics at times?
For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for two, the latter connection further cemented by the importance of a prisoner-of-war camp to the latter part of the proceedings, not to mention Castellari and writer Tito Carpi's other, obvious Leone tribute, Vado... l'ammazzo e torno – i.e. Go Kill and Come Back – with its Stranger, Mexican bandito and three-way corrida finale.
The most obvious difference between the two treasure hunts lies in their cast. Whereas Go Kill and Come Back features three actors and as such relegates its stuntmen to lesser roles, the balance here shifts somewhat towards the latter group, with Ken Wood / Gianfrano Cianfriglia (the subject of a lengthy and informative interview on the Wild East DVD) and Ottaviano Dell'Acqua playing Blade and the Kid respectively. The acting contingent is headed by the perpetually grinning Chuck Connors, the always impressive Frank Wolff and Franco Citti, whose kill and pray role might be an in-jokish reference to frequent collaborator Pier Paolo Pasolini's casting as a radical priest in Requiescant.
Some examples of Castellari's striking compositions, lensed by the reliable Alejando Ulloa
Though Castellari hadn't at this stage in his career quite developed the full expressive vocabulary he would later employ to such great effect on the likes of Keoma, with more zoom and less slow-motion, his grasp of cinema is nevertheless remarkably assured for someone who was barely 30 at the time.
Well worth a look.
It perhaps plays a bit more like a Gianfranco Parolini / Frank Kramer sequence than an Enzo Castellari one, but otherwise very much sets the scene for what is to follow: lots of action and comparatively little talk; adept utilisation of the widescreen Techniscope frame, with some beautiful foreground / background compositions and uses of the arid Spanish landscapes; a rousing Francesco De Masi score and, above all, a strongly masculine world.
Indeed, throughout the film's 90 odd minute running time we see absolutely no female faces whatsoever, never mind any stock types let alone rounded characters.
Rather, as the closing theme states, the thing that “all men desire” is GOLD
The six:
Clyde MacKay, the group's spokesman, de facto leader and brains.
Deker, “the smart one,” “who can do anything with dynamite – anything unpleasant, that is”
Bogard, “strong enough to break a man in two with his bare hands” and “the kind that doesn't need much of a reason” to do so.
Blade, a half-indian, half-Mexican knife specialist who “likes to cut – people mainly”.
Hoagy, “a strange boy – light fingered, especially with a gun. He'll kill if he has to but then he's sorry afterwards”
Kid, who “moves like a monkey” and has “one virtue – he's a pure killer”
Their mission, accepted by Clyde: to penetrate a Union stronghold and steal one million dollars in gold which is intended for use in purchasing armaments. The treasure is located in a munitions store, intermixed with explosives – one spark or stray bullet and the whole lot will be blown sky-high.
It maybe doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you think about it too much, especially when a first complicating factor, from which the film takes its title, is revealed to Clyde alone: to dispose of any survivors amongst his team, should there be any, and make sure he's the only one who returns.
Why exactly? Why don't the confederates wan't the gold for themselves?
It also gets still more improbable when the team is unexpectedly joined by a would-be seventh member in the form of Lynch, the apparently loyal Confederate counter-espionage agent who first discovered the Union's scene and the location of the gold.
Lynch; note that he is the only one of the three characters to be framed in the mirror
Still, how many other spaghetti westerns featured similarly unstable identities and shifting allegiances and required similar leaps of faith to accept their (il)logics at times?
For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for two, the latter connection further cemented by the importance of a prisoner-of-war camp to the latter part of the proceedings, not to mention Castellari and writer Tito Carpi's other, obvious Leone tribute, Vado... l'ammazzo e torno – i.e. Go Kill and Come Back – with its Stranger, Mexican bandito and three-way corrida finale.
The most obvious difference between the two treasure hunts lies in their cast. Whereas Go Kill and Come Back features three actors and as such relegates its stuntmen to lesser roles, the balance here shifts somewhat towards the latter group, with Ken Wood / Gianfrano Cianfriglia (the subject of a lengthy and informative interview on the Wild East DVD) and Ottaviano Dell'Acqua playing Blade and the Kid respectively. The acting contingent is headed by the perpetually grinning Chuck Connors, the always impressive Frank Wolff and Franco Citti, whose kill and pray role might be an in-jokish reference to frequent collaborator Pier Paolo Pasolini's casting as a radical priest in Requiescant.
Some examples of Castellari's striking compositions, lensed by the reliable Alejando Ulloa
Though Castellari hadn't at this stage in his career quite developed the full expressive vocabulary he would later employ to such great effect on the likes of Keoma, with more zoom and less slow-motion, his grasp of cinema is nevertheless remarkably assured for someone who was barely 30 at the time.
Well worth a look.
Monday, 19 May 2008
Ed ora... raccomanda l'anima a Dio! / And Now... make your peace with God!
This was my first exposure to Demofilo Fidani's western work and on this showing it may well be the last.
The first clue to what we're in for is in the credits. Rather than being produced with one eye on undemanding third world audiences – as distinct from undemanding southern Italian audiences – the film is actually an Italian-Iranian co-production. Co-star Mohamad Ali Fardin was a popular Iranian actor of the time (he subsequently became persona non grata after the 1979 revolution).
The net consequence is a disarming naïvete to the proceedings, whereby everything plays out exactly as you would expect it to, plot point by plot point, with shoot outs and brawls at regular intervals to prevent the target audiences from getting bored.
The story starts with Sanders (Jeff Cameron) and Steven Cooper (Fabio Testi) among those boarding the stage (“Thomy's Western Express”) for Denver City. En route it is held up by bandits, allowing Stanley (Fardin) to make a decisive intervention and Sanders and Cooper to demonstrate their own prowess with their six-shooters. They bond and swap backstories: Sanders is going to Denver to find the man who stole his gold, Cooper those who killed his family. On arrival, they find the town in the midst of an election, with town boss and mayor-to-be Corbett (Amerigo Leoni / Custer Gail!) and his heavy Johnson (Calilsto Calisti / Anthony Stewens) the men they are after...
The predictability of it all wouldn't matter if Fidani had more than a rudimentary grasp of character, pacing, storytelling or direction. But he doesn't, or at least not at this point in his short, if prolific, directorial career.
With this being his second western, I suspect the best strategy for anyone wanting to investigate the remainder may be to watch his first, 1967's Straniero... fatto il segno della croce! (Stranger... Make the Sign of the Cross!; Fidani clearly liked religious references in his titles, even if this one probably didn't work too well for the Iranian market), and last, 1973's Amico mio, frega tu... che frego io! (Anything for a Friend) and see if there's any improvement discernible between them.
The first clue to what we're in for is in the credits. Rather than being produced with one eye on undemanding third world audiences – as distinct from undemanding southern Italian audiences – the film is actually an Italian-Iranian co-production. Co-star Mohamad Ali Fardin was a popular Iranian actor of the time (he subsequently became persona non grata after the 1979 revolution).
The net consequence is a disarming naïvete to the proceedings, whereby everything plays out exactly as you would expect it to, plot point by plot point, with shoot outs and brawls at regular intervals to prevent the target audiences from getting bored.
The story starts with Sanders (Jeff Cameron) and Steven Cooper (Fabio Testi) among those boarding the stage (“Thomy's Western Express”) for Denver City. En route it is held up by bandits, allowing Stanley (Fardin) to make a decisive intervention and Sanders and Cooper to demonstrate their own prowess with their six-shooters. They bond and swap backstories: Sanders is going to Denver to find the man who stole his gold, Cooper those who killed his family. On arrival, they find the town in the midst of an election, with town boss and mayor-to-be Corbett (Amerigo Leoni / Custer Gail!) and his heavy Johnson (Calilsto Calisti / Anthony Stewens) the men they are after...
The predictability of it all wouldn't matter if Fidani had more than a rudimentary grasp of character, pacing, storytelling or direction. But he doesn't, or at least not at this point in his short, if prolific, directorial career.
With this being his second western, I suspect the best strategy for anyone wanting to investigate the remainder may be to watch his first, 1967's Straniero... fatto il segno della croce! (Stranger... Make the Sign of the Cross!; Fidani clearly liked religious references in his titles, even if this one probably didn't work too well for the Iranian market), and last, 1973's Amico mio, frega tu... che frego io! (Anything for a Friend) and see if there's any improvement discernible between them.
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