I’ll be honest, I think this film has some excellent elements, and it should hold a place in the Alternate Top 20, but I still have some gripes with it. I hope nobody minds that I just offload some of my thoughts here.
Spoilers
I respect Alessondroni very much, but I don’t think the theme music is appropriate, the theme seems more fitting for a more light hearted venture, but El Puro has some deep introspection on violence and addiction, and main theme in my opinion doesn’t help reflect that. Maybe it was to help disguise the ending? It doesn’t seem likely after the theme plays again at the end. That happy little romp seems almost like an insult to me, especially with how sudden and upsetting El Puro’s death is.
On the subject of the ending, does anybody else feel that the ending was a little rushed? Or added in as an after thought? After watching it a few times it just feels wrong the way it was handled, with El Puro just falling off his horse and sticking his face in the sand. The death of a main character is something I personally feel that should be handled with a little more time and care, especially after investing the entire movie into him.
Even though I stated I wasn’t a fan of the main theme, I still enjoy it in it’s own right. In fact the entire soundtrack is wonderful, especially when El Puro discovers Rosie dead. Those strings just accentuate the mood so much and make it all the more gut wrenching! It’s a shame that Nazionalmusic doesn’t care to release their music! It would be nice if Beat or Claudio Fuiano could access their archives for goodness sakes!
As much as we know about El puro it seems likely that the film was cut before the release, that El puro maybe was even more unconventional as it already is, but I have no problems with the ending as it is, and works very well for me.
As already stated I’m a fan of this film but I think it has some problems too. I think it’s budget holds it back from being the drama it’s trying to be, and I’m not keen on the way Brega doesn’t even try and shoot Puro in the final duel, if he’d actually shot at him it’d have been a much better scene. Apart from that though there’s little to complain about with this one, and I love the ending even if it is a bit sudden, I nearly jumped the first time I watched it. Besides we don’t know for certain he definetely dies, even Wood’s has said that, and the ambiguity because of the quick ending makes it more powerful.
As you may recall a copy must necessarily be kept in the Cineteca Nazionale: so, also in view of the fact that there were no censorship cuts, to recover the original version should be not as hard as one might think.
In my opinion there is no doubt about that, Bill.
Maybe you saw this version of the ending?
The much shorter original Spanish version, also available on YouTube, includes a rather interesting alternate opening credits sequence.
I don’t mean these differences between the longer and the shorter version, I think it is possible that there was much more unusual stuff which never was in any version, or that they already made big compromises before shooting started.
Maybe, maybe not … but for that film here it is possible. All this Zen Stuff mentioned in the interviews.
No I have the longer version where we see him fall to the ground at the end, and while I do think he dies it doesn’t seem concrete to me. Then I saw Woods say something to the effect of “we see him hit the ground but we don’t know if he lives or dies” and it got me wondering what really happened.
Definitely some budget issues here, though I think in a way it kind of helps the film focus more on the characters rather than our attention getting grabbed by all sorts of fancy set pieces and effects. Though I just wish that this film maybe had a little more money… just to have hired a better cinematographer and some nicer locations. I think an artist like Enzo Barboni or Stelvio Massi would have added a little more pizzazz into the film, as the visual style is lacking here, and I think it would have added something more to the film.
Well, I’m glad you both like the ending, I personally just find it a bit janky. It really seems to have been cut or something, because the suddeness just doesn’t really make sense to me, especially with the film not being in any hurry for the other hour and thirty minutes. The possibility of it being cut makes sense to me, especially with how violent and sadistic the rest of the movie could be, perhaps in the “unaltered” ending we could have been treated to our hero being pumped full of lead like in A Minute to Pray a Second to Die.
Also the ambiguity theory doesn’t make sense to me. Why allow us to question his state of being unless there’s more to El Puro’s story? It’s a little confusing.
Maybe a collaboration with Alessandroni… It’s not easy to find an explanation, also because the orchestra was conducted by a third composer also named Gianfranco!
For me it works brilliantly that way; if he lives he had his re-birth, and if he dies (which is more likely) he’d have been at some kind of peace because he didn’t “exactly love life”. Either way for me it’s a good ending.
Saw this once before, but now I am not bothered with college and able to get back into watching two or three films a week. Again, a cult action release, some lines in English and a few ( here and there) that aren’t. The picture quality is certainly below average and the audio quality well it’s ok, but not anything special. I only have one other film from cult action (Long Days of Vengeance) and it too suffers from bad picture quality, though El Puro’s is a bit worse. The ending was a bit confusing and not the way I would have it ended it, and the scene where El Puro is released from Jail, I thought didn’t fit the film that well. Speaking of kids in westerns, “the kid” in this is a bit annoying. All in all this should please most spaghetti fans, and certainly features one of the genre’s craziest villains (Gypsy). An improved picture quality, a tad upgrade to the audio and I could give this film a lot better grading. I couldn’t understand who specs was shooting at ( the final scene) maybe because it was the picture quality, but it certainly didn’t look like El Puro. With its flaws, it’s still an A- B+ for me.
Which version did you watch? Because it is indeed El Puro that is shot, though in some versions it cuts out a close up of El Puro falling off his horse and into the sand after he’s killed.
Thanks, I figured it was. It was from cult action. The scene ( of el puro falling of his horse) is not cut out, but I didn’t remember seeeing it. ( this is only my second viewing). The last scene I remember the first time I saw the film is El Puro sitting in a rocking chair. it didn’t look much like El Puro but that’s because the picture quality Is a bit poor. I was almost certain it was as I couldn’t imagine specs shooting at anyone else.
It’s a really quick scene so I don’t blame you for not remembering it, and I’ve gripped before about how the film just glosses over El Puro’s death. It doesn’t help that the film quality looks they took a bargain bin vhs tape, let it sit in a tank of cow piss and then ran the entire thing over sandpaper.
Both the French Gladiateur Films release and the Rarelust download have slightly better picture quality. But they are of course both cut (86 and 94 minutes), and they both (regretfully) lacks the two first minutes of the film.
