A Man Called Blade / Mannaja (Sergio Martino, 1977)

(tries to impersonate Leonard Cohen being throttled in a cellar)

"YOOOU…

…A LOOOOOONE…

…AND SOOOOOO…

…LITAAAAAAAAAARY MAN!!"

Fuckawful song aside: What a cracking film! Part Spag, part horror, good story, some great scenery-chewing performances from leads Maurizio Merli and John Steiner… had a decidedly different look to the more typical spags but contained everything you need! Good, enjoyable stuff. Those composers though should’ve been attacked with flying, spinning hand-axes before the production began.

Hey guys i liked this…a nice mechanism and acting and of course an amazing ost… :slight_smile:

Watched it 1st time(but not last). It certainly rocked for me big time. Axethrowing was nice concept and nice battle between bandits and workers. Music was nothing special but served it`s purpose all the same.

4 stars.

:smiley:

No stars from this bandit.

Mannaja has more twists in the story than most of the others SWs. It borrowed some ideas from other movies, but overall it has one of the richest scripts that kept me interested from start to finish. I liked it better than Keoma and much better than all the other SWs made around this time (I think I have yet to see only Silver Saddle of the possibly good twillight SWs - I caught first couple of minutes of it and it looked promising). If it had been made 10 years earlier and with Morricone-style soundtrack instead of this awful (or unintentionally hilarious, depends how you look at it) reprise of Keoma music form De Angelis, it would have been considered one of the classics.

Really?

I think the film has about 0 twists, only the foreseeable connection with the past. And most of the characters are boring, and the story is also boring, so that the whole film is pretty un-exiting.
But I like the score, and the singing.

I still don’t understand why many people like this one.

[quote=“Stanton, post:226, topic:292”]the whole film is pretty un-exiting. But I like the score, and the singing.

I still don’t understand why many people like this one.[/quote]

Because it’s sexier than being bum-smacked by Jessica Alba, and twice as exciting. Except for the score, and the singing, which is beyond dreadful. :slight_smile:

I had respect for Stanton’s opinions on this forum. I thought that he was a bit stricter than other members, but had very good taste. But now I really doubt his good taste after this praise of Mannaja soundtrack :smiley:

Regarding 0 twists (watch out for spoilers if you haven’t seen it), here’s couple from a top of my head:

  • innocent girl that Mannaja goes to save turns to be not innocent at all (hands down if you saw that coming),
  • Mannaja defeats town owner and gets his friends a saloon (we are expecting a happy end at this point, it’s already late in the movie, this is were most other movies would stop), only to see all of the mentioned friends, including his love interest gets slayed pretty soon,
  • Mannaja is left for dead, but he is saved by the guy whose hand he has chopped of at the begging of the movie, so it’s looking like the blindman and one-armed guy will establish some unlikely bond which will provide them redemption, but the guy has saved him only so he can betray him later in exchange for money,
  • Waller turns against his boss (OK, I saw that coming, but it’s still the twist) together with boss’ daughter.

If that’s zero twists for you, well, you have pretty non-linear mind.

Ok, actually I wrote this without thinking much about it, and without remembering much from the plot. Even if I watched Mannaja twice. But I’m sure I did not find much which interested me in any way, except that I liked Merli in the lead. The directing was kinda uninspired, and yes, I like the score.

Don’t remember if I saw the twists coming, probably I did, cause mostly the twists are too obvious not to see them coming.

Hmm … uhh, well, … yes … give me Alba, ditch Mannaja …

I agree with Stanton. Even if the script is not altogether predictable, I still remember it being somewhat out-of-focus which is only exacerbated by sporadically vapid rendition by Martino. There might be some moderately deft turnabouts and yet they do not fortify the flick by a long shot.

Mannaja’s main issue is that it never lives up to its gigantic potential; Martino merely squanders it. As for the soundtrack, I like it as well. It’s cheesy, but c’mon! Once you swallow that bulky wodge of cheese, there is plenty of quaint zest you can relish and enjoy.

Is the German X-rated release the only uncut version available? I have the Danish DVD and the UK VHS. Can someone tell me what’s missing?

Is The Blue Underground release not uncut then ?

No idea. I was just checking the database page and noticed the X-rated DVD was the only one that has"uncut" next to it. It doesn’t exactly say that the Blue Underground release and Danish AWE DVD are cut, either, so I’m just wondering.

The characters and the plot were strong, my favorite scene is where Blade says “Those that know me call me blade.” Intense. Sets the pace for the rest of the film. Blade is clearly outnumbered, yet he fears no one. Eventually he is asked to rescue Mcgowan’s daughter, and save the town the day. Blade does a lot of ass kicking in the mud, and he’s good with a gun too. Our main villian is Valler, who is such a bastard. As a bad guy Valler, is better then average shows it by kidnapping Debra, torturing Blade, and working with a gang of no goods who are looting silver, even bringing around wild dogs with him. Another bad guy is Mcgowan, a no good man, exploiting people, and responsible for Blade’s father’s death. I won’t give the rest of the film away, but i will say that all in all, if you like revenge flicks, mud covered heroes, and nasty villians, this is for you.

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Just saw this for the first time, and it was a nice little surprise. Loved the atmosphere and mood throughout. And I had the music in my head all night.

It was great seeing John Steiner as the villain, since I was only familiar with his Tepepa role.

I watched this a few years ago (long after seeing Tepepa for the first time) and never realised that was John Steiner playing the villain until just now. I find it weird he had an accent (if I remember right) because he’s from about 15/20 minutes away from where I’m from.

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Any chance - for the ‘SWDB’ - of an ‘interview’ with the great John Steiner??

Sadly not mate, he lives in the States now according to Wiki.

Darn!

Cheers for the info.

Wouldn’t it be great though, if someone connected with ‘SWDB’, could, somehow, contact John Steiner. I’m sure he would have a few tales to tell about working with Tomas Milian (Tepepa)…not to forget 'A Man Called Blade; and Dario Argento’s ‘Tenebrae’ etc.

Amazing to think that John Steiner went from appearing in ITC Cult favourites such as ‘The Saint’, Department S’…then travelled to Spain for ‘Tepepa’, and then appeared in the notorious ‘Caligula’, alongside Malcolm MacDowell…what a varied career!

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I had the same feelings as some others here on the forum: it worked better the second time around than when I watched it for the first time, years ago. Don’t know exactly why. There are a few issues in relation to the script and maybe that’s the reason, or one of the reasons. Anyway, no Top 20 material for me, but a very decent runner-up

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