I have just re-watched TWB (bought me the Blu), and I don't remember this
Odd. I was quite sure about this. Will have to check things.
How is the Blu-ray, by the way? The DVD released a couple of years ago, was okay, but not great. Too much digital noise reduction softening the image.
[quote=“Stanton, post:58, topic:124”]Hmm, but in Peckinpah’s films people are rarely (never?) thrown away by bullets.
This was made that way in Shane for maybe the first time, and was later very popular in US westerns of the late 60s like Hour of the Gun. But in Peckinpah films the bullets mostly slam through the body.[/quote]
I was more thinking of the actual implication of both directors choice on how to show the bullet hitting the body. In Petroni’s scene and throughout Peckinpah’s career, both are trying to show the physicality of being hit to the audience, to communicate the force and impact, realistic or not. For Peckinpah, this is in fact a central tenement of his work, to make the audience feel how being shot and killed feels, which is why his use of slow-motion is not only justified but absolutely necessary. Even in an early work like Major Dundee, the scene where Sam Potts (James Coburn) shoots the Indian who jumps up having pretended to be dead near the beginning of the film, the large squib that is set off (and managed to evade producer Jerry Bresler’s scissors) forces us to confront how powerful the violence is in literal terms and then later, Peckinpah shows how violence effects after the bullet has done its damage in the long scenes which show Dundee burying the dead and tending to the wounded.
Scherpshutter quote:
How is the Blu-ray, by the way? The DVD released a couple of years ago, was okay, but not great. Too much digital noise reduction softening the image.Having just seen [b]The Wild Bunch[/b] on Blu-ray, I can say that the image looks fantastic with a lot of detail I hadn't seen before.
Wonderful and a powerful opening turns into a clowning in a very bad taste. Soundtrack however is one of Morricone’s best from the '60s. I swear, this one is as good as Once Upon A Time In The West theme
I have seen a ton of Eurowesterns, but there are one or two major titles or little gems that I still run across sometimes. This was a movie that I had kind of avoided, but when I saw it about a year ago I loved it.
In fact, I think this is Petroni’s best . . . even better that Death Rides a Horse or Tepepa. Essentially, it is a Ringo film in the mold of A Pistol for Ringo or Arizona Colt with a (great) buddy film relationship between Gemma and Adorf. There are a series of light, comedic episodes that could make things seem really slight. But the interesting thing about the movie is the fact that focuses on the collateral damage to the violence . . . starting with the first scene. Its a decpetively shallow movie. And the score is classic Morricone, one of his best. It gives the scenes where the consequences of violence disrupt the light entertainment real emotional impact.
I am of like mind with many others, the opening is incredible, and was enough to get it 3 stars for me.
It’s one of the greatest openings I’ve seen, and was followed by such disappointment. The synopsis on the DB page doesn’t match the cut I saw, as Gemma doesn’t rob or pilfer the coach. Even the trunks are left on top and Gemma just leaves the carriage and the horses alone. Robbing the scene would make sense for the character as it turns out, but doesn’t seem to happen. I also don’t buy that the Gemma character as evidenced after the opening would have even bother to bury the bodies.
I don’t enjoy seeing Gemma as such an extreme jerkish character, nor do I particualarly enjoy clownishly dumb characters as Aldorf’s turns out to be.
But in that perfect opening, Gemma is something else, as Morricone’s incredible theme plays. And Aldorf isn’t played as such a buffoon. His eyes and face don’t read dumb. Standoffish, concerned with only himself, and then considering and resolving. There was so much that could have been.
Just re viewed this one. Yes great opening scene and score, but this does not make a great movie. On the whole for me its a standard affair. It has more of a budget than some but the style and flair of some lower key Spaghetti westerns is just not present here. Film needs a long rest for this viewer.
My thoughts exactly.
New “Macaroni Western Bible” edition available on ebay if anyone cares.
Saw this last night, mainly wanted to see it since it was directed by Petroni and feature Gemma in the lead. Two scenes really stood out as noteworthy, the first being the opening ten minutes or so, which show the massacre, billy boy weeping, and burying the dead, and him riding away from the carnage. Pay close attention because this is wonderfully shot, and the score is perfect. My other favorite scene is of course the turkey eating scene, which I have to say is just plain silly. Their is no real plot, other then Harry and Billy Boy causing a lot of trouble, and sometimes Billy Boy get’s on Harry’s nerves, but in the end he realizes that truly needs him by his side. So I would say this is one of those “epic buddy” westerns. Guilano Gemma of course is great as Billy Boy. This film also features a " mermaid girl", a wrecking of tent, a fake bank so to speak.
I didn’t like it that much when I first saw it (I thought it was an uneven combination of comedy, buddy movie and diehard western), but it has grown on me and today it’s among my favorites. I love that melancholic touch that Petroni always adds to his movies. And both actors are terrific in this one. It has a few uninspired moments, true.
Watched this one last night, and enjoyed it for what it was - an early love-hate, buddy, buddy film.
Enhanced by a beautiful score from il Maestro, Ennio Morricone, the story - for what it is - tends, for me, to take a back-seat to the engaging chemistry between Giuliano Gemma and Mario Adorf.
I watched this film a few years back, on a pretty rotten DVD transfer, which didn’t do it any favours. Last night, I watched it on ‘Koch Media’s Italowestern - Enzyklopädie 1.’, which made the viewing experience a hundred times better.
The picture, and sound quality, really do, sometimes, make, or break a film…
Those Enzyklopadies are on my shopping list, they seem promising.
PS. This film has one of the most weird and awkward titles ever.
All three volumes are well worth picking up from ‘Amazon.Germany’. The picture quality is very good, indeed.
As for the film title…yes, it’s a bit of a handful, so it’s just as easy to call it ‘Amigos’. This appears to be the title for it on the front of ‘Italowestern - Enzyklopädie No. 1’. Bearing in mind the relationship between Giuliano Gemma and Mario Adorf, I think it’s a more appropriate title.
I think it’s a beautiful title. Maybe not that fitting particularly for this film though. I’ve always assumed that it was sort of a phrase, vagabonds have only stars for a roof or something like that.
Of course that’s the idea behind it, and it does make sense for the film, at least a bit.
It’s a better title than all those long days, ringos, djangos and dollars
8 posts were merged into an existing topic: Cemetery Without Crosses / Une corde, un colt … (Robert Hossein, 1969)
When I first came across the title for this film, in a catalogue from the old Soundtrack & General mail order service (anyone remember them?), it was mistranslated as A Roof for a Skyful of Stars, which really is meaningless, but I’ve always found it wonderfully evocative.
As for the film itself, I agree with other posters about its uneven tone, but my imagination was caught at an early age by the gritty and stylish clips from it which were used in the Italian thriller “Closed Circuit”, from the days when they used to show subtitled European films on BBC2 in the UK.
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Cemetery Without Crosses / Une corde, un colt … (Robert Hossein, 1969)