I haven’t… it looks great, didn’t even know this was released until now, might get the UK dvd.
http://www.spaghetti-western.net/forum/index.php/topic,1492.0.html
The forum is always ahead of the time …
Ohh and amigos, don’t think too much about why Van Cleef and Tucker are swimming to the other side of the river for some guerilla work, whereas Oates and his watershy 60 guy bunch must be all nonswimmers.
Read about that one before in the DVD Times review, but not such a plot hole or a big deal in context. Travis and Mountain Phil are swimming across quietly, just two people, while director Douglas carefully shows Oates’ gang mostly partying at the time inside the store.
On the other hand, if Oates’ gang tried to all swim across, there’s 60 of them as you mention…easily noticeable, and since Barquero and the squatters are all armed, Oates and Company would be sitting ducks getting picked off one by one while swimming.
It’s airing on Encore Westerns again this month BTW. Here’s my review of the film from awhile back:
[quote=“Hal Horn, post:19, topic:1311”]Ohh and amigos, don’t think too much about why Van Cleef and Tucker are swimming to the other side of the river for some guerilla work, whereas Oates and his watershy 60 guy bunch must be all nonswimmers.
Read about that one before in the DVD Times review, but not such a plot hole or a big deal in context. Travis and Mountain Phil are swimming across quietly, just two people, while director Douglas carefully shows Oates’ gang mostly partying at the time inside the store.
On the other hand, if Oates’ gang tried to all swim across, there’s 60 of them as you mention…easily noticeable, and since Barquero and the squatters are all armed, Oates and Company would be sitting ducks getting picked off one by one while swimming.
It’s airing on Encore Westerns again this month BTW. Here’s my review of the film from awhile back:
http://hornsection.blogspot.com/2006/03/film-review-barquero-1970.html[/quote]
Good review, but why all these colors? It’s distracting rather then drawing your attention to a certain idea.
I agree it most probably was a parable for US presence in Vietnam. Those efforts to equate western action with the things going out in South-east asia often created anomalies such as Oates serving as a metaphor for the Americans. Usually those things work better as vague references, a sort of echo of things people were familiar with when the film was released. I think moviegoers got the idea, knew what the film was aiming at when they saw in in '70.
[quote=“Hal Horn, post:19, topic:1311”]Ohh and amigos, don’t think too much about why Van Cleef and Tucker are swimming to the other side of the river for some guerilla work, whereas Oates and his watershy 60 guy bunch must be all nonswimmers.
Read about that one before in the DVD Times review, but not such a plot hole or a big deal in context. Travis and Mountain Phil are swimming across quietly, just two people, while director Douglas carefully shows Oates’ gang mostly partying at the time inside the store.
On the other hand, if Oates’ gang tried to all swim across, there’s 60 of them as you mention…easily noticeable, and since Barquero and the squatters are all armed, Oates and Company would be sitting ducks getting picked off one by one while swimming.[/quote]
They could have crossed the river somewhere else and than come from behind. And it’s a river. There must be boats or canoes nearby.
Well, it’s a film and it wasn’t a problem for me, it doesn’t made the film for me better or worser. I just noticed it. And I didn’t thought about it when I saw the film for the 1st time.
It’s for me not one of these logic holes which are so ridiculous, that you have to laugh about it, or which kill the film.
Logic loopholes aren’t too much of a problem to me in a film like this, they worry me more in (potentially) better movies.
Barquero is a decent western with some references to contemporary politics, and as such it works quite well.
super boreeee!!
I’ve seen this movie last night and here’s my few thoughts.
I’ve recognized some ideas from the then still contemporary hippie culture - free love, anarchy, living in touch with the nature, “no borders can contain me”, etc. - which today seem somewhat dated.
Town slaughter is excellently directed: Oates walking through town while the battle rages on, opening windows and doors to make effective contrast between indoor and outdoor scenes. Too bad rest of the movie is not that exciting.
I’ve found Forest Tucker character little bit annoying and whole thing with Hartley and Lee felt little forced - maybe it wouldn’t if in the first hour of the movie we had seen Hartley for more than few seconds and heard her speak. Some other ideas were also underdeveloped and rushed like Oates flashbacks and his background story, but I’ve seen 90min version and imdb says it runs for 115min, so maybe something was cut.
Lee was somewhat underutilized in the end, and for me it was the Warren Oates show. He’s very cartoonish (walking bent, squint eyed, kickin’ stones), but it suits his character perfectly and he does it excellently.
It’s nice little gem, but to flawed to be lost classic.
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