Never knew this was not a box-office success in the USA. Always liked the film myself.
According to Giusti, Coletti’s name appears only on the Italian release and was probably for the co production reasons you state, Stanton. He also mentions, however, that Marcello Gatti (a cinematographer) remembers spending 4 weeks shooting some scenes in Almeria with Duccio Tessari for this film. My Italian is shaky to say the least so there may be more that I missed in the entry. Perhaps Scherps can help here.
Its lack of success could also be down to the lack of commitment from its U.S. distributors. They sat on it for 3 years before releasing it so clearly it was not considered an important property on their part. My suspicion is it would only have had a limited release after that kind of delay.
All correct. Giusti isn’t sure, so he says the film was, ‘in all probability’, directed by John Sturges, ‘even thought the credits in the Italian language version mention veteran Duilio Coleti’ (I had never heard of the guy, he was born in 1907 and this was the last film he was involved in).
The Italians apparently wanted to sell it as a spaghetti and had the idea something was missing, so they sent Gatti and Tessari four weeks to Almeria to shoot some additional scenes. Scazzottate = fistfights. Apparently there are different versions (international, Italian) with different lengths, maybe the Tessari material was only used in the Italian version. I don’t know, I don’t remember the film very well.
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:24, topic:1880”]All correct. Giusti isn’t sure, so he says the film was, ‘in all probability’, directed by John Sturges, ‘even thought the credits in the Italian language version mention veteran Duilio Coleti’ (I had never heard of the guy, he was born in 1907 and this was the last film he was involved in).
The Italians apparently wanted to sell it as a spaghetti and had the idea something was missing, so they sent Gatti and Tessari four weeks to Almeria to shoot some additional scenes. Scazzottate = fistfights. Apparently there are different versions (international, Italian) with different lengths, maybe the Tessari material was only used in the Italian version. I don’t know, I don’t remember the film very well.[/quote]
Funny, I always thought that these fistfights (or was it only one?) didn’t fit into the film. It is indeed a very quiet and unspectacular film. It is easy to understand why it hadn’t any commercial success. Even in the times when Charles Bronson was at the top of his box office value.
A fair amount of time then.
IMO this is not SW at all. Sure there was some spaghetti western stuff like flogging, but nothing more.
It doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. It’s great. If I considered this one to be SW, I would put it on my TOP 15 list. 
Simply love it but this is not Italian west. Nonetheless a superb movie.
Film rating: 5 stars
Spaghetti western rating: 2 or 3 stars
(I will give 5 stars, as this is one of my favorites anyway).
I’ve got a polish dvd with english and polish audio and removable polish subtitles. This is a nice release, unfortunately out of print.
Not a widescreen, but the quality is still very good. 8)
A very nice “coming-of-age-movie” with impressive and atmospheric pictures of the landscape. In fact I was wondering if this SW was shot in southern Europe. I liked that movie very much (btw it was the first SW my girlfriend insisted on watching it with me).
Fun fact, the town set in this film is the set Alex Cox used for the majority of his awesomely underrated 1987 movie “Straight To Hell”. Joe Strummer, from the Clash and one of the stars of STH, said in an interview that he had always tried to track a copy of the movie down because he wanted to see the set used as it was originally intended, but he thought the name of the movie was called “Savage Cowboys”, and could never find it. He had the wrong title! Even Alex Cox had thought that was the name according to another interview I read. But it was in fact the “Chino” set that was used for “Straight To Hell”.
Nice horses, bland movie. It is telling that the hilarious scene when Charlie gets aroused while watching two horse at it, so he decides to force (he didn’t have to use too much force, of course) himself on Jill, is the one best remembered.
Just re-watched this one after many years. Not really a “spaghetti western” in its look and feel but it’s definitely up there with my favourites. 4 or 5 stars. Terrific soundtrack, as well.
And that is mainly because it is no Spag, but an US western shot in Europe.
Are you sure? The usual sources indicate no American involvement (company-wise, of course) in its production (exception: the notoriously unreliable French Wikipedia).
In that case I do not much care who produced it.
It’s an American director, and it feels every inch like an American western.
Of course, not every Italian western feels like a SW, but then the director was at least from Italy (or Spain).
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Definitely.
Well, all three westerns produced by Laurentiis don’t feel like spaghettis to me but I thought production was all that counted. I raised the point about Cemetary Without Crosses being a French western rather than a spaghetti but its co-Italian production has made it possible for the film to be in the top 20. So, I suppose this one could still count.
CWC would count even with no Italian co-production credit. It is definitely a French film and definitely a Spag. While Guns for San Sebastian is also definitely a French film, but not a Spag for me.
In the end the forum members decide which films count and which not. There where a few discussions about a few. A few were objected, for others some vote and some not.
Which are btw the other 2 produced by De Laurentis?
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The other two are The Deserter and A Man Called Sledge.
A Man Called Sledge feels like a Spagie for me, The Deserter not.
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Feels like it could easily have been an American western to me though. In fact, now that I’ve thought about it, I actually think The Deserter has a strong spaghetti feel to it. Feels even more of a spaghetti than Sledge in my opinion. While it does draw its inspiration from the American cavalry westerns, it’s quite similar to the macaroni combat films from the same era with its Dirty Dozen-style plot and characters. Victor Kaleb feels like a spaghetti western hero to me.
Chino is not completely devoid of “spaghettiness,” either. For example, the scene where Chino is strung up and nearly whipped to death by the sadistic cattleman is a typical spaghetti moment.
All three films were directed (or at least co-directed) by Americans and it’s obvious to me that Laurentiis wanted all of his westerns to feel more international rather than completely Italian or American. However, there’s a lot of similarities between American western B-movies and some of the early spaghettis (The Ruthless Four with Adam West is a good example) but this doesn’t exclude them, either. .