I watched Day of Anger last night - I may have watched it 15 year ago but can’t recall too much only the set piece action scenes (which are great) as I might not have given proper attention. So full attention last night!
Day of Anger is good and borders on great at times. LVC gives a super performance as Talby who is sympathetic at many parts and not a dreadful villian compared to others. He compares with the unpleasant townspeople, who are quite nasty, manipulative and obnoxious to Scott.
Scott is a good character as he is a drip at first doing his best and gets some steel and edge under Talby.
Wild Jack is a good character, the guy they hire as an assassin also good - they didn’t spare on character parts in it. Also the three guys who drag Talby around from the horses add to the movie. A good scene along with the horse duel, saloon scenes and some good shooting.
The marshal and Murphy are good characters however they do little to oppose the poor treatment of Scott.
So lots of good characters and a good plot in how we see Talby’s real intentions develop and his manipulation of Scott by purchasing him an inferior gun is a good side twist.
Couple of things - the judge - he gets away with it all I think. He offers a deal to Talby near the end and then Talby escorts Aileen home. They didn’t rush Aileen in at the end for a happy ending cuddle with Scott either. Some guy is shot out of the upstairs window of a house in the town at the end - who was that?
I like the sets. Bowie is a great little town and they put the price of the tequila on the sign. In Clifton, I liked the way they painted a big horse’s head over the stables, nice touch.
Blind Bill - they could have done without him at the end or they could have had him pop up somewhere in the middle of the movie.
Some great lines of dialogue:
“ Don’t touch me you bastard
Now get out you bastard you!”
And
“The weapon that’s gonna kill me hasn’t been invented yet.”
“I’ll kill you any way you want”
Good title score - good movie. It’s 3.5 stars for me and no objections to anyone giving it higher.
‘Day of Anger’ opened in Victoria, Fort Worth, Houston, TX, November 5 1969.
A review from the Atlanta Journal, November 17, 1969: VAN CLEEF MENACES AGAIN…
In the UK ‘Day of Anger’ was first shown on 17th May 1970, double-billed with ‘Entertaining Mr. Sloane’. It played up and down the country through June/July until the release of another Lee Van Cleef western - ‘El Condor’.
I think his character is more naive or innocent than weak … but as the newspaper review comments, it is a little difficult to take him seriously as the town joke / idiot … Still a highly entertaining movie, even if the casting is dubious.
For each balanced review like the one above, there’d be four or five like the one below, particularly in the U.S. newspapers, almost if they had an agenda…
Source below: (Philadelphia Daily News, November 20, 1969)
The Americans didn’t like anyone else having a go at ‘their’ genre … but as Leone himself wryly suggested, 'What’s the problem, when they’ve been over here (Rome) doing ‘Our’ thing for years!? ’ … (paraphrased only)
That SWs got initially mostly bad reviews is absolutely logical. Westerns were then generally not well accepted, not as films, not as books. Critics had just begun to adore Ford and Hawks, to change now to Leone needed some time. Peckinpah was then for some easier to accept, because the tradition he changed was more easily to detect in his films.
The Gemma role was intended originally for Lou Castel as a character raised and bullied in a brothel would logically be physically weak. However, once Gemma expressed an interest in the part matters changed…
