Five Giants from Texas / I cinque della vendetta (Aldo Florio, 1966)

[Rutledal]

Is the Franco Cleef version still available anywhere?

[Reverend_Danite]

I don’t know about that. Brother mwan sent me his copy yonks ago.

[JonathanCorbett]

(...) the action is remarkably ‘bloody’ for an early genre entry (most spaghetti western directors were rather reserved in this aspect, hardly ever using squibs to suggest bullet wounds)

The real reason was explained by Garko during the television program Stracult: the producers, quite simply, considered this a way of preventing a No one under 18 admitted or No one under 14 admitted rating.

[scherpschutter]

@JonathanCorbett

The real reason was explained by Garko during the television program Stracult: the producers, quite simply, considered this a way of preventing a No one under 18 admitted or No one under 14 admitted rating.

Funny thing is that in countries like Germany, Holland or Belgium spaghetti westerns almost automatically got an ‘18 rating’, squibs or no squibs.
Exceptions were the Ringo movies and semi-comedies like I Came, I Saw, I Shot (they received a '14 certificate).
Oddly enough For a Few Dollars More and Once upon a time in the West got an ‘14 rating’, Fistful and GBU an ‘18 rating’.
The Trinity movies changed everything, they were the first Italian westerns to receive an ‘all ages’ certificate.

[stanton]

@JonathanCorbett

The real reason was explained by Garko during the television program Stracult: the producers, quite simply, considered this a way of preventing a No one under 18 admitted or No one under 14 admitted rating.

I doubt that this is true.

Most Spagies were made in a time in which squibs were not that common, mostly because of censorship reasons. Bonnie and Clyde and then especially The Wild Bunch changed that, but then it was the style of the SW to have extreme violence without squibs, and anyway, the dusk of the violent SW had already set in.
Another reason was maybe the cheap budgets. Not that it was expensive to create squibs, but it eats time.

[scherpschutter]

[quote=“Stanton, post:25, topic:2161”]I doubt that this is true.

Most Spagies were made in a time in which squibs were not that common, mostly because of censorship reasons. Bonnie and Clyde and then especially The Wild Bunch changed that, but then it was the style of the SW to have extreme violence without squibs, and anyway, the dusk of the violent SW had already set in.
Another reason was maybe the cheap budgets. Not that it was expensive to create squibs, but it eats time.[/quote]

Some were used, in Compañeros for instance, and Today it’s me, tomorrow You!
I guess the excessive bloodletting comes from the Far-East, and I guess that’s where Peckinpah got the idea of spurting blood. I saw a war movie from the Philippines the other day that was from 1968 - so pre-Wild Bunch - and had similar blood-letting.

[stanton]

Sollima also used a few early in 66, and there were already a few squibs in some 50s and early 60s westerns, but it was the success of Bonnie and Clyde which then opened the gates, but it really started after the TWB, because there was so much of it. There were more films between Bonnie and Clyde and TWB which used squibs ,innovative ones like Night of the Living Dead, bad ones like Bandolero.

And of course Peckinpah also knew some Asian films, at least Kurosawa, whose films had here and there an excessive bloody scene. In that one famous scene in Sanjuro it looks like a fountain.

[scherpschutter]

[quote=“Stanton, post:27, topic:2161”]Sollima also used a few early in 66, and there were already a few squibs in some 50s and early 60s westerns, but it was the success of Bonnie and Clyde which then opened the gates, but it really started after the TWB, because there was so much of it. There were more films between Bonnie and Clyde and TWB which used squibs ,innovative ones like Night of the Living Dead, bad ones like Bandolero.

And of course Peckinpah also knew some Asian films, at least Kurosawa, whose films had here and there an excessive bloody scene. In that one famous scene in Sanjuro it looks like a fountain.[/quote]

There was of course some blood in fifties and sixties westerns, and maybe some squibs were used, but I can’t remember any spurting blood in any of those movies. Compare all this to the geyser of blood in Kurusawa’s Sanjuro, it’s totally different, and note that the movie is from 1962! The movie I refer to is called Warkill and has blood jets similar to those in The Wild Bunch.

[stanton]

The scene in Sanjuro is extreme, even by today’s standards.

In The Proud Ones are 2 squibs with surprisingly much blood. Also at the end of River of no Return. Or in Don Siegel’s war film Hell is for Heroes. And of course in Major Dundee, in one scene, the one that the producer’s did not cut out.

In others one can see at least the impact of the bullet, without blood.

[runner]

@stanton

I wouldn’t call it a gem. It’s a small ok SW, an interesting watch for the fan. 3/5

And I also think that Anda muchacho spara is muich better.

I just watched Aldo Florio’s Five Giants From Texas with shifting image quality on Youtube (and probably not available now at Ebay or Amazon on an official DVD/Bluray).
I wouldn’t either call it a gem. The middle part in the rocky desert before the revenge shootout is much to long. I also prefer individual revenge, not by “buddies”. In the first few minutes and in the end the music is very good, but otherwise not as good with some non-SW-type music also.
Overall the mood and style is OK and it would probably look and feel much better with high image quality.

Not more than 6/10 rating seems appropriate, but sometimes I increase my rating as I did with Blood At Sundown/One Thousand Dollars on the Black (Alberto Cardone) to 7/10 in spite of my initial critisism.
Regarding Aldo Florio I think that Dead Men Ride/Anda Muchacho Spara is much much better (with a fantastic musical theme - as “heavy” as the mood of the film) IMO 8/10.

[runner]

@runner

Not more than 6/10 rating seems appropriate

I would now rate it 5/10, too boring and slow sometimes and generally not so exciting story nor especially well directed.

[Bill_Willer]

I’d give it a four at best. It’s amazing that the director would go on to make Dead Men Ride a few years later which I think is one of the best of the genre.

[Admin (Sebastian)]

Epic new review of this movie by @davidgregorybell

Days are Numbered: Aldo Florio's Five Giants from Texas - The Spaghetti...

[Mickey13]

Copied from the Spagvemberfest 2024 thread:

@Mickey13

Film’s biggest demerit resides in that Florio’s style comes out toothless which is perhaps not so surprising considering this was his directional debut, but which may come as a surprise to those familiarized with his vastly superior At the End of the Rainbow. Though his learning-on-the-job direction admittedly grows better as the running time goes by, what this also means is that the former half proves pedestrian to say the least; for instance, the opening shootout in which the five’s best friend gets killed is handled in a rather soporific fashion, both photography and editing being on the underwhelming side. What exacerbates this issue is pic’s cursory script: the venture conceivably could have worked had it been outfitted with a robust narration, but the viewer is basically left in the dark as to five gunslingers’ backstories and has to do the guesswork to fill in the gaps. This would have been at least partially condonable had the narrative been equipped with a fair share of action scenes, but then again, there are not too many of those here either and with the exception of the admittedly galvanizing final gunfight, action sequences as such are few and far between. To add insult to injury, the plot unfolds at an exceptionally laggard pace, aggravating the said downsides fivefold. Except for the spectacular finale, the work turns out both narratively and visually nondescript, providing little in the way of satisfactory plot elaboration or action and progressing at a disagreeably leisurely tempo.