Lola Colt (Siro Marcellini, 1967)

Spaghetti Westerns šŸŽ¬
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https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Lola_Colt

I watched this odd but entertaining western recently and thought Iā€™d share my views.
This is really a vehicle for our main protagonist, in the shapely (34B-24-36) form of Lola Falana, to exercise her vocal chords as much as her Colt. The story itself is pretty flimsy, unlike Lola herself, who alternates from being as wholesome as a whore can get, to as raunchy as a saloon girl singer may get :-*. In fact, itā€™s only Weisser who tells us sheā€™s ā€œa prostituteā€ in yet another poor review (Black Tigress). In this he mentions how ā€œā€¦ she ā€œpumpsā€ her clients for information regarding a missing treasure.ā€ But although there is a small treasure at the end, this is incidental and is not a running theme through the film. And of course, in real life, even though a saloon singer would almost certainly have been a whore, Lola plays a much more ā€˜honourableā€™ role here.
So, sheā€™s quite a thoughtful and clean-cut sorta gal really, but does gets misread by the old womenfolk of the town - who all end up apologising for having read Weisserā€™s book and jumping to the wrong conclusions. Even jealous girlfriend of Peter Martell (who is the town Doctor of sorts, and who should be prescribing himself some bromide) sees the good in her towards the end. So sheā€™s good then!?
Well not that good, thank the Lord! Despite saving the town and the hostages that El Diablo has got a grip on, Lola spends a fair bit of the film doing what she set out to, and belts out sexy raunchy soul-funk numbers like sheā€™s got Sam and Daveā€™s brass section and the devil behind her. Itā€™s completely innapropriate for the time and place itā€™s set of course, but entertaining all the same. In fact, itā€™s quite hilarious to see a piano, banjo, sqeezebox and guitar make this full-on brass funk sound whilst glamour-puss Lola writhes around and poses in a selection of glitzy basques and boas. Fantastic!! ;D
We also get a honky-tonk jazz soul fusion number 8) for contrast, as well as - later on - a gospel ā€˜Swing Low Sweet Chariotā€™ to make the old dears realize the error of their ways, but then as soon as theyā€™re not looking, she rips off her virginal white gown to belt out the raunchy stuff again. (As far as this innapropriate music goes, the credits give some reference to ā€˜The Rollā€™s 33ā€™ and "musical numbers by Pace and Panzeri, but I donā€™t know any more.)
Thereā€™s a lot of stupid stuff that makes little sense, but it has a charm. How did the little boy (on foot) leave town after the posse (on horses) and still intercept them one wonders?

Lola herself, is an interesting character in real life. Born of American African and Cuban parents, she eventually went to Italy, as a singing and dancing sensation, with Sammy Davis Jr. . This spaghetti western was her first of 3 films she made in Italy (becoming fluent in the lingo) before returning to America, posing for Playboy, doing the ā€˜Blaxploitationā€™ thing, becoming the highest paid female entertainer in Las Vegas, and taking Feliciano ā€˜Butchā€™ Tavares (of Rā€™nā€™B/Funk band Tavares) as her man (not necessarily in that order). Her dancing and singing was later curtailed by a nasty reoccurence of multiple sclerosis that left her partially paralysed, and she went back to her childhood faith in the good Lord and devoted herself to those ends.

So, not the best spaghetti western ever made - not by a long shot, but ā€¦ unusual - even just for having a female lead, and of colour as well. (Peter Martell hardly gets a mention from me, because he is completely overshadowed by Lolaā€™s presence in this - heā€™s ok, but thatā€™s about it.) Itā€™s unusual as well for the musical nonsense, but entertaining for the same reason. And although itā€™s unusual for a number of reasons, it still has some of ā€˜the usualā€™ as well - protracted fist fights and obligatory flashbacks (clockwork musical box and tune to take her back to childhood) abound.

The version I saw was a pretty dreadful vhs transfer that has lost something over the generations, and had gained a few burnholes and scratches. It would be quite nice to see a better version one day, (but I wonā€™t be rushing with so many other films to see.)
Anybody else for Lola ā€¦ ?

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I knew this would happen!, but still put a wry smile on my face :).

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ā€¦ a bit more to smile about - more basques and boas.
Not a great deal of depth to this film, and a very shallow response from me ā€¦

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Have to do better than this Rev if you want to trade pics with meā€¦nod, nod, wink, winkā€¦

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Good review, Rev.

Pretty much the same way Iā€™m remembering this little Spagy.

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[quote=ā€œReverend Danite, post:3, topic:1007ā€]ā€¦ a bit more to smile about - more basques and boas.
Not a great deal of depth to this film, and a very shallow response from me ā€¦[/quote]

Not a shallow response at all, Rev. And thanks for the review. I knew next to nothing about this film and it looks like it would be fun.

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Just viewed a better version of this one, and is a big improvement over the copy you viewed Rev. We have Lola doing a few numbers, but the local women folk are not keen on her antics. Lola is not bad with a gun aswell, and helps fight against the bad guys in the film.

Peter Martell has a lovely lady friend in this, but this is not good enough for him as he has the hots for Lola Baby :o.

Not a demanding film, but unusual due to the female lead, and there is much worse out there.

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Whaaaaa!!! :ā€˜( :ā€™( :cry: :smiley:

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So, does this mean you wonā€™t need me to send you a copy Amigo? Which one did you get ahold of?

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Just watched this one and quite enjoyed it. As the Reverend says, Lola herself is great. Sexy, gutsy and just a really cool presence in the film. A lot of the action is pretty routine but the lead makes it work, makes the film stand out a bit. The villain has a good death scene but Iā€™m wondering why Lola wasnā€™t the one to kill him. Seemed odd to me. Anyway, the version I watched was a composite, with video taken from an Italian TV broadcast and English audio from an old VHS. The English audio track wasnā€™t complete, so some dialogue was still Italian, with no subtitles but most of it is there. Good flick and I wish Lola had done some more SWsā€¦

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Just added my review of this one to the database.

https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Lola_Colt_Review

Lola sure looked like hot stuff in her day but outside her cabaret numbers the film as a whole was a bit disappointing for me. The opening scene with the crucifixions got my hopes up too high too early I suspect.

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Nice work. Never seen it (actually I thought I was going to read a review of another femina spaghetti, the one with Nicoletta, who apparently kept her colt on another spot). Still havenā€™t seen that one either, by the way

I guess the actress was supposed to remind people of the great Josephine Baker
Judging from what you write about it, there seemed to be a good film in the material

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And I added it to the main page.

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Thanks

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Well, the film has its moments but on the whole it is unambitious and suffers as a consequence. The mixture of the occasional nasty idea amongst the generally banal is a strange one for sure and I would have liked them to go down one path or another. Either a genuinely gritty film with a female protagonist. (This would be nice) Or a proper musical that let Lola Falana shake her stuff even more. As it is it falls between two chairs, so to speak. Worth a look though. And Lola is a lovely mover. :slight_smile:

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They should do a remake with Beyonce.

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Phil, whatā€™s the runtime of this long version?

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Long is probably something of a misnomer. But longer certainly. According to the timer on my player it comes in at just under 83mins as opposed to the 73mins of the shorter English dub version.

On closer inspection it seems that the shorter version not only cuts out the opening exploding crucifixion scene but also the closing romantic one. ??? So in the original Peter Martell catches up with her and they go off in the stagecoach together while in the english dub she leaves alone. Very odd. I can only assume the english version was wanted for TV only or as a short undercard for a double bill.

Giusti lists the run time as 85mins by the way.

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My German version has about 84 min (81 min Pal). And should be uncut.
The database entry with 93 min must be wrong.

Then the next question would be, if your version is in Pal or NTSC?

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Well maybe you can help me out.
Itā€™s a DVD-r given to me by a friend in the states so Iā€™m presuming NTSC. But how would I tell :-\