A good film for sure, and the ending, for me, is breathtaking.
Intriguing
- Canevari: Die for Dollar in Tucson
-Hard to believe that same guy who directed the outrageous Matalo! did this boring and lame film. Only in the end we got big shoot out and some distinct camera angles similar to Matalo! but it’s hard to get that far in the movie without falling a sleep. 3/10
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Johnny Oro - 5.5/10
I was really keen on seeing this. I enjoy Minnesota Clay a lot and thought Damon was excellent in Johnny Yuma so I had pretty high expectations with it. The first 20 minutes was lovely but after that it lacks inspiration and style compared to Corbucci’s other work. I still think it is an important movie, being Corbucci’s bridge-movie from the more traditional style into the Spaghetti territory. Some of the action scenes are wonderful, like the axe in the forehead or the shoot out in the beginning but overall there’s something missing.
Ballad of Death Valley 6/10
William Berger’s only lead role spag, I think? For that reason alone I felt that I had to see it, despite the things being said about it in it’s thread. I’m a big Berger fan but this is defiantly not Berger at his best, even though I experienced the movie as thoroughly entertaining for what it is. I really liked the ending, definatly memorable.
2 Likes
Ringo’s Big Night has Berger in lead role too.
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Spagvemberfest 2019 - Day 16
A Taste of Killing (Valerii / 1966)
Watched the edition from this Koch box set.
I seem to enjoy this one more and more with every viewing and this time was no exception.
The opening 15 minutes alone is enough and had me repeatedly punching the air with a YES!
Great theme song followed by an excellent opening credits sequence which reminds you that this film is cram packed with all the familiar faces that make the genre such a pleasure. Fernando Sancho, Piero Lulli, Franco Ressel, Jose Maria Martin, George Wang, Rada Rassimov, George Martin, Lorenzo Robledo, Jose Canellejas…they’re all here. Excellent music from Nico Fidenco, beautifully shot by Stelvio Massi and more than adequately directed by Valerii. It’s like a Spaghetti Western super group.
Sure the story and script are a bit predictable and corny but who cares? Sancho’s cameo at the beginning is a bloody masterclass in how to play an over the top Mexican bandit and is worth the ticket price on its own.
Excellent fun throughout.
4 Likes
Oh well, 1964, what would you expect?
I bought that box recently and am fairly satisfied since I rate all four as different shades of 6/10, but Taste Of Killing and My Name Is Pecos are the two strongest not far from 7/10 and could have a chance of being upgraded in my 4th watching :-).
I’d much rather have seen that actor’s masterclass than Michael Caine’s embarrassing effort !
And El Cisco too. Executioner Of God can also be counted…
SPAGVEMBERFEST 2019: DAY 16
So, inkeeping with my “Cheapo Box Set” theme, today I’m hitting up The Manhunt (de Angelis, 1984) the contemporary western crime caper (I think, I’ve never seen it) bafflingly included on Mill Creek’s Spaghetti Western 44-Movie Collection. Let’s take some genre definition liberties, people!
Started out this Spagvember with a list of 38 films released 1969-1971 which I hadn’t seen before, and I’m going to watch 27 of them. Having already watched 17, ten more to go, but which films?
Four films I couldn’t find at all, they are: Tara Poki, Vamos a matar Sartana, Plomo sobre Dallas and Carlos.
Four films I couldn’t find an English friendly copy of, they are: Ehi amigo… sei morto!, Lo chiamavano King, Tredicesimo è sempre Giuda, Il and Quelle sporche anime dannate (Paid in Blood).
Suggestions?
Nothing much, just a way to keep track of things. I rate different aspects of the films (weighted after how important) from 1 to 6, and then my EXCEL sheet tells me what I think about it on a scale from 1 to 10. Most of the time I’ll make no objections.
- Star Trek - Spectre Of The Gun
A classic episode in which captain Kirk and his colleagues have to fight Earps at the OK Corrall. 8/10
And in case this doesn’t count:
Cannon For Cordoba
Enoyable military/zapata western with well-handled action, both full scale battles and smaller gunfights, although with some hardly believable twists and turns. 6/10
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Decided to try something a little different today for Spagvember and watched the German Winnetou film Unter Geiren (Amongst Vultures/Frontier Hellcat).
While American influenced in many ways, this does have some SW elements in it, and some notable faces of the genre like Terence Hill (credited under his birth name Mario Girotti), Walter Barnes, and Sierghet Rupp. Very well plotted, but sometimes takes a little too much time in spaces. Overall, a decent watch.
2 Likes
Spagvemberfest 2019 - Day 17
The Three Musketeers of the West (B. Corbucci / 1973)
Today was a revisit of a long neglected Dorado release. It’s a comedy of course so no surprise that I haven’t gone back to it since first viewing some years ago. And as soon as the soft cheese fight started in the opening scene I started to struggle. To be honest it’s an ideal film to watch while multi-tasking so I used the opportunity to read a photography book I had on the pile and chatted to the wife. This made the whole process much more bearable. It’s not the worst of the comedies by a long way just a bit tiresome which you should expect from these sorts of flicks.
Anyway, that’s that one done for another decade I should think.
3 Likes
Never passed beyond that point.
Hmmm, that’s actually neat tactical approach. I might use that since I want to watch They still called him Amen.
SPAGVEMBERFEST 2019: DAY 17
Going today with what I guess many would consider a “lesser” Sergio: Minnesota Clay (Corbucci, 1964), a movie in which I’ve never had any interest whatsoever but which has the personnel on board to definitely spring a legitimate surprise. We’ll see.
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17. Guns of the Revolution (1970)
An American film made in Spain set in Mexico 1917. Listed here as a Zapata western, but no guns for the revolution here. Directed by Arthur Lubin (notorious for directing early Abbot and Castelllo-films), it deals with the repression of the catholic church from the church’s point of view. The protagonist is a priest from a counter-revolutionary bourgeois family (actually played by a priest it seems, and very light-heartedly so) being persecuted by a revolutionary general (played by Borgnine) and eventually shot.
It states at end of credits that “this story is based on fact”. As to the fact, the catholic church strongly supported the Diaz dictatorship, which the Mexican revolution was against. It was indeed repressed by Carranza’s government, and severely restricted by the 1917 constitution. Moreover, there was in the constitutional army in particular the general Plutarco Elías Calles, a future president of Mexico, who stood out for his hatred to both religion and the church. But that the church and its officials were killed to a man in 1917, is hardly a fact. Probably the film was a reaction to the Zapata westerns in general, and Tepepa in particular: Like Tepepa’s laughing face is shown on top of the end scene of that film, the laughing face of our priest is shown at the end of this film, on top of a procession of 30.000 mourners, mourning the “last priest” of Mexico.
4/10
For the next days, I’m off to the films of Sergio Sollima, a director who – if we can believe the SWDb - is “demonizing … upper class society”. After my two last films that will be something refreshing.
2 Likes
Guns of the Revolution turned up on British television not long ago, IIRC on a channel called Retro Movies that shows the occasional SW film (Run Man Run was on in the early hours of this morning). Unfortunately the picture quality was unwatchable - I swear they are downloading films from YouTube to screen!
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