Obviously very unconcentrated (I have an excuse, not disclosed here) I became more and more confused reading your review (what slapstick ?, anything wrong with the music by Roberto Pregadio ? etc) with this outrageous critisism of one of my 8/10 rated SWs, until I realized that I vendicatori dell’Ave Maria isn’t exactly the same as Il pistolero dell’Ave Maria .
After yesterday’s classic I felt up to revisiting something I remembered less positively and so finished on another not very good poster for a not very good film choice. To be fair I think I liked it better this time around but it does let itself down a few times with unnecessary silliness. It’s perfectly acheivable to make a western which is light-hearted without descending into nonsense and this one achieves it most of the time. Just not enough.
So that’s me done and another Spagvemberfest for another year. Well done to all those who completed the month and to those who just went for part of the ride. I’ve enjoyed getting my posters out and also enjoyed most of the films and absolutely loved some too. Next November can’t come soon enough.
Once again I’m finishing with a Winnetou. Damn vivid colors!
Overall it was a good marathon, mostly watched new stuff. Four revisions I think. I don’t have that much free time so I almost didn’t watch other genres during this month and that caused me a considerable fatigue.
Well. I’ll write an extended resume at my blog later this week. Those who can read a bit of Portuguese might try it. I’ll leave the link when posted.
I thought I’d end the month with a movie or two that would make a nice segue into the upcoming “Deucember” challenge, and this one seemed perfect. This co-production between Carlo Ponti and Hong Kong’s Run Run Shaw tries to blend the spaghetti western and kung fu genres with a large dose of comedy, and I think does a pretty good job of it. Van Cleef and Lo Lieh team up to recover Lieh’s uncle’s stolen treasure, the clues to the location of which are tattooed to the keisters of four women (Patty Shepard, Femi Benussi, Erika Blanc and Karen Yeh), all while being trailed by a crazy and sinister preacher. This is not a movie to be taken seriously at all, and stalwart director Antonio Margheriti does a good job keeping things light and breezy. Van Cleef seems to be relaxed and having a good time here. He sings, briefly, and spends the entirety of the climax shirtless. Yes, there are lots of butt jokes, and I hated the use of a slide whistle sound effect whenever Lieh would jump over people, but this is fun, silly fluff and I enjoyed it as such. As a genre mash-up, this is one of the more successful ones. 7/10.
I’m also squeezing in one more for the hell of it today: TWO FACES OF THE DOLLAR (1967)
About halfway through this heist western, and so far it’s darn good. Nice to see Gerard Herter in a role that requires him to do more than wear a moncole.
This has been a blast, gang. Yes, the fatigue really set in over the last few days, but now I’m ready for Deucember!
Well, hard to say, but it’s kind of unique in its own way, I haven’t seen anything like that, but I’m not sure if that is a compliment. But I do like some parts of it, especially first hour is pretty good.
I managed although a few days late to watch the above films - I chose those that I had never watched that were available on YouTube - some good some bad and some downright ugly!!!
