This was basically the end of Robert Woods career in Italy - He told me that he was so embarrassed and frustrated by the type of film he was being offered that it was time to return back to the USA … and sadly things didn’t pan out for a future acting career.
He mentioned that he was friendly with Telly Savalas during the early 70s … and so when TS became a huge star in ‘Kojak’, he was able to get Robert a part on one episode, but after that things really dried up. Strangely the guest appearance isn’t listed on his IMDB profile - the episode is ‘Letters of Death’ with Cristina Raines as the central character.
I’m big fan of his spaghs, but while watching this, I was just internally screaming “Whhhhyyyy?!” Okay, I get it, lot of directors who could make decent spaghs, including Brescia, didn’t give a shit anymore, so it went all downhill.
Spagvemberfest 2021 Day 9,
GUNFIGHT AT HIGH NOON (1963)
This one predates spaghetti style, and feels and looks very much like an American western, with the exception of the white washed buildings. Three brothers take very different approaches in revenging the death of their father, with one focusing instead on his family, Richard Harrison wanting to bring the bad guy to justice legally, and Robert Hundar wanting to kill him in cold blood. Harrison is very goody two shoes here, and Hundar is excellent as the bloodthirsty one. Fernado Sancho also shows up in an unusually subdued role as the family cook. Well directed,but too cleancut, slow and unexciting for my taste. At least it had a somewhat downbeat ending 5/10.
Directed by Mario Bava in 1970, this comedy/action SW is far from being one of my favourites.
I watched it yesterday, for the second time in ten years, and my opinion has not changed from my first impression.
The positives: Brett Halsey, Charles Southwood, and Marilu Tolo…
The negatives: A mediocre soundtrack, broad ‘comedy’ that consistantly fails to hit the mark, tedious fisticuffs, and unimaginative shootouts…There are far better SW’s out there.
Just my opinion, of course…
I am a huge fan of the Director, Mario Bava, but this foray into a usually delicious Spaghetti dish, leaves a sour taste in my mouth…perhaps my opinion will change in another 10, 20, or 30 years…
I was a little apprehensive going into this one. I know it gets a lot of love on here but I was struggling to get my head around the transition from stage play to the big screen. While it doesn’t completely work Castellari’s direction is great, it’s packed with action that just gallops along and the gunplay is pretty cool. 7/10
Another Belgian poster and an obvious follow up from Day 8 via the same Arrow Bluray.
A beautiful film on every level but what I love most is the way it is choreographed and tied to the music so perfectly. Large stretches of the film have no dialogue and it is all the better for it. This one only gets better with every watch and the theme song will stay with you forever.
Magnificent.
No new films today but I got to see again two of my favorites. I love pretty much everything about it, I love Tony Anthony’s unusual screen presence, I love the minimalist soundtrack, I love the cheap sand pits. Though it is very much a rip off of fistful, it’s goddamn entertaining. The finale where they one up Fistful by doing shotgun vs machine gun instead of pistol vs rifle is just great.
When the first movie was a surprise success in the states, they didn’t wait to make a sequel. This one takes the already entertaining first film and does everything even better. The Cipriani music is one of the best themes of the genre. Anthony’s comedic yet serious presence is done even better than the first film where he seems admittedly a bit tame compared to next roles. The only downgrades to me are no Frank Wolf and no machine gun, apart from that, it’s better than the first in every way.
About time I tried something new and potentially troublesome! This one rates 3/10 at IMDB, so I reckon it must be an undiscovered classic - Wish me luck!
This is an enjoyable enough offering from 1966 but Martin’s character is far too clean cut for my taste and had he not got to demonstrate some of his excellent acrobatic and stuntman moves his character would have been completely out of place as the protagonist in a spaghetti western. On the other hand, I found Gordon Mitchell’s half crazy, physically damaged gunfighter to be very interesting and would like to have explored his character further. The post ending, which was meant to give the movie some sort of “historical relevance”, reminded me of something out of an old episode of the TV western Death Valley Days - which was completely unnecessary.
This time I watched Death Knows No Time and it turned out to be a very good one, which was pretty shocking considering my low expectations beforehand. First of all, the character development in this thing could suffice for three different spags altogether and the performance by Spoletini was astoundingly excellent. This is more of a socially aware drama western rife with moral dilemmas and psychological anguish, which makes it quite different from the usual spaghetti western formula and sometimes feels more American than Italian in nature.
Thankfully, the more doleful and sentimental moments are duly offset by some more gritty scenes and this combination comes to work remarkably well in the end. Conspicuously, the motion picture is not without its issues such as some of the more cumbersome time transitions as well as the merely solid execution by Klimovsky. While I can’t really blame Klimovsky for his rendition of the script, the story has a potential for yielding a genuinely great film and I find that Klimovsky’s reserved style of directing fails to bring this greatness from potentiality to actuality. At the very least, he doesn’t do a disservice to the storyline and maintains a very balanced pace throughout. Quite underrated IMHO.
From the sublime to the ridiculous? Well not quite. This one is no classic but I’ve seen an awful lot worse. Steven Tedd’s character is pretty poor though and not quite sure how he managed to get top billing. German Cobos is the stand out performance for me. Either way it’s an OK cheapie with some nice familiar faces.
The poster I have is an Italian locandina and definitely qualifies as a “poster is better than the film” type of thing.
No. 10 brings me back to the basics. Or at least one of the first when starting the collection… and it certainly can stand on its own apart from Django, it is…
Texas, Adios (Texas, Addio). The script is really quite bad, and so is the editing, but my memories didn’t play me wrong: this is mediocre at best. It’s a bit unfortunate that it has been reduced to a regular “bonus feature” on Django home video releases, it really is a movie entirely of and on its own… but it just isn’t a good one. It had all the right ingredients but just feels incredibly boring, meandering and tedious. I mean it really has it all, and some stuff is neat, but it pains me to say, I had to force myself through this. 2/5
2nd watch. My first go around with Black Jack was me thinking the film had a good quality of storytelling and a solid execution of said story, but might have been a bit too cynical and dark. My 2nd time around I have a better appreciation of the darker route taken, realizing we the audience were being shown why ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’. One of the few SWs where you can’t root for anybody really.
Robert Woods gives, what I humbly believe is, the greatest performance of his SW career, even if it does border on a Hamlet style performance. His talent really shines here.
Robert said that he hated his performance in this one, but said that he was a director’s actor, and so did as he was told … he himself thought it completely over the top. Of course it’s never easy to be objective when you watch yourself on screen, so perhaps he was being too hard on himself.
