Spagvemberfest 2021
Day 26
Adios Gringo (Stegani / 1965)
Another day, another Gemma. And another of his early ones. What’s more, just like yesterday’s one he battles against wicked rich guy Peter Cross, fist fights with outlaw Nello Pazzafini and rides off into the sunset with Evelyn Stewart. Not surprising these films can sometimes get muddled in your mind eh? My poster is a nice Italian locandina too.
20th - Seven pistols for Macgregors
Yeah, this one was a lot of fun too, but I can see what troubled me first time around. It’s prison breakaway spur technique, which must be probably most demented idea I’ve seen in spaghs and I’ve seen Steffen’s chimney ambush method. Other than that it’s basically the same as the sequel. Hard to say, which one is better, Sette pistole has Woods in, which is always a positive, but large-scale final battle is better in Sette donne, so go figure. 7/10
Day 26: Shoot Joe, and Shoot Again (1971)
Some of the films I’ve been watching from the 70s look more like TV movies. Gone are the creative cinematography, wonderful soundtacks and general spaghetti tropes. However, Shoot Joe is just the right side of bleak for my tastes so I kinda liked it. Still only scored 5/10
Spagvemberfest 2021 Day 26: ADIOS, SABATA aka INDIO BLACK (1970)
Gianfranco Parolini’s not really Sabata Sabata movie holds a place in my heart as one of the movies that reignited my interest in Spaghetti Westerns when it showed on a local UHF channel in the early 1980s. I was drawn to the crazy weaponry, weird characters like Septiembre (Sal Borgese), the dude who flings lead balls with his shoes, the “flamenco of death” and Yul Brynner’s badass outfit. It’s also fast paced, full of action, and lots of fun. Just as enjoyable as the first SABATA movie with Lee Van Cleef, it has its similarities, but is really its own thing. Still a blast after all these years. 8/10. #spagvemberfest
SPAGVEMBERFEST DAY 25
SPAGVEMBERFEST DAY 26
Starting my Friday double-bill desperately late but I’m up to the task, and so are my picks for tonight. I’m starting right now with the masterful Day of Anger (Valerii, 1967), in which Lee Van Cleef teaches Giuliano Gemma how to be as badass as he is - and probably comes to wish that he hadn’t - and I’ll be following up with my second (and, for the purposes of SpagvemberFest, final) visit to Eureka’s Sabata Trilogy set with Adiós, Sabata (Parolini, 1970) in which Yul Brynner sports more tassels than Boris Johnson has illegitimate children. That’s a f#ckload of tassels right there. Actually, to be honest I’ve only seen Adiós, Sabata once ever even though I owned the DVD for years, and I can’t remember a thing about it other than a) Brynner, b) tassels, and c) I quite enjoyed it. So hopefully it’s got enough about it to keep me going into the small hours because I won’t be getting to it until about 1am.
Day 26: The Mercenary (1968) with Franco Nero, Tony Musante, Giovanna Ralli, and Jack Palance. Another spaghetti that has a great cast, is well-written, competently-directed, and has a great soundtrack. Franco plays a Polish mercenary named Kowalski. He is paid to kill the workers who have taken over his clients’ silver mine. Kowalski meets the worker-turned-revolutionary, named Paco Ramon (played by Musante). The two form a partnership/bromance where Paco pays Kowalski to act as his military advisor and arms dealer, and he gains power and adulation like Villa or Zapata. The two take over enough of Mexico to piss off the 51st Regiment (led by Eduardo Fajardo) and a rival mercenary, named Curly (Palance). Kowlaski and Paco soon experience tensions when the attractive revolutionary, Columba (Ralli) enters the picture. I give it a 10/10.
Day 27
The Forgotten Pistolero
Pistolero dell’Ave Maria, Il - The Spaghetti Western Database (spaghetti-western.net)
With SpagFest winding down, I have decided to conclude the month with a re-watch of my favorite movies in the genre which means that, after diving into Shakespeare yesterday, today it is time to brush up on my Greek mythology and more specifically the story of Orestes. And people dare to call spaghetti western fans un-cultured!
The Forgotten Pistolero has a classic story, great action, and outstanding pacing by director Fernando Baldi. As a matter of fact, for me, this is undoubtedly Baldi’s finest effort. This one also has a great cast of Italian cinema regulars as well which includes Leonard Mann, Alberto de Mendoza, Piero Lulli and a double dose of eye candy with Luciana Paluzzi and Pilar Velazquez. The actor that undoubtedly steals the show though is Peter Martell as, regardless of what the credits tell you, this is his movie and his portrayal of the tortured (literally even) Rafael is truly unforgettable. Some people find fault with the performance of Leonard Mann, saying that his portrayal of Sebastian was both stiff and wooden and those people are right. There are two reasons for that though. 1) Sebastian was essentially living as a hermit when Rafael found him. Most hermits don’t win Mr. Congeniality contests. 2) It’s Leonard Mann.
Someone that deserves credit for their performance though is Luciana Paluzzi. Despite the fact that her character is evil and conniving throughout, I actually found myself feeling sympathy for her. Alberto de Mendoza is solid as well as the typically unscrupulous character he has played on more than one occasion.
The first time I watched this film, I went through the whole thing thinking about what a really great western I was watching. But then the finale came, with Roberto Progadio’s phenomenal score playing behind the action, and the movie went to an entirely different level. It was then that I realized that I was watching something special and that’s still how I feel every time I watch it.
Damn, this month hasn’t been too soft on me, another turkey. Deadly Trackers is essentially a lousy, lame version of Vengeance, except that it is structured in an inexplicably nonsensical fashion. The climax is shown right at the beginning and the rest of the plot is presented in the form of a flashback that basically goes on for the rest of the movie for all intents and purposes. I mean once the flashback ends and catches up with the real time of the story, there is yet another villain Harrison has to track down and kill, but that lasts for like ten minutes and on the whole, the whole shtick seems barren and extremely anti-climatic in my view.
The funniest scene is the one in which Harrison learns about the death of his sister, he’s like ‘yeah whatever’. The introduction of Harrison’s character is also really odd in that he is presented in the Trinitesque kind of way, but that comes right after his sister has been raped and killed, so that’s so tone-deaf and inconsistent it becomes inadvertently amusing. Regrettably, the pacing grows sluggish towards the end and this exacerbates the aforementioned issues and makes it hard to watch. The movie truly doesn’t have much in the way of actual directing and acting and sort of shambles towards the end without ever hitting its stride. Well, the first half is mostly okayish in the zero budget sort of way, but the rest of the flick is toast. I have seen worse, but you can definitely do better than this.
2/10
Day 27: ‘Amico, stammi lontano almeno un palmo’ (1972)
Better known as 'Ben & Charlie’
Not really in the mood tonight … this could be my last - we’ll see 
SPAGVEMBERFEST DAY 27
Pulling out one of the heavy hitters for my Saturday night entertainment: Needing no introduction around these parts - or anywhere else, really - it’s For a Few Dollars More (Leone, 1965), one of the greatest movies this filthy sun-baked sub-genre ever gifted the world. I suppose that, in many ways, if I was going to watch FaFDM this Spagvember, I probably should’ve tried to fit A Fistful of Dollars in somewhere earlier in the month… Hmm, nah. Maybe I’ll pencil that one in for SpagvemberFest 2086 or so. I think I’ll be ready to revisit it by about then. Maybe.
Day 27: Navajo Joe (1966)
What this film lacks in spaghetti tropes it makes up for in grindhouse/exploitation ones - I probably should have watched this at the end for that transition into Deucember. 7/10
21st - Viva Carrancho!
Penultimate spagh of this year’s fest. Sancho in the leading role, Woods as the bad guy. It’s watchable, if you like Sancho doing all kind of crazy revolutionary stuff. 4/10
Wide variety of SWs in this edition!
Nobody wants to try the one directed by Scotese in the final days? The uncut Italian version, of course… As far as I remember only morgan watched the film during SpagvemberFest, some years ago.
Dia 27 - La resa dei conti
Lucky me. Fox Movies Portugal just started a western marathon. Lots os spaghettis on it, I’ll take the chance to revisit this classic.
Is that a recommendation … or a challenge? 
In my view it’s not a challenge, one can appreciate or not but the film is rather interesting.
The one below, a couple of years ago, was an enormous challenge! 
Spagvemberfest 2021 Day 27: I AM SARTANA YOUR ANGEL OF DEATH (1969)
What the heck? I totally dig Sartana, so why was this rewatch such a bummer? This one starts out fun and wacky, with the neat premise that someone disguised as Sartana is pulling off bank robberies, placing a huge bounty on the real Sartana’s head, causing a number of bounty hunters, including Klaus Kinski, to try to collect. Garko is as cool as always, there are bank guards that appear to be wearing outfits from a bad space opera, and the camera work opts for frantic, cartoonish angles frequently. What’s not to like? Well, for starters, the hugely convoluted plot, too many characters to keep track of, and too many gambling sequences that slow things down. Things really go off the rails about halfway through and I found myself just not giving a damn anymore. Maybe it’s just the spaghetti fatigue, or work fatigue, but I really didn’t enjoy this much at all this go around. 5/10.
