DAY 9:
I tre che sconvolsero il West (1968) - Director: Enzo G. Castellari - 3/10
All the three actors put on great performances and seem to be enjoying themselves whilst playing their respective roles, but other than their jubilance, there appears to be very little in the way of novelty and depth here. This is something you have seen dozens of times before in more or less inspired variations, expect that the variant here features all the usual trademarks of Castellari’s style of directing such as fistfights, acrobatics and action-over-plot content. The issue dwells in that its comedy relies on affected histrionics, which endow the effort with a rather dull, antiquated, jejune appearance, making it feel like a much older production.
Hence, instead of the habitual slapsticks of the latter period of the genre, we simply get cheesy theatrics enacted in the context of its corny dialogues and “funny” skits; the English dubbing in conjuction with Rustichelli’s old-fashioned score only tend to exacerbate and compund the said flaw. While it is still probably preferable to splicing together innumerable slapstick sequences into a single narrative and calling it a day like they would do in the seventies, the final upshot does not prove all that superior and it sorta lapses into slapstick in the end anyhow. It’s hardly anything to write home about really and it gets kinda embarrassing towards the end.