DAY 17:
Lo chiamavano Tresette… giocava sempre col morto (1973) - Director: Giuliano Carnimeo - 4/10
First things first, Bruno Nicolai’s main theme for this entry might be my favorite piece of music for a spaghetti comedy western, it’s just so exhilarant and catchy and cute, it’s second only to My Name is Nobody in my book. As regards the film itself, err, your appreciation hereof undoubtedly will depend on your fondness of the vignettes which are spliced together into a more or less integral narrative, although much of the action is only superficially related to the story as such. Much to my surprise, I did laugh out loud quite a few times because of how absurd and stupid this thing is, I mean Carnimeo flushes the entire enchilada down the toilet and does so with gusto, which gives it a kind of attitude I guess.
George Hilton has such a good screen presence and his tussles with the Twinkle Toes character do make for a diverting watch, even Chris Huerta almost gets ravished at one point. There is no use denying the film is absolutely awful, but its self-awareness of its own demented nature helps it stay afloat. Honestly, I’m astonished I enjoyed it as much as I did, it is some horrid shit, granted, but the way Carnimeo puts it all together somehow makes this mess watchable even if the crude humor is something you would find funny in primary school, except that it’s a little naughtier, so perhaps junior high; viewing this kinda feels like “growing young” and regressing mentally, so maybe that’s what lapsing into dementia feels like.
El bandido Malpelo (1971) - Director: Giuseppe Maria Scotese - 4/10
Other than the fact that Fajardo turns in one of his better performances, this is basically a low-rent Zapata western with most of the same tropes you have seen in more accomplished works e.g. the idealist revolutionary type is contrasted with the apolitical, thieving peon who gets involved owing to purely pecuniary reasons, but gradually turns into a revolutionary himself; you could say that the motion picture features a juxtaposition between the informed, idealist form of violence as well as the apolitical, ignorant brute force represented by Malpelo.
Apart from some shaky, hand-held camerawork, the execution is fine for the most part, yet the film evidently lacks the polish and sophistication of the more celebrated works and fails to provide much in the way of novel ideas which could distinguish it from the outings it essays to emulate. In spite of having loftier ambitions, it is a cheap production through and through and its visibly inferior production values saliently vitiate the final results. I suppose it is preferable to see something like this, which was clearly made with the intent of outling broader social issues and invoking topics going beyond film’s modest boundaries, but the final outcome does not exactly live up to its exaltedly defined goals and too often appears excessively preachy for its own good, getting enmeshed in its arid political discussions about revolution.