One of many rewatches. This is my quasi Guilty Pleasure SW, I know it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but I just have an absolute fun blast time every time I watch it. You can never go wrong with a good old fashioned revenge story with a little clever intrigue thrown in.
Mark Damon and Stephen Forthsye make an interesting duo here, particularly when you learn the game they’re playing with the bad guys. The fight scene between Damon and Nello Pazzafini is the highlight of the finale, especially so because it was all Damon and Pazzafini doing the stunts. Pazzafini’s bad guy might be a little generic, but he does it really good.
The Koch Media (now Plaion Pictures) is really good with a B grade picture quality as unfortunately there was damage in the print they couldn’t clean up. Koch actually got a raw deal with the English dub track, not only was it poor in execution, but whoever they got the rights from didn’t tell them that the track wasn’t taken care of and is borderline unwatchable. While I don’t care for English dubbing, I felt bad that Koch got stuck with poor quality they couldn’t do anything with.
Haven’t been posting my progress but yes, I’m still in the game. Till now, all new watching except one, which I choose by mistake, didn’t recall much about it.
The purist in me questions whether this is actually a western at all, let alone a spaghetti one but it qualifies on the database so who am I to argue. My main concerns are based around it being made in Mexico and the fact that it is set in the mid 18th century not 19th but I am notoriously pedantic about this stuff so I’ve chosen to ignore myself and go with the flow.
It’s my last unwatched German Bluray and it’s pretty decent if not spectacular. An enjoyable actioner made on a pretty large scale featuring a reluctant priest rather than reluctant revolutionary but it follows similar lines.
Toshiro Mifune in a spaghetti western. That in itself makes this one worth watching but this one is fun from start to finish and the rest of the cast isn’t bad either.
It is legitimately hard to believe this came from Corbucci’s hand, never thought I would see a spaghetti western made by Corbucci which would prove inferior to some of the Fidanis. While some of its quips are funny enough, a large majority of the jokes fall completely flat and the film founders almost in every single department throughout its duration. Considering the preposterously brilliant cast, this should have been way, way, way better regardless of the tone of its story. The predominant issue dwells in the fact that it is awkward and jejune to the point of utter ruination and that it progresses at a snail’s pace.
Hence, not only are you exposed to this folderol, but also you have to follow the antics at length, the ineptitude never seems to end, plus there are some more scenes featuring scantily-clad Chris Huerta, the man seems to be haunting me recently. Corbucci was sporadically guilty of latent flashes of iniquitous comedy in some of his renowned works, but here the level of inanity reaches its apogee. The humor is not even inventive or energetic in its goofiness, it simply registers as lazy, cumbersome and thoroughly uncouth; the attempt to shoehorn in a subplot about the displacement of Indians is absolutely pathetic. All in all, unless you want to watch Milian make an utter fool out of himself, playing a part you would expect to see in a nineteenth-century vaudeville aimed at lumpenproletariat, do yourself a favor and skip this one.
Viva Zapata! My girl drew no.3 today and that means the almighty A Bullet For the General (Damiani, 1966), an early political spag and one of the classiest Eurowesterns not made by a Sergio. Lou Castel shines as a Gringo with uncertain motivations and, as good as Gian Maria Volonté is in just about everything, his role as bandit revolutionary El Chuncho might just be his best.*
Multiple rewatch. Mi Amigos and Amigas, today is my last day for the Fest, and I’m continuing my tradition of wrapping it up with the film I ring in the Christmas Season with, the first Ringo SW. I know most of us prefer the sequel, and while I find it well done too, this one holds a special fondness for me as I think of the Action classic Die Hard every time I see it. This one is just so much fun for me, and Gemma and Sancho play off each other great.
My favorite character in the film is Dolores actually, Nieves Navarro was just so excellent in the part, she blended toughness and sweetness very well.
The Arrow Blu Ray is really good too, but I admit I’m curious about the 4K restoration Wicked Vision will be releasing in 2023.
Another one from my overdue rewatch pile. Decades after seeing it on TV and DVD for the first time, now Arrow brought me great joy with their pristine restoration of this underappreciated classic (so I think). Yes it drags a bit, the script is so-so and the music cue is a bit overused. But hey, it has some clever stuff in it and delivers a whole range of spaghetti western goodies that I like. That it’s a murder mystery at heart makes it sort of charming, making up for some of the hokey pokey weird stuff that goes on in the movie as well. The BluRay is a must own, great quality and tons of extras.
I think you are looking for depth when there is none to begin with? … approaching a mid 70s so-so throwaway movie with 21st century insight or hindsight.
To me Benny Hill’s comedy is utter shite, and was when it played throughout the 1970s, and yet it’s still wildly popular all over the world. It’s moronic, vulgar, crass, tedious etc etc etc but for some reason many people love it.
I can imagine this film being made for the same type of audience who liked Benny Hill … It’s of it’s time … it may not be sophisticated or have aged well, but it’s not nearly as bad as many people claim, and it’s certainly not in anyway Fidani-esque! … OMG … Demofilo would have been thrilled by your comparison!
It’s confession time. I’ve had the Arrow Vengeance Trails box set since it was first released but don’t think I’ve actually watched any of the discs beyond the extra features. These are all films I’ve seen so often I just haven’t bothered. So, as I’m watching new Blus during the second half of this Spagvemberfest it’s a perfect time to right that wrong. And first up is one of my favourite Robert Woods westerns. A really solid affair and fun to see some faces amongst the bad guy gang who would very soon go on to star in their own films. I’m thinking in particular of Peter Martell and George Eastman. Eastman is quite prominant but I don’t think Martell even gets a line.
Anyway, a nice little film and the Bluray looks superb. Looks like I’ve got a nice few days ahead.
I felt like trying something new today, so I searched through my apps until I stumbled upon this one. Upon discovering that it was directed by Tanio Boccia I actually managed to get excited about watching it. After all, he was the director responsible for Kill the Wicked!, a movie that narrowly missed making my Alternative Top 20 list but would be a shoe in for my Alternative Alternative Top 20 list.
Unfortunately, this one didn’t meet my expectations…not even one of them…not even close. The acting was bad - the dialogue worse - and the English dub was horrendous.
Revenge spaghettis are my favorite kind but the reasons for the shootings that led to a need for revenge were so thin that there was no way to truly become invested. And lead (muscle man) actor Kirk Morris might be perfectly fine for Sword and Sandal movies but really had no business making spaghetti westerns.
The one thing positive I can say about this one? I really like the movie poster.
#19 Giraldi: Seven Guns for McGregors
-Light hearted fun. Mickey might find this film therapeutic as there’s nasty torture scene of Chris Huerta. As usual with this years fest I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of the film. 6/10
It’s not about depth, it is about the overall handling of comedy and its energy. The thing is I enjoyed Benny Hill quite a bit back in the day and I dislike this film. In order for this kind of humor to work, the movie should have been fast-paced and edited in a brisk fashion with swift cuts, multiple fast-motion sequences etc., in the same way Carnimeo did it with the Tresette series.
The work embraces neither of those elements and is spliced in the way you would expect from a regular comedy, progressing at a torturously sluggish pace. To add insult to injury, it comes up with very few original jokes, like sniffing horse farts, recycling things which had been done to death since the dawn of vulgar comedy. It is simply crude in the not so interesting fashion; it’s like looking at a mentally ill patient drooling in the corner, it is neither especially funny nor engrossing to observe.
At the end of the day, it feels lazy and low-energy. And most of Fidani’s films are less boring and infinitely funnier than this one, I’m not even joking.
Sounds mighty tempting, I don’t remember that one actually. Maybe it’s high time I refreshed my memory.
Another one of those cheapjack, barely competent Bianchi’s productions with not too many differentiating factors other than some sporadic good ideas getting largely nullified by its paltry execuction. While the movie features an intriguing premise and has some neat ideas with a potential to animate the storyline, little of it is turned to good account on account of Bianchi’s substandard directing and his general lack of imagination, plus the shoddy production values undermine much of the originality which is to be found in the script.
It is a shame because Hill puts on another excellent performance as the sheriff’s mad twin brother and the tale as such is not bad at all and kind of kept my attention despite film’s conspicuous decrepitude. It is facile to dismiss the entry in virtue of its technical deficiencies, but I found it sufficiently diverting and I suppose others may enjoy it too providing that they approach it with due expectations and in the right state of mind even if the final revelation turns out more than just a little underwhelming and run-of-the-mill. Evidently, this is not one of the so-called hidden gems and it is nothing you should lose your sleep over not seeing, but I liked it enough and cherished its low-budget squalor, which definitely cannot be said about every cheap production out there, something to bear in mind.
YES! My girl drew no.23 out of my Spag bowl and that’s a perfect Friday night spaghetti: The actiontastic Chuck Connerthon Kill Them All and Come Back Alone (Castellari, 1968), a movie which has the added bonus to me of my only having seen it twice previously. Definitely feeling Spag fatigue (spagtigue?) now but this one is a cracking antidote to home straight burnout. I’ll be going with this year’s StudioCanal “Cult Classics” blu-ray release and I might even give a listen to the Alex Cox commentary which I haven’t heard yet.
