Ah yeah, Bill_san_Antonio made a post defending Captain Apache a few posts earlier. I like the film as well, mostly as a laugh
1 Like
Day 28 - R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned
There’s no judgement here, right? I’ll just say that I’m a fan of the Weird West subgenre, and that this is more watchable, for me, than Wild Wild West or Jonah Hex, both of which are pretty unwatchable. But the ubiquitous influence of the spaghetti western on the whole genre is here–just look at that poncho on the poster.
Day 29 - Silver Saddle
Seeing the great Gemma back on some of the same sets used in A Pistol For Ringo over a decade later is definitely a great way to ride off into the sunset. The first time I saw this I gave it a 4/10, this time around I’d give it a 7.5/10. I guess I was in the right mood. Maybe the boy didn’t annoy me much.
To me, Keoma is a late 10/10 masterpiece. But this is still a very good twilight spag, and thankfully keeps a lot of the feeling of the classics alive. If we could just replace the lyrical ballad theme song with the mostly strong instrumental score, I’d bump this to a solid 8/10.
4 Likes
Day 30! 
Taste of Killing (1966)
Per il gusto di uccidere - The Spaghetti Western Database (spaghetti-western.net)
I decided to bring this marathon to an end with one of my all-time top 10. I think that the thing I love most about this one is how un-heroic our hero Lanky Fellows is until there is an opportunity to make money. How many heroes can watch a massacre through the scope of their rifle and smile because it is an opportunity to put cash in their pocket? Some people say that Craig Hill was wooden in this role but I think the subtlety of his portrayal was brilliant. His facial expressions revealed more about the characters thoughts and motivations than 50 lines of dialogue ever could.
Every “hero” needs a “villain” and this film was lucky enough to have the great George Martin playing Gus Kennebeck. The line between the good guy and bad guy here is negligible at best and Martin’s outlaw is also a doting father who truly loves his son.
In this film, the good guy is far from good, and the bad guy has a few admirable traits. This is far from typical and, for me, what makes Tonino Valerii’s film so enjoyable.
And, with that, my Spagvemberfest 2022 comes to an end!
6 Likes
The appearance of the automobile tainted my view a little towards Arriva Sabata as well.
That would’ve made the movie so much better.
DAY 30:
La mia Colt ti cerca… 4 ceri ti aspettano (1971) - Director: Ignacio F. Iquino - 4/10
Aside from having a decent story at its core, the movie works well as a kind of Fidanesque comedy and essentially goes off the rails in a spectacular fashion, eventually becoming an entertaining trainwreck of sorts. The issue here dwells in that every single character is on the brink of assaulting anybody standing next to them and if they do not happen to glower and murmur menacingly at their interlocutors, they bawl, tug at one another, push each other around, throw punches and engage in the most over-the-top exchanges and fisticuffs possible. This lunacy never seems to end which results in a cavalcade of absurd situations and causes the film to spiral into pure idiocy.
I thought Tomas was hyperbolizing when describing the movie during one of the previous Spagvemberfests, but no, that’s just the way this flick is, the histrionics are so absurdly exaggerated it genuinely becomes a sort of comedy disguised as a western, but without any of the habitual slapstick you would expect in a seventies affair, thus coming to constitute something more along the lines of a clandestine burlesque. Some people are bound to hate it by reason of its firmly bipolar or rather unipolar nature, but to my way of thinking, this characteristic at the very least endues the work with a very distinctive quality and makes it kind of unique even if it is indubitably not that good on a purely technical level.
3 Likes
8h left in #spagvemberfest 2022 (my time zone). What a wild ride so far…
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I guess it is time for a brief summary:
C’era una volta questo pazzo, pazzo, pazzo West (1973) - Director: Vincenzo Matassi - 1/10
Su le mani, cadavere! Sei in arresto (1971) - Director: Sergio Bergonzelli - 6/10
Se t’incontro, t’ammazzo (1970) - Director: Gianni Crea - 2/10
Il lungo giorno del massacro (1968) - Director: Alberto Cardone - 4/10
Ninguno de los tres se llamaba Trinidad (1973) - Director: Pedro Luis Ramírez - 1/10
Passa Sartana… è l’ombra della tua morte (1968) - Director: Demofilo Fidani - 5/10
Amico mio, frega tu… che frego io! (1973) - Director: Demofilo Fidani - 3/10
Uccidi o muori (1966) - Director: Tanio Boccia - 4/10
El hombre de Rio Malo (1971) - Director: Eugenio Martin - 2/10
Lola Colt (1967) - Director: Siro Marcellini - 3/10
Il suo nome era Pot (1971) - Directors: Demofilo Fidani, Lucio Giachin - 4/10
O tutto o niente (1968) - Director: Guido Zurli - 6/10
Professionisti per un massacro (1967) - Director: Nando Cicero - 6/10
Un dólar de recompensa (1972) - Director: Rafael Romero Marchent - 4/10
I tre che sconvolsero il West (1968) - Director: Enzo G. Castellari - 3/10
Vivi o, preferibilmente, morti (1969) - Director: Duccio Tessari - 5/10
L’oro dei Bravados (1970) - Director: Giancarlo Romitelli - 5/10
Monta in sella, figlio di…! (1972) - Director: Tonino Ricci - 5/10
Il mio nome è Scopone e faccio sempre cappotto (1972) - Director: Juan Bosch - 3/10
La caza del oro (1972) - Director: Juan Bosch - 7/10
Un par de asesinos (1970) - Director: Rafael Romero Marchent - 4/10
La sfida dei MacKenna (1970) - Director: León Klimovsky - 7/10
Pecos è qui: prega e muori (1967) - Director: Maurizio Lucidi - 5/10
Little Rita nel west (1967) - Director: Ferdinando Baldi - 6/10
Lo chiamavano Tresette… giocava sempre col morto (1973) - Director: Giuliano Carnimeo - 4/10
El bandido Malpelo (1971) - Director: Giuseppe Maria Scotese - 4/10
Di Tressette ce n’è uno, tutti gli altri son nessuno (1974) - Director: Giuliano Carnimeo - 5/10
Il West ti va stretto, amico… è arrivato Alleluja (1972) - Director: Giuliano Carnimeo - 4/10
Carambola (1974) - Director: Ferdinando Baldi - 2/10
Un animale chiamato uomo (1972) - Director: Roberto Mauri - 2/10
Il mio corpo per un poker (1968) - Director: Lina Wertmüller - 3/10
L’uomo venuto per uccidere (1967) - Director: Leon Klimovsky - 3/10
Alleluja e Sartana figli di… Dio (1972) - Director: Mario Siciliano - 2/10
Domani passo a salutare la tua vedova… parola di Epidemia (1972) - Director: Juan Bosch - 3/10
Quinto: non ammazzare (1969) - Director: León Klimovsky - 4/10
Il bianco, il giallo, il nero (1974) - Director: Sergio Corbucci - 3/10
In nome del padre, del figlio e della Colt (1971) - Director: Mario Bianchi - 4/10
Manos torpes (1969) - Director: Rafael Romero Marchent - 7/10
Una bala marcada (1972) - Director: Juan Bosch - 6/10
Kid Vengeance (1976) - Director: Joe Manduke - 2/10
Sette winchester per un massacro (1967) - Director: Enzo G. Castellari - 4/10
Arizona si scatenò… e li fece fuori tutti (1970) - Director: Sergio Martino - 4/10
E poi lo chiamarono il magnifico (1972) - Director: Enzo Barboni - 4/10
Prega Dio… e scavati la fossa (1968) - Director: Edoardo Mulargia - 4/10
La muerte cumple condena (1966) - Director: Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent - 6/10
La mia Colt ti cerca… 4 ceri ti aspettano (1971) - Director: Ignacio F. Iquino - 4/10
The best movie: there were several quite enjoyable entries I had not come across before, but the best one of the bunch was undoubtedly La sfida dei MacKenna (1970); the film decidedly excels in the screenwriting department even if it is not as stylistically flashy and boisterous as most of genre’s best outings. The dramatic component of the narrative is remarkably strong which gives rise to the exceedingly immersive tale rife with psychological anguish and trenchant cynicism.
The worst movie: C’era una volta questo pazzo, pazzo, pazzo West (1973), hands down, a pure piece of shit, it encompasses every single bad thing you dread to see in a spaghetti western comedy. Absolute garbage.
The biggest positive surprise of the month: Manos torpes (1969).
The biggest disappointment of the month: E poi lo chiamarono il magnifico (1972); very overwrought, oddly structured and plain boring most of the time.
4 Likes
#24 Valerii: My Name is Nobody
-I started watching first 20 minutes of Django Kill which I bought recently on blu but changed eventually to this personal favorite. 10/10
Addio spagvemberfest 2022…
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DAY 30
What? It’s over? Already? Can’t be! It is though, and the last number left in my drum was unlucky no.13: The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe (Caiano, 1973), the wildly uneven ultraviolent goofball spag/fu mashup. I wanted to like it more than I actually did last time I saw it, but in the intervening years I’ve taken a great interest in martial arts pictures - thanks to the flood of releases by 88Films, Eureka and Arrow I’ve accrued three times as many Kung Fu pictures as spags in less than half the time - and I may appreciate its attempts at serving two grindhouse genres at once a little more this time. Who knows?
5 Likes
And the summary for 2022
- Leone: Once Upon a Time in the West 10/10
- Tessari: A Pistol for a Ringo 8/10
- Corbucci: Minnesota Clay 7/10
- Ferroni: One Silver Dollar 6/10
- Carnimeo: Moment to Kill 5/10
- Petroni: Tepepa 8/10
- Lucidi: My Name is Pecos 6/10
- Valerii: Day of Anger 8/10
- Carnimeo: They Call Me Hallelujah 7/10
- Wanted Johhny Texas 4/10
- Fidani: Django & Sartana -Showdown in the West 6/10
- Kennedy: Deserter 6/10
- Bergonzelli: Colt in the Hand of the Devil 6/10
- Costa: The Beast 4/10
- Giraldi: A Minute to Pray, Second to Die 7/10
- Vari: A Hole in the Forehead 7/10
- Stegani: Beyond the Law 7/10
- Rosso: A Stranger in Paso Bravo 4/10
- Giraldi: 7 Guns for McGregors 6/10
- Batzella: Paid in Blood 3/10
- Fago: Vengeance is Mine 7/10
- Kokkonen: Speedy Gonzales -noin 7 veljeksen poika 7/10
- Singer: Captain Apache 5/10
- Valerii: My Name is Nobody 10/10
5 Likes
So, my summary for SpagvemberFest 2022 goes thus:
Tue 1 Death Sentence
Wed 2 For a Few Dollars More
Thu 3 Today We Kill… Tomorrow We Die!
Fri 4 One After Another
Sat 5 The Grand Duel
Sun 6 Requiem For Gringo
Mon 7 Dead Men Don’t Make Shadows
Tue 8 Mannaja
Wed 9 Death Rides a Horse
Thu 10 The Big Gundown
Fri 11 Four of the Apocalypse
Sat 12 Sabata
Sun 13 The Deserter
Mon 14 God’s Gun
Tue 15 The Great Silence
Wed 16 A Fistful of Dynamite
Thu 17 Django
Fri 18 Adiós, Sabata
Sat 19 Keoma
Sun 20 Django the Bastard
Mon 21 Day of Anger
Tue 22 The Return of Ringo
Wed 23 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Thu 24 A Bullet For the General
Fri 25 Kill Them All and Come Back Alone
Sat 26 The Forgotten Pistolero
Sun 27 Django, Kill… If You Live, Shoot!
Mon 28 The Savage Pampas
Tue 29 California
Wed 30 The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe
5 Likes
To finish off:
Day 27 Shoot, Gringo shoot
Day 28 China 9, Liberty 37
Day 29 Death rides a horse
Day 30 Django kill…
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Fellas, we ain’t done!
@davidgregorybell lands a late entry with an extensive review of La Spacconata. I will post the link shortly, still need to add some pictures 
And there’ll be an interview with Jan Svabenicky, which is almost done editing
Edit: here (we need more and better pictures and posters of this!)
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Winter_%26_Whiskey:Alfonso_Brescia’s_La_spacconata(1975)
and here
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Navajo Joe (Sergio Corbucci, 1966
We all know what Burt Reynolds himself thought of this film (for most of his life) so let’s just state that if you think this is crap, or at least one of the lesser films of the genre, you haven’t seen many SW:s. Navajo Joe is actually a far, far above average Spaghetti Western both in terms of production value and premise, although it’s admittedly the style and slightly off-beat themes rather than some kind of cinematic greatness that make this film a personal favorite of mine.
In most westerns, there are two ways to portray Native Americans - as mindless savages (thankfully chiefly in older pictures) and more recently as innocent victims of colonization and imperialism who can’t defend themselves. The latter is by all means objectively true (the story of the Native American genocide reveals horrors by Holocaust proportions, albeit not quite as industrially systematical), but it often ends up stating “these poor native’s couldn’t stand up”, which could also be seen as slightly offensive (although in a more benevolent way than the “savages” portrayals). In Spaghetti land, this is generally irrelevant because Native Americans hardly show up at all, and when they do - like in Sabata, The Return of Ringo or briefly in The Hellbenders, the depiction is generally quite unconvincing. The most convincing depictions of Natives actually tend to be those were they have some part in the plot, but are only mentioned (like in Fistful of Dollars).
Here, however, we have a Navajo hero who is not a fantasy warrior nor a pitiful savage - just a generally pissed off farmer who happens to be good with a rifle, and to be at the wrong place at the right time. It’s most prominently discussed during his famous speech about who’s the actual American of him and the Esperanza sheriff, to demonstrate that his more of a true American by blood than any of the nativist townsfolk.
Don’t get me wrong here, this film is certainly not an attempt to depict Native Americans in an authentic way, but the navajos are correctly depicted as peaceful farmers (although no, they did not live in tipis), and the scalphunting part was indeed a thing during the purges of Navajo tribes in the mid-19th century, while Morricone’s score is claimed (from an unreliable source) to be based on a traditional Navajo hymn. And what a score! It’s maybe his wildest western compositions up until that point, with Native American shouting, blues-rock-style electric guitars and the choir bursting “Navajo Joe, Navajo Joe”.
As usual for Corbucci, there’s plenty of positive female portrayals. Aside from Estella, we have Mrs Lynne, who is probably the most open-minded citizen of Esperanza along with Father Parson, as well as the showgirls, who are nowhere as pappy as they may seem at first sight. It’s a shame two of these characters fail to make it to the “The End” mark of the film.
And that’s maybe the main shortcoming here. I recall reading a reviewer who felt that the seriousness of the concept “taking a persons life” felt a bit watered down in this film, and I have to agree. Several supporting characters are killed off for no real reason other than adding some extra brutality. I would much rather have seen those few minutes spent on further development of the racism themes of the film.
But it doesn’t matter too much. Navajo Joe is a highly entertaining spaghetti western, one of the finest in the genre.
The grade? From a strictly cinematic viewpoint, 7/10 would be a proper score. But the music, entertainment value and concept is just about enough to give it an extra star. 8/10
(It seems like I will not write my next and final review until after midnight. But on the other hand, that would give me the honor to end the 2022 Spagvember fest, in which university homework of inhuman proportions have hindered most of my participation. That is, if the admins allow me to do so).
7 Likes
Here is a summary of all watchings in my Letterboxd:
It was not easy to keep up during the whole month, I must confess. I should have mixed more rewatches cause most of the stuff I do have in my to do list is bad or in best case scenario, bland. Still, this fest is what drives me to keep crossing movies from that enormous spaghetti western list.
Viva el spagvemberfest!
4 Likes
The summary for the last month of my life aka Spagvemberfest 2022
11/01 – His Name Was Pot…They Call Him Allegria (1971)
11/02 – One Against All aka Jesse James’ Kid (1965)
11/03 – Colt in the Hand of the Devil (1967)
11/04 – Garter Colt (1968)
11/05 – Dynamite Joe (1967)
11/06 – The Big Gundown (1966)
11/07 – Degueyo (1965)
11/08 – The Grand Duel (1972)
11/09 – Pray to God…And Dig Your Grave (1968)
11/10 – The Specialists (1969)
11/11 – Stagecoach of the Condemned (1970)
11/12 – Ride For a Massacre (1967)
11/13 – Four Gunmen of the Holy Trinity (1971)
11/14 – For a Few Dollars More (1965)
11/15 – Sartana’s Here…Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin (1970)
11/16 – Three Silver Dollars aka I Protect Myself Against My Enemies (1968)
11/17 – Make the Sign of the Cross, Stranger! (1967)
11/18 – Roy Colt and Winchester Jack (1970)
11/19 – They Call Me Hallelujah aka Guns for Dollars (1971)
11/20 – The Forgotten Pistolero (1969)
11/21 – Sabata (1969)
11/22 – Django, Prepare a Coffin (1968)
11/23 – Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead (1971)
11/24 – Red Sun (1971)
11/25 – I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
11/26 – The Mercenary (1968)
11/27 – A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die (1972)
11/28 – Requiem for a Gringo (1968)
11/29 – Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
11/30 – Taste of Killing (1966)
4 Likes
I think you’ll find that’s, Allegria …which means happiness 
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Well, shit! I did that twice. It’s been a long month. Or maybe I thought they were in Spain. I don’t know.
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Day 30: O Cangaceiro (1969) w/Tomas Milian and Eduardo Fajardo. In 1920s Brazil, Espedito (Milian), is a peasant-turned-messianic liberation figure/bandit after his village is massacred (including his beloved cow) by a military general, and he is saved by a hermit priest. The Aqua Blaco region’s governor (Fajardo) wants to wrest control of lands controlled by the cangaceiri (bandits) for oil companies to drill in. Espedito “the Redeemer” is the main obstacle in the governor’s way. ‘Cangaceiro’ has been on my watch-list since I first discovered it in the SW dictionary, “Any Gun Can Play.” There were times it reminded me of the Gillo Pontecorvo movie ‘Burn!’(1969) with Marlon Brando. Milian supplies plenty of humor as Espedito to counterbalance the movie’s heavier themes about imperialism and neoliberal capitism. Fajardo is good here (as always) at playing the greedy, two-faced governor. Rating: 4/5.
5 Likes