Against the odds, the highlights of this SpagvemberFest for me have been Dead Men Don’t Make Shadows and last night’s The Deserter, so I couldn’t be happier when my girl drew no.18 earlier on; another underdog, this time it’s late entry cult favourite God’s Gun (Parolini, 1976), in which the omniscient Lee Van Cleef takes on two roles: One as a holy man with an unholy fright-wig which gains sentience and goes on a terrifying, rmurderous rampage across rural Israel; and one as the laconic gunslinging sidekick sent to help the sentient fright-wig bring down wig-phobic outlaw Jack Palance. Or something.
I’ve got a real blind spot for God’s Gun. I know it’s crap but, at the same time, it’s kind-of brilliant. I’ve always thought it looks like a dead cert for an 88Films blu-ray presentation. It’s their sort of movie.
Day 13: Shango, the Infallible Gun (1970) w/ Anthony Steffen and Eduardo Fajardo. It is the end of the Civil War, and Shango, a Texas Ranger, has hidden gold that both ruthless Confederate soldiers and Mexican bandits want to get their hands on. Though not a great movie, the forested scenery of the film was refreshing. Steffens was his usual brooding, mysterious self. Fajardo’s character Major Droster starting to hallucinate Shango everywhere among the dead after a massacre of villagers was also pretty cool. I give it a 2 1/2 stars out of 5.
Day 14: Twice a Judas (1968) w/ Antonio Sabato and Klaus Kinski. I didn’t have any expectations about this one. I just picked it because I had never seen it before. Twice a Judas exceeded my expectations as a great mystery story. Luke (Sabato) wakes up in the desert with a dead man nearby. Due to a bullet grazing his skull, he cannot remember the identity of the man, how he got there, or even who he is. I won’t say more because I don’t want to ruin the movie for those who haven’t seen it. I give it 3.5 out of 5.
Another just average mid-60s spaghetti western for me, and like all of the others, it’s pretty fun. There’s nothing much to say, it’s everything you’d expect from an American style SW. with this I’ve seen every Brett Halsey euro-western.
#12 Kennedy: Deserter
-Another random pick from shelf, too bad it was a dvd-r with bad pic quality and even worse audio which was partly out of sync and had some parts missing completely. I didn’ t remember much about the film, I had even forgot the star filled cast. Ok film which is badly in need of proper bd/dvd release. 6/10
First time watch. Despite the occasional frustration of the great sounding Italian soundtrack changing to a near gawd-awful English dub, I found this lesser discussed SW a very entertaining watch. George Hilton and Walter Barnes made a great team and I wish they got teamed up more as they had a good chemistry going.
Horst Frank, the debonair villain of the Italian West, does another great job as the slimy psychopath. I wonder what an SW would’ve looked like had he and Klaus Kinski got to play villain brothers? You’d have the sane menace of Frank and the psycho madness of Kinski that’s for sure.
I never saw that twist within a twist style ending coming and am still trying to figure it out. Carmineo’s flashy cinematography is on fine display.
There appeared to be quite a bit of age damage to the film’s negative when it was restored for Blu Ray, but I didn’t find it distracting (apologies to @Bill_san_Antonio, but I honestly didn’t mind) as sometimes there’s only so much that can be fixed.
Undoubtedly, this is one of my guilty pleasures in the genre. There is non-stop action, and the production quality is surprisingly decent. George Hilton and Erika Blanc are solid as always but, in the end, it is Charles Southwood’s dandy Sabata/Sabbath who steals the show. Southwood only made a total of 11 movies in his career, five of which were spaghetti flavored. It is a shame that the other four weren’t of this caliber and that he didn’t get better roles on the whole as he definitely had a great screen presence.
It’s been far too long since I watched this one. Thank you Spagvemberfest. Classic Spaghetti Western with all the elements you look for in the genre including another magnificent Morricone score. Excellent
Whenever I see Chris Huerta now, I have flashbacks from Fat Brothers of Trinity and I shudder in utter trepidation (thankfully he gets hanged fairly early on). As for the film itself, it does look good and combines comedy and serious western reasonably well, however, it appears a little disjointed on account of the storytelling being destitute of focus, which effects the muddled structure. I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly that makes the film feel so distant and indifferent;
I guess it is sporadically difficult to follow the storyline in virtue of how swiftly the flick leapfrogs between multiple locations and characters which in turn induces the tale to progress in a rather choppy fashion and divests individual sequences and major plot developments of their impact and resonance; basically a lot of the crucial scenes are cut short and then they fail to leave a mark in one’s memory, effectuating the hazy focus. Garko and Spoletini have some good chemistry, which offsets the said faults to some extent, but none of that can completely compensate for the somewhat tenuous writing and the feeble narration.
One of those rare spaghetti westerns in which dialogues are sedulously worked out to the extent that they are witty and smart, characters are veritably three-dimensional and the story does not feel like a contrived mock-up of a plot intended for providing an unobtrusive background to action sequences rather than recounting a concrete tale as such like it is the case here. The narrative has a proper flow to it, consecutive scenes relate to one another and all serve an overarching purpose, resulting in a highly immersive viewing experience and generally higher class filmmaking.
Long story short, this feels like an actual movie with properly delineated characters and an actualized blueprint as to film’s overall destination. I do not understand why it is not more renowned; I guess it is a lot more drama-driven than other genre examples, but it works just the same, features some of the most fleshed out characters you could ask for in a western of this kind, some traces of noir motifs and Bobby Woods puts on one of his strongest performances too; there is not a single dull moment either and everything sort of fits together, greatly benefitting from film’s tight focus and high production values. One of the few titles I would not mind revisiting in the not so distant future; the mere fact that it has not been released officially yet is a bona fide travesty.
My final LVC flick of the season and what I think is best described as a “mid tier” Van Cleef. Entertaining enough without being outstanding in any way.
From now on it will be more random selections with the theme of just watching some of those Blurays I picked up in the past year and haven’t actually got round to watching yet. I’ll be starting with some of those German ones I picked up in Berlin during the summer.
Starts off pretty good, then had a boring middle part, then had a pretty great ending shootout. Didn’t think much of George Ardisson and I wish Martell was in it more. Also, does this movie re-use some music tracks from an early bond film? I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had heard some of the music before.
Day 15? SpagvemberFest, halfway done, already?? Bizarre, and more than a trifle upsetting, but true. So than God my girl drew no.21 on my list, a genuine all-time great: The Great Silence (Corbucci, 1968), a movie which needs no introduction from me and one which improves with every viewing. Still hope it’ll all work out fine for everyone at the end, though. Every time I watch it. Come on Silence! Come on Vonetta McGee out of Repo Man! You can do it, you can beat these fu… oh.
#13 Bergonzelli: Colt in the Hand of the Devil
-Kinda weird sw with non-typical hero, surprising ending and plot with some nice ideas and some really stupid ideas. Entertaining film anyway. 6/10
Rewatch. Mini Masterpiece isn’t a term I use a lot, but Bandidos fits the moniker like a glove. There’s another SW I give the moniker to, but I’ll let you guys try to guess which one it is. The plot is simple, but is filmed in so eloquent a manner that it makes it look grander in scale. Dallamano’s debut as a director is great, and shows he really paid attention when working with Maestro Sergio Leone.
Enrico Maria Salerno, best known to many of us as Clint Eastwood’s dubber for the Dollars Trilogy, is excellent as Richard Martin. His facial expressions are enough to tell viewers the pain and anguish he feels his life has ended up as. I think Salerno is one of the first actor’s to put that kind of complexity to an SW character.
It’s a shame Terry Jenkins only did this one film, he had a lot of talent going for him. At least he got to be in a memorable role and film. Venantino Venantini definitely ranks in the top 10 to 20 list of best SW villains as Billy Kane, he’s so nasty even his own men don’t like him.
Arrow Video did a magnificent job with bringing the film back to life, everything looked so vibrant and crisp.
After watching Charles Southwood yesterday, I decided to continue on and give all of his movies a re-watch even though they aren’t very good on the whole. Except, when I sat down to watch this one, I had no recollection of ever having seen it before. I kept waiting for something familiar to come along but all I ever got were brief flashes of familiarity. My only explanation is that when I did sit down to watch this one for the first time, I did so after having a third glass of single malt.
Regardless of the explanation, I did get to watch something new yesterday and, although this movie isn’t great by any means, I did enjoy it. It has an overly simplified plot with lots of action and just a bit of bad attempts at humor. What more can you ask for from a lower tier spaghetti western?
Southwood does a solid job as does Julian Mateos (Return of the Seven). Alida Chelli looked absolutely beautiful as long as she wasn’t speaking as the English dub of her voice was a bit strange.
All in all, not a bad way to spend 100 minutes or so of your life - especially when you actually remember doing it.
