22: Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent’s Fedra West (1968)
The last time I watched Fedra West was during Spagvemberfest 2018, and unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a better version of this movie since. There is still only the English-dubbed, scratchy one and the Spanish-dubbed one, which looks even worse (two screenshots can be seen in my old post). Both also seem to be too short. One can only speculate about the original running time of Fedra West, even the website of the Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales with its Catálogo de Cine Español is silent on the matter.
Fedra West’s plot is based on the ancient Greek myth of Phaedra, Theseus and Hippolytus, although in somewhat muddled form, laying emphasis on its oedipal implications (“Father, I want to kill you! Stepmother, I want to …”). In the myth’s original version (which has been subject to many mutations over the centuries), Phaedra, the second wife of Theseus, king of Athens, falls in love with Hippolytus, Theseus’s son from a former marriage. Hippolytus, appalled by his stepmother’s desire, rejects her, and Phaedra’s love turns into hate. She defames Hippolytus in a letter to her husband and commits suicide. Theseus banishes his son from Athens, summons a curse, and Hippolytus is dragged to death by his chariot horses.
All three main actors in Romero Marchent’s Phaedra adaptation deliver good performances, especially Brazilian actress Norma Bengell in the title role, but also Simón Andreu as Hippolytus (both in their first Western) and James Philbrook as Theseus, depicted as a tyrannical ranchero with a bad temper. Fedra West plays more like a 1950s melodrama than a Western, let alone a Spaghetti Western. According to Kevin Grant, it “is a sterile rendering of a tempestuous story” (p. 173). I appreciate the film for its careful technical execution, its somber atmosphere, its complete lack of irony, and its old-fashioned 1950s Hollywood style, which marked a return to his roots for director Romero Marchent after venturing a little deeper into Spaghetti Western territory with his previous western, La muerte cumple condena (1966).
In the thread dedicated to Fedra West, Phil_H and autephex had good things to say about the movie, Toscano and aldo commented favorably on it during Spagvemberfest 2021, and scherpschutter wrote an informative review.
Next: La taglia è tua … l’uomo l’ammazzo io (1969), directed by Edoardo Mulargia.