Lo chiamavano Verità (1972) - Director: Luigi Perelli - 4/10.
I have found the movie to be largely acceptable, though I cannot put my finger on why exactly, since there is nothing really special about it and given that the camerawork turns out patricularly crude and unrefined, I should have taken exception to it, but did not; there is no denying this is one unremarkable comedy with a cheap look and a stupid storyline, but for some reason, at no point did I feel particularly distressed or wearied by it. On the contrary, it kept my attention throughout and in spite of the expected inanities, there was nothing particularly offensive about the development of the concept. My guess is that the reason why it proves mostly agreeable and does not chafe the way most of these flicks do is because it deftly balances between the two extremes, neither devolving into the orgy of slapstick nor getting enmeshed in its plot points to an excessive degree.
I had also approached this thing with zero expectations whatsoever, anticipating utter dross, but I suppose it was not so bad in the end; while the storyline may very well exhibit ephemerality in the manner in which it proceeds from one scene to another, without ever dwelling on any of the details of its trite story for too long, this is a pleasing factor in that the film seems to display some self-awareness and instead of pluming itself on its ineptitude, simply sticks to the central characters and relates the tale in a very straightforward fashion which greatly aids the narrative flow. Needless to say, it is a very cheapjack production with little in the way of actual novelty or fresh ideas, but considering how awful the rest of the field is, it could have turned out a lot worse; some of the jokes made me chuckle on a couple of occasions and the final revelation is genuinely solid, so I guess not all of it is so bad.
Sentivano uno strano, eccitante, pericoloso puzzo di dollari (1973) - Director: Italo Alfaro - 1/10.
That quacking acid synth line at the beginning makes you think this is going to to be a movie about a duck with a bad case of diarrhea peregrinating through the Wild West; this is however not the case, which is a shame, as that would have been infinitely more diverting than what is offered here. In a certain sense, this looks like a flick made by somebody trying their hand at directing in that the movie is framed in a sort of competent fashion, yet the overall decoupage, the general assembly of the narrative and the delivery of the gags all feel so thoroughly muffed that following the action is about as pleasing as seeing somebody abuse a child. The humor proves so awry and disconcertingly botched it is occasionally hard to tell whether the successive scenes are meant to provoke laughter, but fail to do so by reason of the mishandled rhythm and the badly structured, ill-conceived action, or if all of this is supposed to amuse in some post-ironic sense and the utterly fumbled and cumbrous rendition is not fumbled or cumbrous after all, but rather deliberately awkward in its final form.
The difference between comedy and non-comedy becomes blurred, engendering this bizarre melange of sequences whose intended effect comes to be basically inscrutable in the end. At the same time, there are some moments which are clearly included to prompt some chuckles, but their arrant one-dimensionality in combination with the deadpan delivery makes them essentially indigestible. None of that really matters at the end of the day though because viewing this is still quintessentially excruciating no matter how you spin it: the humor is so remarkably defective it is unbelievable it actually passes for a comedy and on top of all of the aforementioned faults, the storyline is just another derivative with no differentiating qualities whatsoever, all of which is terminally exacerbated by the fazingly impaired directing. Woah, goodness gracious, now that was really, really, reeeaaally fucking bad, indubitably one of the worst spaghetti westerns ever made.