I’m a little bias I admit as I’ve been a fan of Franco Nero since I was a kid, even before I really got into his filmography.
1 Like
I know lots of people like him … not an issue for me at all - I’m just a bit picky these days …
There are films that I used to love which I can no longer stand, and ones that I didn’t get when I was younger which I now appreciate more - Tastes fluctuate over time, not necessarily for the better, but currently I have a low tolerance to slapstick style performances.
PS: I’m still interested in hearing others talk about their likes and dislikes, whether I’m a fan of a particular film or not … I’m sure there are some movies I enjoy that others will hate … I may even be watching some later this month.
3 Likes
- Fulci: Silver Saddle
-I like this film even though I usually can’t stand these kind of westerns with kids. Theme song is good but repeated too often. I also like the Snake character, he had some funny scenes. 6/10
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Day 6 - Jonathan of the Bears (1994)
6/10
These spaghettis are largely films my father grew up with, but this is a western that was released when I was a year old. I can’t say why I warmed up to this one a little more on a second viewing. The first time I didn’t care for it. Maybe it is because everyone involved seemed genuine, wanting to make the kind of movie they love, with their hearts in the right place.
This a real amalgamation of things that Nero and Castellari must have loved. It borrows from so many disparate sources. Clearly it owes the most to Keoma, but also Dances with Wolves and Sam Peckinpah. While the theme song sounds like a blend of Roger Miller’s “Lucky Luke” and Francesco De Masi’s “Lone and Angry Man”, there is an operatic score that really sounds like it belongs to Amadeus (1984). Yup. We’re in strange territory.
11 Likes
Those Dirty Dogs
Those Dirty Dogs is also known as Campa carogna… la taglia cresce, Los cuatro de Fort Apache and Charge! It’s late in the Italian Western genre, so it has the slapstick ingredients of other latter cowboy films. It also has a song, “The Wind in My Face,” that was written by star Stephen Boyd and composer Nico Fidenco. Boyd even sings it.
Captain Chadwell Williams (Boyd), Lieutenant Junger Kohl (Howard Ross) and Sergeant Washington Smith (Harry Baird) have been assigned to get back the hundreds of rifles that Angel Sanchez (Simón Andreu) has stolen. They’re joined by Korano (Gianni Garko), a bounty hunter who carries a pink umbrella and the Koran.
It’s a weird cocktail here because fight scenes have sound effects and slaps, while the film starts off with a brutal massacre by Angel and his gang. And Sanchez isn’t even the main villain. That’s the general, played by Alfredo Mayo. He’s not frightening at all, so we start to realize that this is a post-Trinity Italian Western. At least Garko is still kind of Sartana here, having a machine gun hidden inside his umbrella.
But hey — I’ll watch anything Helga Liné is in. And this also has Teresa Gimpera (The People Who Own the Dark) and Gabriella Giorgelli (the mother of Lou Ferrigno’s Hercules) are in the cast.
It has a pretty great tagline on the poster: “The preacher of death who calls himself a follower of Mohammed; The virile Mexican revolutionary to whom every married woman is his to take; The insane General who believes he is Napoleon, destined to conquer America … and Chadwell – the dirtiest of them all!” And you know, at least a hundred people get killed, so if you’re into the more violent side of the Italian West — along with some hijinks — you’ll find something to enjoy.
9 Likes
Day 6:
Joe l’implacabile
aka ‘Dynamite Joe’ (1967)
There’s not a lot of positive feedback for this one in general, not that it’s a bad film in any way … It is very lightweight as a comedy or action film, but it looks gorgeous in both the lavish production design and the beautiful Technicolor photography - Clearly there was a lot of money put into this, as we have scenes of banquets and waltzing with the type of sets usually reserved for expensive romantic costume dramas.
The film was made in 1966 and released early 1967 - it utilizes the Carlo Simi set built for Leone’s ‘For a Few Dollars More’ and moves around many of the iconic desert location nearby.
It never ‘blew my mind’ as a film, but it looks so sumptuous, particularly in the French DVD release, that I could just sit back and enjoy the visuals. The DVD is of such nice quality it would surpass many current Blu ray releases.
Plot Synopsis: ‘Joe Ford’ Special Agent aka ‘Dynamite Joe’ is sent out west to protect a gold shipment being stolen by Comancheros.
6/10
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Variety is the spice of life…
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25: Il grande duello (1972), directed by Giancarlo Santi
After Lee Van Cleef’s Italian masterpieces with Sergio Leone, the quality of his films declined from year to year. The two highlights, Per qualche dollaro in più (1965) and Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966), were followed in 1967 by three Westerns that, while enjoying enduring popularity, remained well behind Leone’s grandeur: Sergio Sollima’s La resa dei conti, Tonino Valerii’s I giorni dell’ira, and Da uomo a uomo, directed by Giulio Petroni. I think the latter two in particular are vastly overrated.
From 1968 until Van Cleef’s last two Westerns in 1976, Diamante Lobo and Kid Vengeance, things went further downhill—with one exception: Il grande duello. This relatively late subgenre entry once again combined everything that characterized Italian Westerns and made them famous in their prime from 1965 to 1968. It’s not original, but it’s certainly fun to watch—the great Lee Van Cleef’s last grand appearance on the European stage, where he had made his fortune: from third villain, background left, in US Westerns to Euro-superstar.
Next: Alfonso Balcázar’s ¡Viva Carrancho! (1965).
8 Likes
Spagvemberfest Day 7: Raise your hands, dead man, you’re under arrest (Sando Kid)(Klimovsky/Bergonzelli)
Interesting movie with interesting soundtrack, some cool baddies and stylistic elements. The story takes some turns that aren’t entirely plausible but it puches above its weight. The new BluRay offers excellent picture quality bar a few scenes inserted from inferior material and quite some compression artifects and DNR noticeable if looked at from up close.
8 Likes
Film #7: Keoma - Rewatch 
1/2 out of 5
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Keoma
The score for this movie is crazy isnt it? Everytime I watch it Im caught up in the vocal weirdness of the singers. “Keooooooooommmma Noooooooooo” etc - Cool to see William Berger AKA Banjo from Sabata and Woody Strode in this. I prefer Franco’s Django (66) of course but for a late 70s Western, its still very good and dark.
13 Likes
Day 7
Cuatro balazos - The Spaghetti Western Database (spaghetti-western.net)
A whodunnit from the early days of the genre that has a very interesting premise though it doesn’t entirely follow through on the delivery. It all centers around a man who is murdered as he is about to leave town with his girlfriend. Convicted of the crime, the girlfriend attempts to make an ill fated escape but is run over by a runaway wagon. Her brother, a notorious gunfighter, arrives in town intent on revenge and the death toll continues to grow.
The mystery portion of this movie is actually pretty entertaining and could have been really good with a bit more imagination. Those looking for non-stop gunplay might be a little disappointed as this movie definitely has the feel of a 1950s era U.S. western.
The new MVD Classics release is far from perfect, especially in the beginning as the picture is extremely jumpy and the sound is abysmal. Everything lines out a bit into the movie and from then on, the picture quality and sound are pretty decent in comparison. It is very much in line with their prior Hudson River Massacre release though perhaps a step below. What can you expect from a $7.99 new release?
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Day 6 (or 7 or whatever, since I skipped a day, I saw this one yesterday, not sure how you count it): Vamos a matar, Compañeros
This was a rewatch, as I´ve already seen it many times. Although uneven with too much slapstick and downright dumb moments, the film is truly excellent, which becomes more and more apparent on each subsequent viewing, and these qualities cannot be undermined by the weak moments. I forgot how downright great Tomas Milian is, particularly in the second half of the film. Overall, still an inconsistent but very solid 8/10.
I will watch another one tonight.
9 Likes
‘DAYS OF VIOLENCE’, aka ‘I giorni della violenza’ (1967)
Directed by Alfonso Brescia, with a suitably memorable soundtrack by SW regular, Bruno Nicolai, this memorable fable tells the tale of Peter Lee Lawrence (Karl Hirenbach) joining a Confederate band of rebels in the last days of the Civil War.
The film is basically a right of passage for our hero (Lawrence); who begins as a thoroughly nice guy, then engages in conflict, endures loss, and returns as a bitter, rather pissed-off outlaw with a price on his head - and no girl to show for it, because she has fallen for a yankee ‘gentleman’ - who then turns out to be a thorough-going bastard.
I’m not a big fan of Peter Lee, but actually thought he did a stellar job in this one. He is joined on his journey from nice, bad, doubtful, bitter, revengeful, justice-seeking loner, by SW regulars, Nello Pazzafini, and Andrea Bosic.
Romano Puppo (Lee Van Cleef’s usual stunt double), pops up just long enough to take yet another dive for SW posterity and folklore.
The love interest is provided by the incredibly beautiful Yugoslavian, Beba Loncar.
She may be better known to Western audiences as the girl in ‘The Long Ships’ (1964), who is kidnapped by Russ Tamblyn’s Viking character - can’t say I blame him!
Fan favourite, Rosalba Neri, makes an all too brief appearance near the beginning of the film, but it will be enough to satisfy her many fans…
‘Days of Violence’ is not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but it has enough going for it to warrant a few viewings more…
13 Likes
Day 7: Johnny Yuma
Thoughts:
I don’t think there’s many other spaghetti westerns out there where the slick gunslinger drifter main character is the target of an inheritance scheme. Catchy opening theme song. Rosalba Neri undresses in front of a horny parrot. Some pretty violent and cruel moments. Mark Damon does some safe cracking. Pretty good.
10 Likes
Day 7: Djurado (1966) D-Giovanni Narzisi. Starring Dante Posani (billed as Montgomery Clark), Scilla Gabel, and Mariangela Giordano. Bottom-of-the-barrel spaghetti about a poker player who helps a female bar owner save her struggling saloon and take on a local predatory business tycoon, Tucan (pronounced “Doo-kane” in the movie) and his thugs. Dujardo seemed to be marketed to teenagers. The soundtrack was overly pop rockish, even for genre entries in the mid-'60s. It appeared like Dante Posani was being marketed stateside as hunk of the moment. Hence the screen name “Montgomery Clark,” like Montgomery Wood for Giuliano Gemma with the Ringo movies. I had a difficult time watching the movie the whole way through, and found myself letting it play in the background while doing other things around my apartment. Rating: 1/5.
9 Likes
Una pistola per cento croci (1971) - Director: Carlo Croccolo - 3/10
Though the movie is intended to be a lot more serious than its sibling, videlicet Black Killer from the same director, the end result is just as helpless, but regrettably nowhere as funny as that one; the primary issue evidently originates from the fact that even though it is meant to be less of a joke, the execution is just as incompetent, so the tout ensemble simply turns out more obnoxious than amusing. The first half an hour proves agonizingly tedious and constitutes a veritable test of patience. Though the shootouts are helmed in a more or less proficient fashion, the rest of the direction leaves much to be desired in that there are multiple longueurs during which characters simply rove around with no dialogues or soundtrack playing in the background, thus certain scenes look plain odd and discombobulating for no apparent reason.
Furthermore, some of the deliberately comedic exchanges are nowhere nearly as funny as the inadvertently funny bits in Black Killer; the stuttering comic relief character promptly palls on the viewer and eventually gets on one’s nerves. The two narrative strands depicting the two disparate vendettas are bootlessly interspersed and fail to rivet attention in virtue of how formulaic and stodgy they are; at no point does the development of both character arcs come as a surprise in that one may very easily predict whither it is all going to proceed. Apart from a handful of idiosyncratic shticks, this is one very dreary affair indeed, though some people might take delectation in some of the gunplay and in how cheap it looks.
9 Likes
I remember watching this in disbelief - shockingly bad, but fun if you like marveling at ineptitude
- Fidani: A Barrel full of Dollars
-When you can’t get sleep during spagvember it’s a good idea to watch some mindless Fidani fun in the middle of the night. This is actually one of Fid’s best, I think. 6/10
8 Likes
Day 7:
‘Dove si spara di piu’ (Where People Shoot Most) aka ‘The Fury of Johnny Kidd’ (1967)
Good looking melodramatic vehicle for young star, Peter Lee Lawrence … kind of enjoyed this more first time, but it’s still an above average SW with some nice stylish touches.
6.5/10
12 Likes
