I’m pretty sure that is Miss Redgrave’s actual voice … not the best ‘Stage Irish’ accent, but I’ve heard much worse
2 Likes
Film #23: My Name is Nobody - Another one of my Top 10 faves - rewatch
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Mio_nome_è_Nessuno,_Il
11 Likes
Day 22. Movie 16. Bad Man’s River.
Wanted to see a van Cleef picture I hadn’t seen before, settled for this. More of a light comedy than a usual western, with hints of con artists/capers involved. The twinkle in van Cleef’s eye, and that Godawful boller he sports throughout, along with some pretty solid action scenes, make this one enjoyable.
9 Likes
- Marchent: Garringo
-Film with a promising start, first there’s a great transition from PLL’s childhood to adulthood. Well done and surprising shot. Steffen’s Garringo seems like sort of psychopath in the beginning as he is hunting PLL and killing his men which was interesting. Too bad that the rest of the film isn’t as fascinating. 6/10
10 Likes
Some more rewatches…
18. A Place Called Glory Manitoba - The Spaghetti Western Database
Very middle of the road, not to say it is bad at all, rather nothing that stands out too much. Opinion has not really changed, other than to say I consider it to be reasonably more of a solid film than before, if slightly dull at times. The cast is very good, its just in the pacing department that I think it suffers. 3 out of 5.
19. In A Colt’s Shadow All'ombra di una colt - The Spaghetti Western Database
Starts off quite promisingly with its intro scene in which you meet an older gunslinger and his young partner, and Aldo Sambrell shows up briefly to harass a small village with his men. Sort of peters out from there, though, like with Glory, it is not at all bad just very middling with lulls in the middle in which you slowly lose interest. The final gun fight is quite well done. Very competent, if unremarkable. 3 out of 5.
20. 100,000 Dollars for Ringo Centomila dollari per Ringo - The Spaghetti Western Database
Wanted to like it more as I was giving it another go, but sadly it just is not that good of a film for me. It is really not very engaging, and the plot just seems to meander its way through to a not very satisfying conclusion. Kind of messy in all honesty, and it really can be a bore at times. Nothing too offending, but really not much to see here in the end. 2.5 out of 5.
And then a first time viewing here…
21. Go for Broke Tutto per tutto - The Spaghetti Western Database
Thought I had seen all that I cared to see in the genre after seeing well over 300 spags by now, but I am glad to have come across this one if only for Ireland and Damon who are stalwarts of the genre. Also Fernando Sancho among others. But it really is a bit of a mixed bag, and the plot does wander quite a bit with no real drive to keep you invested. It has a lot going for it, but I am left feeling as though it did not really deliver, its sloppy in places and gripping in others. Very uneven, but Mark Damon made it enjoyable for me and I am happy to have seen it. 3 out of 5.
10 Likes
Day 23
Oggi a me… domani a te! - The Spaghetti Western Database (spaghetti-western.net)
Back to the familiar with one of my favorites that is just fun from start to finish. A good old revenge film as Halsey and his who’s who of compatriots set out to avenge a laundry list of wrong doings, including the murder of Halsey’s wife, committed at the hands of Tatsuya Nakadi.
Nakadi is a stand out here as the psychotic El Fego. One could argue that his performance is borderline over the top but I think this is exactly what makes it so great. He knew exactly how far to push it.
The final confrontation in the woods is one of my favorite final battles in the genre and the ending always leaves a smile on my face.
13 Likes
Tatsuya Nakadai is in a spaghetti western and im only just now finding this out? How has this gone under my radar until now!? Going straight on the watchlist!
8 Likes
Chino (1973)
I guess picking Chino for a month of Italian Westerns is a cheat, even if this is an Italian/Spanish production.
Based on the book The Valdez Horses by Lee Hoffman, it was released in Italy as Valdez, il mezzosangue (Valdez the Half Breed). It was directed by John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Great Escape) and Duilio Coletti, who producer Dino Laurentiis hired to do inserts and reshoots. Sturges was unhappy with the film, feeling that casting Jill Ireland as the love interest was a mistake. That said, once Bronson and Ireland got together, she was often his on-screen lover.
Chino Valdez (Bronson) is a horse breeder who suddenly has Jamie Wagner (Vincent Van Patten) in his life, an orphan who needs raising as much as the horses of Maral (Marcel Bozzuffi) need broken in. He also falls for the rich man’s sister Catherine (Ireland), a forbidden relationship between an entitled white woman and a half-breed poor horsebreeder.
European film lovers will enjoy seeing Fausto Tozzi (Cry of a Prostitute), Corrado Gaipa (the Italian voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi), Melissa Chimenti (Papaya, Love Goddess of the Cannibals), Diana Lorys (Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll) and Annamaria Clementi (Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals).
I was struck in this movie by the Spanish countryside, as well as the fact that despite being an expert on horses, Chino has no idea that Catherine would never leave her rich life to live with him in a shack with no money in the middle of nowhere. His idea of love — and even making love — are basic ones that he’s taken from being raised in a harsh world of taming animals and surviving on your own instead being taken care of. He can make love to her, but he can never truly provide for all the other things she truly needs. Jamie understands that, even if he’s barely a man.
At the end, after it all goes wrong, Chino realizes that if he can’t have the life he wants, no one can have his work. He releases his horses into the wild instead of letting anyone else take them. Even his enemy Maral recognizes and respects that.
9 Likes
Spagvember Fest 2023 Day 22
Rewatch
La Morte Non Conta I Dollari
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Morte_non_conta_i_dollari,_La
Feeling like I’m starting to hit the wall this year, so I went with a fun guilty pleasure. Riccardo Freda does very well in his sole Western outing and while the film is rooted in the more traditional American style Western, it’s still loads of fun.
The plot twist mid film does seem a little abrupt, but I feel it works in the picture’s favor
Mark Damon does quite the job as the initial mysterious gunslinger whose identity will get more and more interesting as the film progresses. He gets to do a little of the Gemma style acrobatics and fighting as well, and honestly does it a little better than Gemma. Damon getting to a lot of smiling to show off his 32 near perfect pearl teeth was an interesting choice. The fight he has with Nello Pazzifini is well choreographed and was all them, no doubles. For some reason this viewing I found his spitting with the tobacco a little annoying and I don’t know why.
The Koch, now Plaion Pictures, DVD is pretty dang good looking, though the English dub is very subpar.
9 Likes
Day 22: Seven Devils on Horseback (1972) D-Gianni Crea. Starring Dino Strano, Gordon Mitchell, Mario Brega, Gordon Mitchell, and Femi Benussi. Jeff (Strano) and his friend Toronado (Brega) take on the Cooper Gang (i.e. 7 Devils on Horseback) after members of the gang rob and murder his sister. I thought I would try another one of Crea’s movies. The title was catchy, but not something the movie lived up to. ‘Seven Devils’ had the same underlying theme as The Law of Violence which weighed the merits of rule of law vs rule by force. Gordon Mitchell plays Cooper. Strano’s Jeff and Brega’s Toronado have a Hill/Spencer-style duo in the movie. Rating: 1/5.
9 Likes
Not at all … it has enough Italian blood to qualify - in fact there aren’t any hard rules about these semi-productions.
2 Likes
Yes, definitely. But I like them both. Vamos a matar, compañeros is almost a remake of Il mercenario and therefore seems less original and inventive to me. And I prefer Tony Musante to Tomás Milián and Giovanna Ralli to Iris Berben.
2 Likes
Spagvemberfest 2023
Number 16
A Man Called Invincible (Carnimeo / 1973)
In trying to make up for lost time I am having to watch films in the background while working from home so comedy westerns have become the staple as I don’t have to pay too much attention and the sound of a cream pie fight is just the same as actually watching it. So, anyway, today I’m attacking the Tresette films again even though I vowed I never would. Oh well, needs must. And, although I can hardly believe I’m actually saying this, I genuinely laughed a few times and stayed awake all the way through. Just as well seeing as though I’m working too, right? Anyway, maybe my defenses are just lower, maybe because I’m only partially paying attention or maybe because when approached in the right way I can take them for what they are. I mean this one even starts with a bar room brawl before the opening credits so it sets its stall out pretty openly right from the get go. Anyway, could I recommend it? No. Was it as bad as I remembered it? No. Is my judgement impaired by too many comedy westerns inside a week. Almost certainly. In which case, it seems the perfect time to attack a few more. The Crazy Bunch here I come!
12 Likes
9: Giulio Petroni’s Tepepa (1969)
Jesús María Morán, a Mexican revolutionary known as Tepepa, is a mean, despicable man – a murderer, rapist, liar – who pursues a politically noble goal: the liberation of the peones from their wretched social conditions. Henry Price, an English doctor, appears to be a morally upright man, albeit culturally arrogant, who, however, pursues a mean, despicable goal: revenge. Coronel Cascorro, finally, is a world-weary, decadent reactionary who basically no longer pursues any goal at all – except perhaps good food and drink – and obeys the orders of his superiors. The meeting of these three opposing characters, played by Tomás Milián, John Steiner and Orson Welles respectively, and the resulting moral conflicts give Tepepa, co-written by Franco Solinas, its greatest dramatic power. But it does not exhaust itself in a bloodless experimental set-up, it also delivers plenty of action. Set in northern Mexico, in the area around Ciudad Juárez, in 1912, filmed in Andalusia, Spain, in 1968, Tepepa is a successful example of genre cinema that aims a little higher than just the instant gratification of the audience’s expectations.
Orson Welles’s acting performance was repeatedly criticized as unfocused and perfunctory. Admittedly, he didn’t want to be where he was at that time and considered the acting jobs he took mainly as a means to finance his own (mostly unrealized) movie projects. But still, doesn’t his haughty, world-weary, disdainful, maybe even arrogant performance perfectly convey Cascorro’s vicious, decadent character?
In Federico Caddeo’s featurette Freude und Revolution on the Koch DVD of Tepepa, Giulio Petroni states that his relationship with Orson Welles on and off the set was very good, amicable, but that Tomás Milián had problems with Welles. Asked whether Welles was difficult to work with, Milián replies, “He was very difficult, yes, he was. But I am very difficult, too. I’m more difficult than he is.” And Milián says that although it was obvious that Welles accepted the role in Tepepa only because he needed the money and not because he wanted to be in a Spaghetti Western shot in the Spanish desert, he (Milián) practically forced him to give his best: “I just grabbed him by the balls, not literally, and had a talk with him.”
Next: Django (1966), directed by Sergio Corbucci.
11 Likes
I want to object about that.
In my view Il mercenario is as much a parody of political westerns as it is a “serious” contention of the contradictions of a revolution. And that makes the film for me a very unusual contribution to the political films of the 60s.
And then there are the multiple endings, which are imo as unusual and orignal as the ending of Il grande Silenzio. Sure in Leone’s westerns there is always something happening after the final shoot-out, but it is like an encore in a concert, while Corbucci really starts the show again after the arena scene, and later he begins to start a typical end scene, and again it is not the end.
Which other genre film did something like that? Maybe some, but at the moment I don’t remember another one …
But I easily agree with you about the superior directing, which is a real pleasure to watch.
4 Likes
Yes, maybe you’re right. All three are very original and the best Corbucci Westerns. They’re all in my top ten, but deciding which one is the most original is probably ultimately a matter of taste. Or a question of the definition of original. In any case, I really enjoyed rewatching Il mercenario.
Day 23:
‘Da uomo a uomo’ (From Man to Man) 1967 aka ‘Death Rides a Horse’
I needed another LVC flick to get me through the last week of our fiesta … and this boosted my spirits - Haven’t watched this in at least 10 years, and it’s still highly entertaining and still ticks almost all the SW boxes for atmosphere, music, costume, landscape and mean looking bastards.
Happy to give this 8/10
13 Likes
Spagvemberfest 2023
Number 17
The Crazy Bunch (Carnimeo / 1974)
“Stop now, Tricky Dickey. I’ve had enough!”
That’s what Nello Pazzafini says towards the end of this film and it was as if he was channeling my inner monologue. It has its moments but really begins to wear out it’s welcome by the half way point and I was losing the will to live even though I was only half watching around my work laptop.
Hilton is the main draw here and his charm and delivery carries it. His versatility was quite amazing really. During this period he was jumping between these infantile slapstick comedies and Gialli or Crime films like The Killer Must Kill Again, All the Colours of the Dark and Seven Hours of Violence. Difficult to think of any other actor who could carry that off successfully.
11 Likes
Of course, a matter of taste.
All 3 in my SW top 10 also.
2 Likes
Grinders no. 23:
CAROGNE SI NASCE
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Carogne_si_nasce
Alfonso Brescia is well know for cheap average stuff but I think this one is quite entertaining.
The story is well made for such a cheapo and the shifty characters and good scenes likes the Lynching sequence can keep your attention for 86 minutes.
Glenn Saxon is doing a good job in the lead as “dandy” character but he is definitely topped by Gordon Mitchell in one of his best Western performances as “mule” (in German dub “donkey”.) Every scene with him is a pleasure to watch.
So, for those who like also cheap SW without spanish landscapes it is worth a try.
German DVD is english friendly and with original scope image (a big improvement to my old widescreen vhs). There are no extras and picture quality is not on highest level (faded colour, scratches/defects from master) but you may enjoy the movie that way and for less than 10 Euro (Amazon de, OFDb, etc.) you do nothing wrong.
DVD is starting with the credits while VHS started with presequence and then credits after 80 seconds. The presquence follows credits on DVD.
10 Likes