This one arrived last week, so what better time for a re-watch? No matter what one thinks of the movie as a whole, it does deserve respect for attempting to step outside the box of the run of the mill.
George Hilton is a Confederate soldier who goes AWOL to marry the woman that is pregnant with his baby so that she will not be disgraced. He doesn’t make it in time and she dies in child birth so his would be father-in-law Ernest Borgnine, overcome with shame and grief, gives the child to Hilton and sends him away. The baby eventually dies as, due to a Cholera outbreak, no one will give Hilton any assistance. The grieving father blames everyone, and mostly with good reason, and becomes an outlaw intent on revenge.
I am frankly a fan of this one as it is a Shakespearian sort of tragedy and I particularly appreciate the ending. This is one of my favorite performances by Hilton and I’ve always been a fan of Borgnine. Alberto de Mendoza is as reliable as usual.
For those curious about the new Blu-ray release, don’t expect Arrow level quality here. While it is certainly a big step up from the two prior DVD releases I have seen, I was hoping it would be a bit better. Maybe I was expecting too much. I haven’t explored the extras yet but I will most likely go back and watch the Spanish language release at some point. There is also commentary by Alex Cox so I am looking forward to seeing what he says to piss me off.
Also known as El sabor del odio (The Taste of Hate), A Gun for One Hundred Gravesand Vengeance, this Italian-Spanish Western was directed by Umberto Lenzi and written by Marco Leto, Vittorio Salerno and Eduardo Manzanos.
Jim Slade (Peter Lee Lawrence) had it rough in the Civil War. He’s a Jehovah’s Witness, so he refused to shoot other soldiers. He’s locked up in a labor camp for cowardice before being pardoned. When he gets home, he finds that his parents are dead.
Jim gets over that whole thing about not killing people pretty quick, taking out three of the four suspects quickly. That’s when he goes after their leader, Texas Corbett (Piero Lulli), which brings him to Galveston. Seconds after he shows up, he meets a preacher by the name of Douglas (John Ireland) and witnesses a bank robbery. He soon learns that Corbett was behind that robbery, so he gets the job of sheriff so he can legally hunt down and kill him.
This feels like an Italian Western mixtape with a weird undertaker (A Fistful of Dollars) and an end battle in a cemetery (Django). Then again, if you get upset with every Italian movie that rips something off, you’re going to be angry your entire life.
My favorite thing about this is that even though Jim is now able to kill people, he only drinks water. Never whiskey.
Not a Spag … but it does fall under the ‘Euro-western’ category.
This one is full of horrid characters, especially ‘Brandt Ruger’, played by Gene Hackman - a wealthy sadistic rancher, who goes on a hunting expedition with his other wealthy playmates … when Ruger’s wife, played by Candice Bergen, is abducted by ‘Frank Calder’ (Oliver Reed) mistaking her for a school teacher who will help him learn to read - Ruger’s hunt then turns into a different type of party … not so much a rescue mission, but an excuse to pick off ‘Calder’s’ gang one by one.
Very well photographed in locations we know and love … and although extremely graphically violent, even for the early 70s, I have always found this a really compelling story, which is as much a character study piece as a tough western.
Day 25: Ride and Kill (a.k.a. Brandy the Sheriff) (1964) D-Jose Luis Borau/Mario Caiano. Starring Alex Nicol, Robert Hundar, Maite Blasco, and Antonio Gradoli. A predominantly-Spanish Eurowestern that predated the theatrical release of A Fistful of Dollars (September, 1964) by about five months (April, 1964).
For some reason I thought Gordon Mitchell was in the lead role. A demoralized town rallies around the town drunk, Brandy (Nicol), after the town bigwigs (who have been using a protection racket on the locals) have had the latest sheriff killed for speaking his mind. Rating: 1.5/5.
I almost gave it a 2/5, which is “okay, not great but not terrible” in my rating scale. But, I was disappointed that the lead was played by some guy I never heard of prior to the movie, or had seen since then.
Malasomma: Fifteen Scaffolds for a Killer
-I watched this last time during 2015 fest. Didn’t like it much then and this time didn’t change my mind. Wild East’s dvd has such a bad audio that is hard to follow the dialogue at times. 5/10
Believe it or not, he actually had a pretty meaty role in Anthony Mann’s classic western The Man From Laramie with Jimmy Stewart…at least, for me, that is something he did that really sticks in my head.
No worries, Ginger … it’s a fairly bland little movie and Alex Nicol has almost no X factor - the only reason I have some affection for it was that I did a redub of it some years ago, which take time and so, one tends to see more positives in a film when re-running scenes over to get good audio sync.
Wild East made a real mess of this one … the picture is so dark also! Better to check out the youtube version which has fab PQ, but the audio is probably the same source.
‘15 Scaffolds’, was a hidden gem for me - and would be near top of my ‘Please restore this’ to Blu ray list.
I do not believe it is entirely fair to fulminate against these Capuano’s works: they are not badly made and possess their own distinct charm if you are willing to look for it. With that being said, these flicks feel more like soap operas rather than veritable oaters in that most scenes take place indoors, the interiors are lavished with fancy furniture and candelabra, most characters are draped in swanky garments and utter long-winded sentences in a judgemental tone, there is little gunplay and all of the components appear to come from a different genre insofar as it seems justified to not lump this film in with the rest of the field and to simply appreciate the narration on its own merits.
In that sense, prescinding from genre’s standards, it does work quite well. If it qualifies as a spaghetti western, then it must be the cleanest and most moralistic one of them all which I suppose would not be so wearisome if Capuano’s execution had not been so ossified and utterly conventional on all fronts. The inclusion of the exceedingly corny romantic subplot compounds the antediluvian, gradiloquent character of the production and De Masi’s habitually old-fashioned soundtrack does not disabuse the viewer of that impression at all; the movie feels as though it had been made at the very least five years before 1967, so if it is novelty you are looking for, search elsewhere, though it is not that awful by any stretch of the imagination.
Day 25
Film 20 - For a Few Dollars More (1965)
10/10
The Tim Lucas commentary on the Kino release was so good that I listened to it back-to-back after my rewatch of this classic, though at first I just thought to sample it. I’m sure everybody doing this marathon has seen this one a couple of times. I still laugh out loud a couple times and feel something when I watch this–for probably the 20th time or so.
I’m a very big fan of these “master and apprentice” flavored westerns. My next favorite is “Day of Anger” followed by the less-known “Pistoleros”; but I also enjoyed “Death Rides a Horse” and the semi-comedic “They Call Him Cemetery.”
Does anyone have any other recommendations in this precise mentor/student genre?
Ok, this time I did some trick by combining “hobby” and “job”.
In January 2024 we are going to show Giuliano Gemma Double Feature in cinema with UN DOLLARO BUCATO and SELLA D`ARGENTO.
From UN DOLLARO BUCATO we have two 35mm copies both not in best condition… many splices. So I decided to check and cut getting a complete version without missing images and drop outs. It took me some weeks and finally yesterday I was ready to check final version. Luckily it was worth the effort. Real nice for a 1965 copy! Look forward to cinema presentation now
I really like all them Giuliano Gemma SW and this one from my point of view may satisfy both fans of US and Spaghetti Westerns. Only Ida Galli is a bit underchallenged in her role.
Not a genre highlight but a solid one.
Day 25. Movie 18. They Call Me Hallelujah.
Starts fast and doesn’t let up very much, it’s more slapstick than anything else. And a lot of fun. And I didn’t expect a pretty decent Cossack dance in the middle of it!
