This was my choice for yesterday evening and i have a similiar opinion of it.
Watched the Explosive Blu Ray. Not perfect but OK to watch.
So, just for the record:
No. 27:
THE HILLS RUN RED
8 Likes
- Corbucci: Navajo Joe
- I keep returning to this film even though I really don’t like it that much. Apart from Morricone score, good ending and some good action scenes here and there it’s rather awkward film, the train ambush particularly was really poorly staged. I like sambrell as a henchman type villain but I think he lacks the charisma for bigger roles. Maybe you could watch this as a drinking game and take a sip everytime Sambrell yells “where’s my money!” 5/10
9 Likes
SPAGVEMBERFEST: DAYS 27 & 28
Oh, I was hoping to land this one on one of the Sundays! But, I must bow to the will of The Randomizer and so, on a random Frosty Thursday night, I’m settling in to genre gold standard Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone, 1968), before lightening the mood with Men-on-a-Mission actioner Today We Kill… Tomorrow We Die! (Cervi, 1968) featuring a cracking villainous turn from the fantastic Tatsuya Nakadai.
9 Likes
Spagvember Fest 2024
Day 28
Una Pistola per Ringo
Rewatch. What started as a fun and curious way to end a couple Spagvember viewings has now become a beloved yearly Thanksgiving tradition I don’t dare ever skip. The first SW to feature the Ringo character is underrated in my opinion. I know some of it can be goofy, but I just have a grand fun time with it - the story, the characters, music, all fits so perfectly. A cocky and arrogant gunslinger is the only one who can save a war hero, his daughter, and their employees from an on the run Mexican bandit and his gang who’ve just robbed the bank. That it’s 72 hours until Christmas day makes things more interesting.
There’s not too much about this film I haven’t talked about already, but the cast in Giuliano Gemma, Fernando Sancho, George Martin, Nieves Navarro, Antonio Casas, Jose Manuel Martin, Lorella de Luca, Manuel Muniz are all great in their roles.
The Arrow Blu Ray is top notch.
That’s it for me this Fest, was starting to feel the burn when I started the Sartana films and figured now would be a good time to stop before I crash. HAPPY THANKSGIVING to anyone who celebrates and a happy start to the Christmas season.
10 Likes
Spagvemberfest Day 29
The Mercenary (Corbucci / 1968)
The penultimate day of Spagvemberfest and 2 of the last 3 Hall of Famers are ticked off in the shape of Jack Palance and Franco Solinas. Strangely, I just noticed that the DB has this film noted as “the second of two revolutionary westerns by Sergio Corbucci”. It was the first. Or am I going mad?
9 Likes
Forgot how Bond-esque the opening tune for Django il bastardo was. Btw the BluRay from Synapse is totally worth it. I hope this won’t be my last spagvember watch, I still have the weekend 
3 Likes
Agreed
1 Like
I rewatched in the past weeks # (and months) the 6 Western All’arrabbiata from Plaion, which I bought in a summer sale.
The Hellbenders (S. Corbucci) 5/10
California (M. Lupo) 5 (formerly 6)
Death Rides a Horse (G: Petroni) 6 #
Cemetery without Crosses (R. Hossein) 9 (most parts twice) #
They Call Him Holy Ghost (G. Carnimeo) 6 (formerly 4)
Django Shoots First (A de Martino) 6
also:
Long Live Your Death (D. Tessari) 4 (formerly 5) #
Companeros (S. Corbucci) 9 (I actually watched it twice)
The Mercenary (S. Corbucci) 10 (also twice)
God Forgives, I Don’t (G. Colizzi) 8
Boot Hill (G. Colizzi) 8+ (most parts twice) #
I quattro dell’ Ave Maria (G. Colizzi) 7 #
Keoma (E.G. Castellari) 7- #
The Bounty Killer (E. Martin) 7 (formerly 6) #
The Unholy Four (E. Barboni) 6 (formerly 5)
I Want Him Dead (P. Bianchini) 4 - (formerly 5)
4 Likes
wait wait wait, to be very exact, which of these did you properly #spagvemberfest ? 
just for the accuracy of my list
I marked them with a #
1 Like
I have now edited that in the DB page
No. 28:
MINNESOTA CLAY
Rewatch from Explosive Media BD.
I always have liked this early Corbucci and generally I am totally into that kind of stories.
Cameron Mitchell fitted perfect in the leading role…no comparison to the rather weak JIM IL PRIMO.
The Blu Ray has nearly perfect image quality…way better than French one. But in general the release is more or less “a shoot from the hip”. No mentionalbe extra/bonus…it would be interesting e.g. to hear something about the alternative ending, etc.
There are two alternative sounding German Audio Tracks but if they both sound like crap or as speaking through a watering can…for what reason? Old German DVD and the two VHS from my collection sound way better. It`s a mess with them companies…
6 Likes
Cry of Death (1968) (orig. Carogne si nasce) - Director: Alfonso Brescia - 5/10.
I’ll Sell My Skin Dearly (1968) (orig. Vendo cara la pelle) - Director: Ettore Maria Fizzarotti - 4/10.
And His Name Was Holy Ghost (1971) (orig. …e lo chiamarono Spirito Santo) - Director: Roberto Mauri - 6/10.
The Avenger, Zorro (1972) (orig. E continuavano a chiamarlo figlio di…) - Director: Rafael Romero Marchent - 5/10.
The Magnificent West (1972) (orig. Il magnifico west) - Director: Gianni Crea - 1/10.
The Sheriff of Rock Spring (1971) (orig. Lo sceriffo di Rockspring) - Director: Mario Sabatini - 2/10.
Watch Out Gringo! Sabata Will Return (1972) (orig. Attento gringo, è tornato Sabata) - Directors: Alfonso Balcázar, Pedro Luis Ramírez - 3/10.
Two Thousand Dollars for Coyote (1966) (orig. Dos mil dólares por Coyote) - Director: León Klimovsky - 3/10.
Blood River (1974) (orig. Dieci bianchi uccisi da un piccolo indiano) - Director: Gianfranco Baldanello - 5/10.
O’Cangaceiro (1969) - Director: Giovanni Fago - 6/10.
Wrath of God (1968) (orig. L’ira di Dio) - Director: Alberto Cardone - 5/10.
Gunfight at High Noon (1963) (orig. El sabor de la venganza) - Director: Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent - 6/10.
Five Giants From Texas (1966) (orig. I cinque della vendetta) - Director: Aldo Florio - 4/10.
Starblack (1966) - Director: Giovanni Grimaldi - 5/10.
The Seven From Texas (1964) (orig. Antes llega la muerte) - Director: Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent - 6/10.
Kidnapping (1968) (orig. 20.000 dollari sporchi di sangue) - Director: Alberto Cardone - 5/10.
Seven Dollars on the Red (1966) (orig. Sette dollari sul rosso) - Director: Alberto Cardone - 4/10.
Two Pistols and a Coward (1968) (orig. Il pistolero segnato da Dio) - Director: Giorgio Ferroni - 5/10.
Pistol Packin’ Preacher (1972) (orig. Posate le pistole, reverendo) - Director: Leopoldo Savona - 2/10.
Colorado Charlie (1965) - Director: Roberto Mauri - 4/10.
The best movie of the month: El sabor de la venganza (1963);
The worst movie of the month: Il magnifico west (1972);
The biggest positive surprise of the month: …e lo chiamarono Spirito Santo (1971);
The biggest disappointment of the month: I cinque della vendetta (1966);
7 Likes
- Kill Them All and Come Back Alone (1968) dir. Enzo G. Castellari’s
“Action, action, and more action!” This seems to be the idea behind Enzo G. Castellari’s Kill Them All and Come Back Alone, a story about a group of bandits, killers, and convicts assigned by the Confederate army to infiltrate and steal gold from a Union fort. But of course, there’s an ulterior motive here, and you can probably guess what it is. The title drop from Frank Wolff was magnificent, and the credits sequence, aligned with the actors, was satisfying as hell. All of that was followed by 80 minutes of knuckle-churning, back-stabbing, gun-blazing, slam-bang action picture that offered nothing but a huge variety of entertainment. Wave after wave of action set-pieces came at the audience with unprecedented pace.
Chuck Connors and Frank Wolff here are a good example of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Watching two tough guys going head-to-head is always thrilling. The scene where the two were beating the hell out of each other at the labor camp had me hooting and hollering. And they got plenty of help from colorful supporting characters brimming with genre clichés: a killer kid, the buffest guy you’ll likely see in the genre, a half-Native American/Mexican knife-thrower, Decker the Dynamite Wizard, and Hogey the Boleador.
In lot of places this feel like a dress rehearsal for The Inglorious Bastards and far from being Castellari’s best, but it got the job done for me. I started this month with Five Men Army and ended with this, and feel like I was having Deja Vu watching another heist Spaghetti Western with similar kind of characters here lol.
9 Likes
Interesting coincidence, for me also a positive surprise.
Especially in relation to Long Live Your Death, which has similar flaws and qualities, but did not work for me, and this one here does despite some very silly stuff.
1 Like
SPAGVEMBERFEST: DAYS 29 & 30
Good God! SPAGVEMBERFEST, done, already?? Seems to go quicker every time (apart from the year I tried to watch A Fistful of Dollars 30 times in 30 days. I’m still not over that).
But that was always the point, you see. To turn this torpid month of “meh” into a veritable mese delle meraviglie. And so it’s been this year. And I’m going out on a high, with A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die! (Valerii, 1972), a perfect Men-on-a-Mission movie for a Saturday night, before closing out Spagvember and welcoming in December with the wintry and contemplative all-time genre classic The Great Silence (Corbucci, 1968). Literally couldn’t have planned it better.
8 Likes
No. 29:
THE BOUNTY KILLER
Rewatch via Explosive BD.
For me top 20 stuff and a great Score,too.
Excellent job by Tomas Milian and also Richard Wyler performs surprisingly well in comparison to his other SW.
Blu Ray is an improvement to any DVD release but the colour grading definately is way too much. Lips, wounds and blood are more purple than red. I wonder If there is no endcontrol anymore in them companies…
This evening finale🤠
6 Likes
Day 30–A Town Called Hell (a.k.a. A Town Called Bastard) (1971) D: Robert Parrish and Irving Lerner. Starring Robert Shaw, Telly Savalas, Stella Stevens, Martin Landau, Fernando Rey, and Al Lettieri. A priest (Shaw) in a small Mexican town haunted by a violent, revolutionary past is forced to face his own role in the hostilities after an eccentric widow (Stevens) and his former comrade, Colonel Benito (Landau) arrive separately in the hopes of finding a mysterious, legendary hero referred to as “Aguilar” (Spanish for “eagle”).
Although sometimes argued as not a “real SW”, this international co-production (British/Spanish) still makes my SW Top 20. I would classify A Town Called Hell as a Zapata western. I like how the film doesn’t follow the same formulaic storyline like other SW westerns. There’s also an existential “been there, done that, got the tee shirt” world-weariness about the film that I can appreciate. One can’t help noticing that the priest (in 1895, a hardcore, dedicated revolutionary) reacts to the massacre of the wealthy church congregants at the beginning of the film as having gone too far. I think it’s interesting that we find Shaw’s character has now become a priest and seems unable to leave the church and what happened in the past there, psychologically or physically. It’s like he’s still stuck on the past event. Stella Stevens was perfect as Alvira, a vengeful widow who is on a hunt for the man who killed her husband. Her man servant driving her around in a hearse carriage while she sleeps in a coffin was a sterling gothic touch that added to the overall pall of death over the town. Though the priest was the main character of ‘Town,’ I thought Savalas was perfect as Don Carlos (albeit his East Coast accent) and Landau’s as Colonel Benito were flamboyant enough to steal the film. The twist at the end brought perfect closure to the story. Rating: 4/5
8 Likes
Make a top 20 then …
2 Likes
Watching “Blood for a Silver Dollar” on that atrocious German BluRay. This movie really needs a better release. Dare I say it’s better than the Ringos
3 Likes