First time watch. This was a fun middle of the road SW entry - lots of action, good story, and an interesting assortment of characters. The lead at first thinking his dead father was a crook with the intent of turning him in, and to discover he was framed and now must clear the man’s name is done in a lighthearted fashion, but not overly comedic.
Dutch actor Roel Bos, credited under the pseudonym Glenn Saxson, is one of the better Django knockoffs, a drifter with some larceny in him, but not without a sense of ethics and honor. Bos delivers some solid fistfights with the baddies, and even works in some sly humor along the way.
Fernando Sancho playing the hero’s buddy instead of his adversary is a nice change of pace for our favorite Spanish actor. He sticks by Django/Glenn through thick and thin, and helps him at every turn. Ida Galli aka Evelyn Stewart is a fine Femme Fatale of the Old West, keeping the men onscreen and men in the audience unsure of where her loyalties lie. The lovely Erica Blanc is the West’s most charming lady saloon owner, and not without her own set of claws when need be.
Plaion Pictures 2K restoration looks fantastic with only minor hints of age.
Day 5–And Now…Make Your Peace with God (1968) D: Demofilo Fidani. Starring Fabio Testi, Mohammed Ali Fardin, Jeff Cameron, Christina Pez and Virginia Darval. Steve (Testi), Stanley (Fardin), and Sanders (Cameron) seek justice in Denver City (Denver, CO?) after meeting en route on a stagecoach. Steve returns from living in France to obtain his inheritance and have revenge against Clay, the man who had his family murdered when he was a boy. Stanley seeks revenge against the men who stole his gold, beat him and tossed his body in a river. And Sanders appeared to be joining the other two for the kicks.
The movie was the first Fidani film I saw from the Sixties. As evidenced by the groovy rock theme song during the beginning credits. Though ‘And Now’ was filmed on a low budget (like Fidani’s other SW’s) and it has its flaws, I liked the film and thought it was one of Fidani’s best films!
Rating: 2/5
Damiani: Bullet for the General
-Classic. It takes it’s time to develop and I think the beginning of the film is rather weak with action scene after action scene which starts to get boring but somewhere in the middle when the characters are more fleshed out it just gets better and better towards the end. 8/10
Cult Films BD is strangely having audio drop outs in italian track with english track in missing parts instead.
Seb and I and a few previous forumites from here all attended the Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow in Almeria back in 2008. They showed all the Dollar films in actual locations from the films over a long weekend. We’ve talked about it many times on here but it was a spectacular experience. One of the best cinematic experiences I’ve ever had.
I also saw TGTBATU outdoors in London at Somerset House about 9 years ago. For that one we had to sit on the concrete ground and my enduring memory is of a very sore arse after 3 hours.
The only Spaghetti I ever saw in a Drive In was one of the Trinity films. I was 14 and enjoyed it a lot but atmosphere in Drive Ins is completely shaped inside your car so a difficult one to describe really.
Terence & Bud get ticked off for this one and Eli Wallach too although he somehow has only made it into the HoF as a supporting actor. How did that happen? We need to reconsider that.
This was the first of the Colizzi trilogy I saw and it holds a bit of a special place for me because of that. Not as consistant as the first one I have to say now but still enjoyable and with only minimal circus stuff
The story basically boils down to the gunfighter acted by Vassili Karis assisting the townsfolk in ridding their territory of the bandits headed by the baddie played by Gordon Mitchell. First, Karis’s character is incarcerated along with a handful of resistance fighters, then springs out of jail with them so as to prepare the local population for the final confrontation with Mitchell and his wrongdoers… or so it seems at first.
This is what would have happened had the project been penned and executed with minimal honesty and competence. In reality, the moment Karis breaks out of prison, the narration actually grinds down to a stop and fails to go anywhere, instead turning its attention to people pelting one another with pebbles, doing acrobatics, digging holes in the ground with pickaxes and shovels for no apparent reason, dancing, stuffing their faces with chicken, all in anticipation for the climax which comes down to a scuffle between the bandits and the good guys dressed in drag.
As if that were not enough, there is a comic relief character by the name of “Pistola” whose antics and general aptitude for comedy are as pitiable as they are annoying. On the whole, considering that almost one third of the movie shows people essentially whiling away their time doing absolutely nothing and that the rest of the flick includes the usual succession of Creastic shootouts in which everybody shoots and misses their target, one would be hard-pressed to find an actual reason to willingly subject themselves to a viewing experience as excruciating as this one. Then again, if you are a deviant film scrounger in need of a rotten fix, this might very well do the trick, though at that point, you should probably consult a trained specialist.
Missed the ‘Fest yesterday; Guy Fawkes’ Night and all that. Personally, I can’t stand the evening - fireworks! Big wow! - but mrs caress and our daughter (and my spaff-brained in-laws) all love it to bits so there I was, waving my sparkler with wondrous delight as another small explosive shot up in the air before disappearing with a limp “pop”. Oh, what is this wizardry?
Anyway, I digress. I’m making up for yesterday with a double-bill today, and I’ve randomly picked a tangentially related pair: I start with I am Sartana, Your Angel of Death (Carnimeo, 1969) before moving swiftly onto an actual angel of death - possibly - in the form of Django the Bastard (Garrone, 1969). The more I contemplate that dastardly duo, the better they look together.
Picked this one purely to tick it off my watchlist. Trinity is Still My Name did what almost every sequel does: repeat the original. And, like all of them, it failed to recapture the magic of the first one. The gag galore continues, Hill and Spencer slapstick work was fun as always but this time laughs are far and few between. Which is a shame because when they land, they really land, like the fists of Bud Spencer. The ending absurdly turning into an American Football game really had me in stitches though.
After watching the real good Blu Ray from Explosive Media some weeks ago it was time again for analog Super 8 feeling
To me it is still an average SW with a good story, good cast and muddy atmosphere.
German Super 8 version was reduced to two 120m reels with about 38 Minutes runtime in total. The cutter did a good job. You may follow the whole story and best and important scenes were chosen. Really great work. There are copies out there in b/w and in Eastman red but I was lucky enough to get an Agfa copy with nice colours. Aspect ratio is at least widescreen 1,66:1 so this time not a real version from torture chamber, Sebastian
But I wasn`t aware Tomas Milian is in the movie as cover of reel two gives the impression.
Seems UfA label made a confusion with FACE TO FACE that was released from that label at more or less the same time back then in the seventies .
Rewatch. Haven’t watched this one in a couple years, but I’m so happy to be viewing it in HD glory. The story is unique and simple: a man sets out to avenge his sister after she’s raped and killed, and inadvertently ends up the sole man to stop an act that would extend the Civil War. The irony of our Hero/Anti-Hero being so set in his goal, he doesn’t realize the bigger picture makes it all the more fun.
Craig Hill is at his best in the role of Clayton, that stoney face and chiseled features fitting the SW genre like a glove. He may not express much emotion, but he’s not without empathy and humanity.
Jose Manuel Martin proved he was as good playing a central villain as he was a henchman to the main villain as Jack Blood. Mixing the cowardly villain and tough villain worked great for him. It’s a shame he didn’t get more roles like it.
Andrea Bosic is good as the other villain Mallek, the slimy businessman who will end up ruined if peace is reached between Generals Grant and Lee, and decides to make the war go on longer by assassinating two other generals. Bosic is more of the armchair villain who’d quake when confronted, but he’s still thoroughly nasty either way.
I Want Him Dead has a rare distinction of being an SW I decided was a favorite after viewing it for only thirty minutes, I was that invested in it. A great story, good pacing, excellent locales, and of course lots of great characters. Highly recommended viewing. In the Top Ten of my Alternative Top 20.
Caiano: A Train for Durango
-Anthony Steffen doing comedy, this time better than in Dallas. It’s mostly entertaining and well made film but then again there isn’t anything special or memorable. 6/10
Really wanted to enjoy this more than I did, because it has a great premise and cast. However, the whole thing felt quite slow and anti-climactic. Still decent but I won’t rush to rewatch it.
Is this a eurospy pretending to be a Zapata western? Or could this be a Zapata western pretending to be a eurospy? Technically this shouldn’t count but it’s on the database so technically this could. Had a decent time with this South American-set treasure hunt romp either way. The main character being, among many other things, an audio engineer, is a cute touch.
I felt a little underwhelmed watching Maestro Mario Bava’s first foray into the Western genre, but not disappointed. The film gets a C+ thanks to Bava’s excellent cinematography work and an enjoyable little story. The typical Calvary vs. Indians storyline might seem a little too easy for an Italian production, but the tale is well told, and feels like a solid homage to 1940’s era Western.
Ken Clarke, another of the American beefcakes who initially went to Italy for the Peplum films, makes for a pretty dang good cowboy as Bill Massadey, a man initially looking to cheat a corrupt town, only to find himself the only hope for a Union Army escort to make it out of hostile Native American land alive. While not an A List performance, Clarke does very well with the role, giving an Italian version of the Good Bad Man character.
Michel Lemoine makes for a decent villain in the part of gang leader Carson. Lemoine’s intense facial features aid him well as the baddie who could explode into violence at any second.
The 4K restoration by Malombra Films is excellent, the age of the film noticeable only in the middle section.
