SpagvemberFest!

Well done! … Have a large strong drink and relax :rofl:

Day 13

Four Pistols for Trinity (Cristallini / 1971)

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A load more than 4 pistols but absolutely no one called Trinity at all. Aah, the capricious titling of Italian westerns at its best. A good cast goes largely to waste but excellent use of fake cactus and endless wolf call loops so all is not lost. Also, PLL sports the largest hooded coat outside of Mordor so well worth a viewing if for nothing else!

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13, Straniero… fatti il segno della croce!

Release Date: 16.5.1968

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At this point of the Spagvember I urgently need to thank forum regular last.caress for, first, making me reconsider my prejudides against a certain director and, second, for introducing this wild thread in the first place. A million thanks!

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Being on vacation - and without laptop computer - I had some trouble sending out a newsletter announcing this years festivities. Some red wine and improvisation later I was just able to send out a belated announcement, maybe some of you received it. If only a handful folks will peak in due to that email, it was worth the trouble. Now keep “spaghing”… greetings from Baja California Sur, your Marshall Seb :slight_smile:

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Day 12.
Yesterday I watched My Name is Pecos on the Wild East blu ray. Turned out to be a lot better than I thought it would be. And all the speckles and audio static in the print kept it throughly grindhousey.

Saw the newsletter. Glad I could throw my art someplace! Hope you enjoy America!

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After Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent had ventured a little deeper into Spaghetti Western territory with La muerte cumple condena in 2 AL, Fedra West, released on May 5, 4 AL, marked the director’s return to his roots: traditional filmmaking in classical 1950s Hollywood style. Fedra West’s plot is based upon the ancient Greek myth of Phaedra, Theseus and Hippolytus, although in somewhat muddled form, laying emphasis on its Oedipal implications (“Father, I want to kill you! Stepmother, I want to …”). In the myth’s original version (which has been subject to many mutations over the centuries), Phaedra, the second wife of Theseus, king of Athens, falls in love with Hippolytus, Theseus’s son from his former marriage. Hippolytus, appalled by his stepmother’s desire, rejects her, and Phaedra’s love turns into hate. She defames Hippolytus in a letter to her husband and commits suicide. Theseus banishes his son from Athens, summons a curse, and Hippolytus is dragged to death by his chariot’s horses.

One can easily imagine a Hollywood adaptation of that mythological story, starring Liz Taylor as Phaedra and Dick Burton in a double role as Theseus/Hippolytus. We Euro-Westerners get Norma Bengell and Simón Andreu (both in their first Western) and James Philbrook as Theseus, depicted as a tyrannical ranchero with a bad temper. Fedra West plays more like a 1950s melodrama than a Western, let alone a Spaghetti Western. According to Kevin Grant, it “is a sterile rendering of a tempestuous story” (A. G. C. P., p. 173).

IMDb offers an interesting summary of Fedra West’s plot: “A bounty hunter is forced to hunt the brother of the girl he loves.” Yes, of course, Thomas Weisser, who else: “[Fedra West] tells the tender-cum-violent story of a bounty hunter (Simon Andreu) who falls in love with Lucy (Norma Bengell) and then is forced to hunt down her outlaw brother (James Philbrook)” (Spaghetti Westerns. The Good, the Bad and the Violent, p. 165).

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Have you found them, morgan?

DAY 14
Ah, yes! Today I’m tucking into Adiós, Sabata (Parolini, 1969), featuring the bad guy out of Westworld togged out in so many tassles I couldn’t tell if it was Yul Brynner or a fupping sasquatch. Still, decent film though.

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This movie suffers from the badly bashed up print that was transferred to DVD - I think the RT was only around 70 minutes ?
What I saw of it was scratched and torn, so large chunks of scenes are missing. Difficult to assess the film’s worth when the print is so bad.
Perhaps you watched another version ? I’d like to see a restoration, as I found the film interesting.

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No. Bill says there are English subs to be found for Giarrettiera Colt, but I haven’t found them.

Spagvember#13 Zurli:Man Called Amen
-I remembered this being good but actually it was just rather uninteresting. Ardisson was good but otherwise the cast wasn’t that memorable. And neither was the music. 5/10

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Day 14

Hands Up Dead Man! You’re Under Arrest (Bergonzelli/Klimovsky / 1971)

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A film with some good elements which somehow loses its way and doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. Sambrell is of course a great villain and the character of Dollar is interesting but the whole thing is ok at best.
Two more PLLs to go!

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  1. Fedra West
    Release Date: 5.5.1968

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Crossing tracks with Companero_M here. Dramatic stuff, this, actually Greek tragedy, loosely based on Evripides’ play Phaedra. Watched (I think) the same 78 min English audio version as Scherpschutter, it was on my laptop all the time!:grimacing:

Also, someone here has helped me out with English subs for tomorrow’s film: Giarrettiera Colt. Thanks, amigo!

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Day 15

Revenge of the Resurrected (R.R. Marchent / 1972)

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PLL’s loss is the art world’s gain as the blouse wearing artiste has his dream ruined in Death Rides a Horse fashion and he embarks on a course of revenge instead which is much better suited for someone who can roll and shoot so well and draw so badly. The mystery of who the bad guys recognised only by their unusual spurs, holsters and boots etc might be is made somewhat redundant when it is revealed that Raf Baldasarre, Frank Brana and Lorenzo Robledo live in town but the Pilster sets about his work methodically and undercover to keep the film length appropriate and just when it looks like it could be wound up slightly too early there is a protracted gun battle involving the entire population of the greater Madrid area to see it through to the finish line.

All in all this one plays out with no surprises but a level of satisfaction for exactly that reason. If I didn’t know it was dated at 1972 I would have picked it as a much earlier example of the genre. More like '68 in it’s tone with no comedy elements at all which was unusual in the post Trinity era. All to the good for my liking and I enjoyed this one quite a bit this time around as a result.

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DAY 15
Halfway through SpagvemberFest 2018, already?? Sh*tting crikey! That’s not good! What’s really not good is that, like a muppet, I’ve front-loaded my month with all the best films leaving myself with a lot of (relative) dross in the back stretch. Still, that’s a worry for another day since today I’m back to my Sartana box-set for Have a Good Funeral, My Friend… Sartana Will Pay (Carnimeo, 1970), a movie which plays out a little like an episode of Murder, She Wrote but with a slightly better moustache on the lead actor. And about a thousand times more entertaining. For me, this is the film where Mr. Garko really nailed the Sartana character with just the right blend of tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation and hairy-faced cool.

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I’ve watched two versions of Fedra West: the scratchy English-dubbed one and a Spanish-dubbed version (with Spanish credits). Both leave a lot to be desired, but the Spanish version is more complete

Dialogue from the film: ¿Qué ocurre? – Are you sure you weren’t smoking marijuana as usual?

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Spagvember#14 Musolino: Quintana
-Nice little film, Musolino makes the best out of his limited budget and the good, moody soundtrack helps a lot. Film looks a bit more realistic than usual low budget sw’s with stray dogs and herd of sheeps on the streets. Musolino’s directing is mostly good even though he overuses his artistic slanted shot. Plot doesn’t make that much sense though, Quintana is a masked avenger who is recognised by bounty hunters anyway, maybe the fact that he always wears Clint Eastwoods poncho might the reason. :smile:
Film would have benefited from someone more charismatic than bland Tony Dimitri/George Stevenson in the lead. 6/10

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Spagvember#15 Corbucci: The Hellbenders
-Dark western thriller from Corbucci (and Band) with classic Morricone score. Al Mulocks beggar is one of the highlights of the film as well as the downbeat ending. 7/10

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  1. Garter Colt
    Release Date: 19.5.1968

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Prepeared for å more lightharted kind of spag tonight, but not for a comedy. Which is not my bag, at least not when it comes to SW. On the other hand, who can resist the lovely Nicoletta Machiavelli? Not me. (I even forgot my drink.)

A comedy, yes, but a strange one, and with an entirely different kind of silliness than what were to mar a lot of spags in the years to come. And some great moments, too! One I’ll watch again in due time. Nicoletta Machiavelli’s (and Piero Gherardi’s) film for sure.

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I never got past the first five minutes, they were soooo silly …