My kick-off film:
Then I’ll put four of my top 20 films on trial against four films in my alternative top 20 and four films in the Essential top 20 which are not in my top 20.
On my list as well. Remember that I liked it a lot, but somehow never went back to it (so far), don’t know why …
WTF? I am from Denmark not some damn Swede.
You need to take this course of Denmark for (UK) dummies:
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no 3. Lupo: Buddy Goes West (1981)
-Time for some Bud Spencer fun. Good solid directing by Lupo, good looking sets in the western town, score by Morricone and Bud Spencer! Probably best solo film Bud made but especially at the western settings you start to long for Terence Hill. Gibberish talking indian sidekick isn’t funny or doesn’t have much to do anyway. 6/10
SPAGVEMBERFEST 2016 - A FISTFUL OF REAPPRAISALS: DAY 3
Today, I’m after a bit of Dick Spitfire action, in the shape of Dead Men Don’t Make Shadows (Fidani, 1970, IIRC going under the “Miles Deem” pseudonym this time). I recall two things about this picture: I recall that it was by some distance my favourite Demofilo Fidani picture from those I’d seen at that time, and I recall the fantastic Reverend Danite Review, which succeeds in making Dead Men Don’t Make Shadows sound like one of the greatest spags ever. Did I miss something first time around? I’m genuinely intrigued and excited to find out. The good Rev, as we know, modelled his entire look on this one still from the movie:
Yesterday Minnesota Clay – safely in Corbucci territory now; two good reviews by scherpschutter and John_Welles as well as an interesting thread. ’Nuff said. Tonite: Johnny Oro.
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Spagvemberfest 2016 Number 3
Yesterday’s choice was Today we Kill…Tomorrow we Die! which, bless her, the wife agreed to watch with me. Something she’ll be doing more of over the next month if she wants to spend any time with me as this project becomes more and more dominant of my waking and non-working hours. She fell asleep in the middle of course but on the whole enjoyed it apparently. My reappraisal thoughts will be on the film’s own thread.
no 4. Fago: One More to Hell (1968)
-Didn’t remember much about this film, it starts as a comedy but changes to a sort of heist film/buddy film and later to grim and violent revenge western. The last part works better then the rest of the film and the showdown in the end is particularly impressive. 5/10
Johnny Oro, Corbucci’s third foray into the Western genre, exemplifies the director’s more lighthearted approach, taken to extremes in his comedic Westerns after 1970 with questionable results. Mark Damon, twice a Johnny in 1966 – Yuma and Oro – delivers one of his better performances and manages to keep the film’s tragic and comic elements fairly balanced. However, after having worked with three US-American leading men – James Mitchum, Cameron Mitchell and Damon – Corbucci cast an unknown Italian actor in the title role of his next Western: Francesco Sparanero. Tonight: one of the Italian Western’s incunables, Django.
When I first joined up here my wife point-blank refused to watch westerns. Her dad had made her watch Westworld (Crichton, 1973) when she was about 5 or 6, and Yul Brynner gave her a phobia of cowboys from that point to this, almost. She’s got a lot better since we’ve been together - I even got her to watch Westworld again; slay that demon, show her that, through adult eyes, Brynner’s really not all that scary, you know? - but she’s still not really a fan of the spags. Most of SpagvemberFest will take place late at night, other than the Sunday ones which I’ll be permitted to doze off to after Sunday lunch. I can’t complain though; she doesn’t dislike film but she’s not a lover of it either, and she puts up with a lot of my movie-viewing nonsense.
SPAGVEMBERFEST 2016 - A FISTFUL OF REAPPRAISALS: DAY 4
Ah, now today I’m giving another look to Anthony Steffen’s Garringo (Marchent, 1969) and here’s what I took from the movie the first time I watched it: I enjoyed it, I thought Steffen’s… um, style… really rather suited the character, which helps, but I also thought, "Wow, that guy playing Johnny is a lot better here than he was in Death Rides a Horse…" . Which is an opinion I held for quite awhile, and indeed one I hold with today, except that I now recognise that Peter Lee Lawrence and John Phillip Law are two completely different people. Oops! 
Ah well, you lives and learns.
If I remember rightly, Fridays and Saturdays were the hardest days in which to keep up SpagvemberFest 2015 (for me) so, with guests due later, it’ll be interesting to see if I can get this one watched.
Spagvemberfest 2016 Number 4
For me the weekends are easier LC and with having a day off today I am enjoying a nice lazy day in front of the telly with my youngest. So number 4 will be a continuation of my Sartana season and a revisit to the very first Sartana flick I saw or owned; I am Sartana, Your Angel of Death. I guess for that reason this has always been one of my favourites of the series. Let’s see how it fairs this time around.
2. The Return of Ringo When I watched it the first time, I didn’t particularly like it. It did not change with this second viewing. In spite of some really breathtaking passages and an overwhelming score by Morricone, I think it the lesser film of the three, probably because of theme.
3. The Long day of Vengance An uneven film with some absolutely silly moments, but when it’s good, it is really good, and it has one of the greatest SW scores made It would have gained immensely from the acting of Gemma from Return though.
4. California Where in Return of Ringo Gemma is an aristocrat union officer going back to find his ranch taken over and his wife held captive by Mexican bandits, in California Gemma is a confederate soldier with no name, no home and no family to go home to, in the desolation in the wake of the civil war. Stays forever in my top 20.
Next in line: Death Sentence, Django Kill, If You Live, Shoot!, 10.000 Dollars for a Massacre.
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My ranking would be the complete opposite of yours (if I get yours right)
I like all three of these moments, but Return is my favourite, Long Days second, California third.
I have rewatched California recently, the other two are on this month’s list
SOME DOLLARS FOR DJANGO (1966)
This one was a re-watch. The movie is among the very first Italian westerns I ever saw. It must have been the summer of 1968 of '69. I remember it was very hot and I also remember a special incident: the operator threatened to stop the movie because one visitor refused to put out his cigarette.
It’s not one of the greats, but it’s an interesting transitional movie: telling a story of a war between farmers and ranchers, it still falls into the category of the early eurowesterns that were strongly influenced by Hollywood oaters, but the style and choreography of the violence are already typically Italian. Just watch the wonderful opening scene, with Anthony Steffen entering the movie on a donkey.
I watched it in Italian this time. The Italian dialogue is superior to the rather weak English dub, but it’s not great either. There are far too many lines with ‘prepotenti’, ‘maledetti’ etc. words that often pop up in Italian dialogue tracks and don’t really fit the western genre.
I corrected a few mistakes in my review that were noticed by forum members (@Companero_M & @JonathanCorbett) and also created a new layout for the page:
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Some_Dollars_for_Django_Review
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Last night’s entertainment: Django. Watched it for the umpteenth time, still like it. As if the Stooges and MC5 had joined forces and made a film together – Django is innovative, bold, loud, garish, subversive, irreverent, politically charged, technically rather sloppy, violent … and a little silly. Next: A Dollar a Toupee.
I haven’t seen neither Return or California since I first entered the SW bandwagon in 2012, but I think I’ll come back to both pretty soon.
I have to say I have been a little puzzled by the ambivalent conclusion to your California review: “… California is the best of the twilight westerns, along with Keoma, but it’s also a movie that tries to look more important than it really is. [It]'s cinematography … and Gianni Ferrio’s emphatic score … contribute to the idea of a movie that tries a little too hard.” As you have watched it recently, how, except for the cinematography and the score, do you think it tries to hard?
It’s a good movie, well-told, the first half better than the second, okay, but a good movie. It’s also a sad movie, so a good and sad movie with a depressing atmosphere. All okay, but it also tries to give you the impression that it’s a very important movie, a sort of Once upon a Time in the West, The Searchers, etc. by creating a solemn, gloomy, moody atmosphere that leads to a certain ponderousness. And it’s the melancholic score and the Vilmos Zigmond style of cinematography that creates this effect. It all feels a bit overdone, at least to me. Some would use the word arty-farty, I guess