SpagvemberFest!

Town Hall
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[Carlos and Miguel are in their hotel room]

-Miguel: [on the bed, reading from a pamphlet] Colour TV in every room… Jacuzzi… two bars… disco… every Friday…
-Carlos: [casually spinning the barrel on his revolver] Where’s the disco?
-Miguel: …except October. [he tosses the pamphlet aside]

[Carlos replaces his revolver in his holster and walks towards the window, leaning.]

-Carlos: I don’t think I like this place.
-Miguel: I don’t think I like you.
-Carlos: [turning to Miguel] I don’t think I heard that.
-Miguel: I don’t think I said it.
-Carlos: I don’t think… [he’s shoots into the ceiling]… therefore, I am.

[They laugh hysterically, shooting and tipping the room up. They stop as soon as they hear the knock on the door. It’s Bastardos.]

-Mr Bastardos: [from the other side of the door] Hey, have you got guns in there?

[Miguel hides the guns down the lavatory and flushes. Carlos restores the beds as they were and opens the door.]

-Carlos: Yeah?
-Bastardos: [threatening him with hammer] You no fire guns in the bedroom, eh? [to Miguel] and you, no flushing guns down the lavatory!
-Miguel: How come there’s no soft toilet paper?
-Bastardos: This, Hotel Bastardos! No soft toilet paper in Hotel Bastardos! [he spits on the floor] You want soft toilet paper? You go to Hotel Gayboy, you whinging pommies! And another thing: You no set fire to the beds, eh? Good, good, good. OK. Everybody happy? Ooh la-la la, la la…

The above excerpt is from The Comic Strip Presents… A Fistful of Travellers’ Cheques (Spiers, 1984). What is it about Eurowesterns and “Fistfuls” of things?

SPAGVEMBERFEST 2015 - THE BIG RUNDOWN: NUMBER 10

Last night saw me crash into my Big Ten, beginning with a bit(!) of a keystone. My #10 is A Fistful of Dollars (Leone, 1964), if not the granddaddy of them all, then certainly the Godfather.

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Oh my God, where did I put those earplugs from watching Mannaja the other day?

SPAGVEMBERFEST 2015 - THE BIG RUNDOWN: NUMBER 9

Today, casa.caress is vibrating to the headsplitting trills of Susan Duncan Smith, Cesare De Natale and those wacky De Angelis boys, as we attempt to power through the mindbending score and enjoy the #9 movie on my rundown: Keoma (Castellari, 1976), the beautifully delapidated “twilight” spag starring Franco Nero as Captain Caveman, trying to keep his plague-infested town from being trampled underfoot by Donald O’Brien.

Nero on the Keoma set

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22: Croccolo: [Black Killer][1] (1971)
-Probably the campiest spaghetti western ever made including memorable features:
*Overall cheap look (Maybe most of the money was spent on Kinski’s fee)
*Almost no plot at all
*Really poorly directed scenes after another (Good example is the one where indian girl shoots one guy and just stands there waiting for others to shoot her back)
*Color schemed mexican brothers called O’Haras
*Kinski in larger role than usual
*Kinski shootin guns through his books which serves no other purpose than looking cool (if it was meant to conceal the weapons it didn’t work that well because apparently everybody knows that)
*Really good music
*Good dose of nudity. Croccolo was probably an ass man. I mean, I’ve seen nudity in other sw’s too but never such an amazing ass shots like we have here:

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It’s like a shot from Tinto Brass movie.

Really terrible film but in a good, funny way. 6/10
[1]: http://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Black_killer

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Here are the next 10, bold first viewings

Adios Companeros/Giù la testa… hombre 4/10
My Name is Pot… but They Call Me Allegria 7
Ringo, Face of Revenge 1
The Relentless Four 4
Gentleman Killer 8.5
Night of the Serpent 8
Red Blood Yellow Gold 7.5 (up from 4)
Minnesota Clay 5
Find a Place to Die 6
Get Mean 7

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I think I’m in number 23 now:

Bosch: And the Crows Will Dig Your Grave (1971)
-Can’t really say anything bad about the film but nothing good either. Really average film that lacks the certain spirit to make it memorable. 4/10

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Haven’t watched it so far, because i thought it was a bad film with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. But it seems to have a couple

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http://forum.spaghetti-western.net/uploads/db4315/original/2X/5/598eb059968c1edc78dad4873d414bc8d13bed90.jpg
This is my poster btw. I recognise the folding.

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And 24:

Vari: Shoot the Living, Pray for the Dead (1971)
Great film, one that could sneak into my top20 if I’ll rearrange it some day. Kinski’s best sw role, I like the way camera just loves him in this. Lots of close ups, shots of him staring at the ceiling or horizon. What a face! Amazing stuff. 8/10

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SPAGVEMBERFEST 2015 - THE BIG RUNDOWN: NUMBER 8

Today’s pick and tomorrow’s pick share a similarity or two and, for me, they tend almost to swap places depending on my mood, pretty much. But here and now, in Spagvember, my #8 is Day of Anger (Valerii, 1967), in which naughty old LVC spies an angel-faced simpleton in the form of Giuliano Gemma, and decides to “groom” him. Oo-er, missus! Day of Anger? Day of Chafing a Bit, more like!

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:smiley: I can see a bit of diagonal foldage there in the corner. At some stage you must have turned it into one of those things everyone used to make at school. You know: Pick a colour, pick a number, pick another number…

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Bruno Nicolai’s score, for one.

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SPAGVEMBERFEST 2015 - THE BIG RUNDOWN: NUMBER 7

Getting down to it now. Number seven, already! Well, following on from yesterday’s Day of Anger, my #7 once again features LVC in some hot Mentor/Protégé action, this time in the form of Death Rides a Horse (Petroni, 1967). John Philip Law is not even close to being as good as Giuliano Gemma in yesterday’s movie - in fact he’s rather hard to like throughout; I have to keep reminding myself that he is the grown-up embodiment of the poor little boy who witnesses a massacre at the start of the movie just to be able to relate to him - but it’s a top, top movie nonetheless. It’s possibly the quintessential spaghetti western; if you asked someone who wasn’t particularly knowledgeable on the genre to describe what he/she thinks a spaghetti western might be like, Death Rides a Horse is almost certainly what they’d describe.

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Cool poster !..one basic poster design I have always liked.

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25: Corbucci: What am I doing in the middle of revolution? (1972)
-I wanted to give this Corbucci film another chance but I didn’t like it now either. It’s painful and irritating film with occasional fine scenes and action but mostly just incoherent mess. Maybe I would like it a bit more if I saw it in italian with subtitles because english dubbing just doesn’t work on this film. 5/10

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SPAGVEMBERFEST 2015 - THE BIG RUNDOWN: NUMBER 6

AAAARGHH! Thanks to not one, but a sequence of familial crises hitting me all at once yesterday. I missed my Spagvemberfest commitment for the first time! Sh*tting Jeebus! TBH though, I’m uncertain as to whether to hit up a double-bill today to make up the numbers, or to just let it go, because yesterday’s movie and my #6 should have been Requiescant (Lizzani, 1967), and although I love me a bit of Kill and Pray action, I know that Santa is bringing me a Requiescant-shaped blu-ray down the chimney this Christmas, so maybe I should wait until then. Hm. Maybe I’ll throw in a substitute movie instead; I had a hankering for Bandidos (Dallamano, 1967) earlier on in the challenge, I could always stick that in today. Hm.

Today, I don’t care if a toilet falls out of a 747 and crashes through our house. Nobody is stopping Spagvemberfest today, lest they be sentenced to death.

SPAGVEMBERFEST 2015 - THE BIG RUNDOWN: NUMBER 5

I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to today’s movie. My #5 is the fan-bloody-tastic Death Sentence (Lanfranchi, 1968), a movie which, reading about it here on the SWDB, I always thought I might like, and then when I saw it, it exceeded every hope I had for it. Brilliance in every way, especially the first segment, and Tomas Milian’s scenery-chewing turn as the gold-infatuated albino O’Hara.

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Various work and family commitments threw a spanner in my Spagvemberfest routine over the weekend but I am working at catching up before month’s end.

Anyhow, since I last posted I managed:

Number 12 - Fistful of Dollars (Leone / 1964)
Still a cracker and extra kudos for kickstarting the whole craze although I’m never sure how much credit should go to Sergio and how much to Mr Kurosawa. Who cares really anyway, it’s still a great film

Number 11 - Face to Face (Sollima / 1967)
Still an outstanding film but watched in line with all the other outstanding films I have seen over the past few weeks it slip slightly in the final rankings. No fault of its own really. Just too much competition.

Number 10 - Cemetery Without Crosses (Hossein / 1968)
More French than Italian I know but all tyhe better for that and a masterpiece in my eyes. The Arrow BluRay looks good despite the whole sepia versus monochrome opening debate. One of the very very best.

Number 9 - The Great Silence (Corbucci / 1968)
Corbucci’s best by a mile for me. Certainly his most patient and thoughtful. A beautiful film. Struck me this time though how much back and forth horse riding you can get away with if it’s in the snow instead of the Lazio countryside.

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26: Bazzoni: Brothers Blue (1973)
-A rare film which most here seem to dislike but I have some fondness for it. Clearly inspired by some revisionist american westerns and very different than any other film in sw genre. But I have to admit that film has it’s flaws but it definitely had a potential. I don’t like the ending with the endless rolling on ground, would have been more effective with just still images which would have also connection to the films earlier style. Too bad there’s no single dvd release yet, I’d love to see it on better quality. 6/10

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Spagvemberfest number 8

A Bullet for the General (Damiani / 1967)

One I hadn’t revisited for a while and still very enjoyable. In a career full of great performances this one is still one of Volonte’s best in a western I think. Castel looks about 12 in this one.

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Perhaps Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo el mercenario” ?

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Right: Let’s get f*cked up.

SPAGVEMBERFEST 2015 - THE BIG RUNDOWN: NUMBER 4

Embodying all of the most demented aspects of the Italian western, Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot! (Questi, 1967) is, for me, one of the most essential spags ever made. I love it to pieces, not least because my own home town of “Wonderful” Pitsea in Essex has been largely modeled on “The Unhappy Place”. Well, large portions of it would benefit from being razed to the ground, certainly.

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