This subject has been touched upon before. There’s a lot of obscure and run of the mill Spaghs that has great and strong openings that really sets the mood right off, that gives us big hopes and promises. In some cases they deliver to the end but in many cases we are left with a feeling of being let down. What are your picks of Spaghs were the opening is the best part? Here’s my 3 contenders, I’d love to hear about yours
1.Go With God Gringo (I love the whole movie but the opening in particular)
2.Matalo! (This one I like, but the opening had me hoping for bigger stuff)
3.Thou Shalt Not Kill (Opning is superb, but the rest was below average in my book)
Some opening songs are really cool I think. It sets the mood and it made the movie promising. Like Taste of Killing and Kill the Wickeds. In the end both are mediocre to me. Maybe someday the staff can add a ‘Top 20 Opening Songs’ on SWDb. Just an idea…
‘And a Sky Full of Stars for a Roof’ has to be the biggest in my humble. I agree with Alex Cox.:.it “fall(s) flat” afterwards, but has a brilliant opening. Wanted too. Wanted (pun not intended) to like it because I love the first two Ferroni spags, but I think Wanted sucked. It had a good opening though. I agree with you Matalo! as well, the opening was definitely the best part.
That just shows how we all have different tastes. I love both of those films. I have Taste of Killing in my top 10 and Kill the Wickeds is easily in my top 30 and rated well above Matalo! Both really do have great openings though.
I love the openings of Requiem para el Gringo (Requiem per un Gringo/Requiem for a Gringo/Duel in the Elcipse), Tutto per Tutto (Go for Broke), and Arizona Colt, very simplistic, but great uses of color and music. Per il Gusto di Uccidere and Dio non Paga il Sabato have solid openings too, and they’re both in my Alternative Top 20.
Bandidos and Once Upon a Time in the West spring immediately to mind, understandably enough. Django the Bastard and If You Meet Sartana, Pray For Your Death are favourites in this regard too.
Oh, and I love the opening to Django, Kill. Can’t beat a movie which starts with a guy climbing out of a grave. I mean it’s a little bit hokey, a little bit Plan 9 From Outer Space, but it sets the tone for what might be the most spaghetti of all the spags.
Well, in addition to the aforesaid, nobody has mentioned Django yet for some reason, it surely has one of the most iconing opening scenes in the history of the genre. The Return of the Ringo has that wonderful opening sequence as well.
I really like the opening to Sartana’s Here Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin (1970) too. Okay, maybe not one of the greatest, but I just love that egg eating scene.
I think my favourite has got to be Bandidos. That long tracking shot of all the dead bodies along the train carriages combined with the excellent score makes for a perfect opening. The original Italian opening with the bandits for The Big Gundown is great too.
I also love a good opening credits sequence, especially if there’s some rotoscoping involved. The two that always spring to mind are Django, Prepare a Coffin and Killer Calibre 32. Special mention to another one of my favourite’s I am Sartana Your Angel of Death with the card trick opening credits.
A lot of good examples of great opening scenes. I forgot to mention the dragging manhunt under the scorching sun in Death Sentence … Pure Spaghetti right there…
The artistically bizarre and morbid opening of $10 000 Blood Money is a strong contender aswell.
The corpse being sent away on a horseback to the sound of pompous dramatic trumpets of doom in The Fury of Johnny Kid
I remember that Stanton once said that the opening of They Call Me Hallelujah is of Corbucci quality. I will need to get back to that one because I don’t remember it specifically…
‘The Great Silence’, ‘The Big Gundown’, ‘Face to Face’, ‘My Name is Nobody’, the two ‘Trinity’ films, and - of course - the Leone Westerns…
Some of the rotoscope beginnings to the Spaghetti’s are simply outstanding, and are works of art that get the pulse racing even before the action begins…
I love the beginning of Companeros actually. The credit sequence with Iris Berben running trough town catches your attention immediately, with Morricones absolutely wonderful score playing over it. That scene, along with the following one where Nero enters town accompanied by his laid-back leitmotif, establishes the spirit of the film spot on.
I couldn’t agree more! It’s a beautiful scene really, sets the tone for the film perfectly and has an utterly beautiful score getting stronger and stronger as the tension builds up - probably the finest scene directed by Sollima. I get a cold sweat every time I think of all the countless people who saw the cut version and missed that scene out.
