Tepepa (Giulio Petroni, 1969)

Spaghetti Westerns šŸŽ¬
181

Love the Mercenary and Companeros.

But Quien Sabe, Tepepa, and Giu La Testa can actually be taken seriously.

182

I think the technical quality of Tepepa is undeniable but, ultimately, I agree with Stanton. Tbh, I find it a little dull.

Good grief, Iā€™m even in complete agreement as to his order of Zapata flicks. :open_mouth:

183

I am shocked :grin:

184

Giu la testa has always been my favourite zapata spaghetti. The order of the others keeps changing.

185

I still think that Damiani would have been the better choice for the directorā€™s chair.

Jesus F. Christ, what happened?

186

The Mercenary
Companeros
Quien sabe
Giu la testa
Tepepa

All of them are very good and itā€™s really hard for me to put them in list of preference. I can only say that Companeros is the most entertaining for me.

1 Like
187

Surely Iā€™m not the only person who would put ā€œDuck, You Sucker!ā€ first? After that itā€™s ā€œThe Mercenaryā€ and ā€œCompanerosā€ for me. I think Iā€™d then put ā€œQuien Sabeā€ last after ā€œTepepaā€ although I should probably re-watch them both.

188
  1. Quien sabe? (#4 on my general SW list)
  2. Giu la testa (#5)
  3. Il Mercenario (#11)
  4. Tepepa (#22)
  5. Companeros (#30)

Trust me, this is the right order :wink:

189

Could be!

The Mercenary
Companeros
Quien Sabe

Giu la Testa

Tepepa

190

Giu la testa is first on my list, too.

191

Youā€™re not alone. Even if I like the politics of some of the others more.

  1. Duck, You Sucker (8)
  2. CompaƱeros (10)
  3. Tepepa (11)
  4. Quien Sabe? (15)
  5. The Mercenary (19)
  6. Run, Man, Run (21)
192

Waitā€¦ ā€œRun Man Runā€ is in the list now? That would change the bottom of my list.

193

This is getting way out of hand :wink:
fact is, Il Mercenario is the best, but thatā€™s a different kinda thing, hehe

194

I actually agree entirely with your list if you move Quien Sabe? To the back. Iā€™m going to make myself unpopular here by saying Iā€™ve actually never liked it, although everything from the music, script and direction were great I thought Lou Castel played a boring character (forget his name), nowhere near as interesting as Sergei Kowalski or The Penguin, and even though Volonte gave a good performance El Chuncho wasnā€™t half as entertaining as Milian in Companeros or Indio and Brad Fletcher. I just donā€™t remember anything memorable about either of them.

For me itā€™s

  1. The Mercenary (my no. 5)
  2. Companeros (no. 6)
  3. Run Man Run (20)
  4. Fistful/Duckā€¦(in top 40)
  5. Tepepa (In top 50)
  6. Quienā€¦
195

Actually that wasnā€™t intended to be a ranked list.

That would be:

  1. The Mercenary
    gap
  2. CompaƱeros
  3. Duck, You Sucker
  4. Quien Sabe?
    gap
  5. Tepepa

Run, Man, Run is a different cup of tea, but would fit between # 4 and 5, but closer to # 4.

The # 2 - 4 are very close, have some faults, but also excellent stuff. I think I prefer Companeros for its brilliant action scenes, in that regard Duck you Sucker sucks.

196

[quote=ā€œBill_Willer, post:194, topic:532, full:trueā€]
Iā€™m going to make myself unpopular here by saying Iā€™ve actually never liked itā€¦[/quote]

Actually Iā€™ve always found Quien Sabe a little overrated for my tastes tooā€¦ not that it is bad of course, just some people seem to enjoy it more than me.

197

I think the strongest scene is where he dictates his letter and that is used for some flashbacks to tell the story. Incredible storytelling for a spaghetti western. Amazing momentā€¦

2 Likes
198

Biggest problem with Tepepa (apart from apatic Welles) is that its script was tampered with in attempt to make titular antihero some kind of romantic hero of the revolution which he was not intented to be in original Solinasā€™ script. Off course the ending can be interpreted as ā€œprint the legend, not the truthā€, but I donā€™t think that was the idea and if Iā€™m correct, Solinas admitted that he was not happy with the changes made to his script.

More of my older ramblings on this (and very interesting article they reference) can be found here: Go West, Comrade: Unearthing Politics in the Spaghetti Western - #7 by titoli

2 Likes
199

Nice to know Iā€™m not the only one. I certainly donā€™t dislike it either because it does contain a lot of greatness but to me it fails when it comes to characters which I think are (with a few exceptions) the most important aspect of a film.

1 Like
200

Which is what makes Quien sabe? better than most other Spags. They feel real, and Damiani makes some interesting stuff with them.
And thatā€™s something Petroni is not really able to.