Aka : Il Grande Duello (I), Le Grand Duel (F), Drei Vaterunser fĆ¼r vier Halunken (D)
Dir: Giancarlo Santi - Cast: Lee van Cleef, Peter OāBrien, Horst Frank, Marc Mazza, Klaus GrĆ¼nberg, Jess Hahn - Music: Luis Bacalov (and Sergio Bardotti?)
Unlike the moody twilight spaghetti westerns of the second half of the seventies, or the numerous comedies spawned by the Trinity movies, this film tries to recreate the myth of the previous decade. Although it was director Giancarlo Santiās first spaghetti western, he seemed the right man for the job. After all he had been assistent-director to Sergio Leone and Giulio Petrone, and had walked on the sets of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once upon a Time in the West and Death rides a Horse. The Grand Duel is not one of the great spaghetti westerns, but itās not pompous or self-indulgent, nor is it too silly.
A man called Philip Vermeer - probably not a great painter but certainly an excellent shot - has been found guilty of murdering a local patriarch, but has escaped and is now on the run. He is persecuted both by bounty hunters, paid by the patriarchās sons, the saxons, and an ex-sheriff, who claims Vermeer is innocent. During the first half of the picture, we see both men fighting off and escaping from bounty-hunters, the second part is largely set in Saxon town and deals with the question who actually killed the patriarch. Although the action is well-executed, the second part, with influences of giallo and noir, is by far the best. Van Cleef has more to do and the final twist, although a bit obvious, is well-prepared in a series of flashbacks, shot in de-saturated, heavily filtered colours.
Still cast as a Colonel Mortimer type of character, good old Lee hangs around most of the time, hiding his face under his hat or grimacing at OāBrien. Even without looking he seems to know what is about to happen (or not): when OāBrien tells him that an attack is imminent, he orders him to lie down and not to worry, there will be no attack, tomorrow will be a long day and they need their sleep. OāBrien, on the other hand, has an hyper-active role, jumping from roof to wagon and making summersaults during the gunplay. OāBrien had only two un-credited brief appearences, on his account, the kind of appearences most actors wouldnāt even want to be credited for: he had been a naked hippie in Franco Bursatoās The girl who couldnāt say no and a hippie with a hat in the episodic Capriccio allāitaliana. After The Grand Duel he spent some time in India and finally earned a living as a journalist for Espresso, under his real name Alberto Dentice. The villains are particularly well-cast: Frank, creepy as always, plays both the patriach and his oldest son, a cunning, knowing man with political aspirations, French actor Mazza (best known for a small part in My Name is Nobody) is the middle son, a simple man of action, and German actor GrĆ¼nberg steals the show as the youngest son, a white clad homosexual maniac who kills an entire community of dutch immigrants, in a scene so over the top it will leave you cringing. In a very nice reference to Shane, he puts on white gloves before executing a defenceless old man.
Personally iām not very fond of the score, but most people seem to like it and Tarantino used a part of it for Kill Bill. This score is attributed to both Luis Bacalov and Sergio Bardotti, but Marco Giusti sustains in his Dizionario that Bacalov wrote all compositions and that Bardotti only did some orchestrations. He claims that this is confirmed by Santi. And thereās more: according to OāBrien/Dentice the music played over the Italian end credits was written by the De Angelis brothers.
I donāt know, and I donāt know why OāBrien shoots off Leeās hat either.
Reviewed version: The film is part of the 3DVDs/9MOVIES box of St. Clair Vision. The film is presented in (more or less) its OAR and looks very fine for such a cheap release. The DD 5.1 virtual surround didnāt sound very surround to me, but is otherwise okay.
:o