I love things that are taken out of context and the “things that live in your head rent free” memes. Let’s name some SW scenes that randomly come to our minds out of nowhere and feel like they just exist in our minds without context. I’ll go first:
Johnny Yuma: *A man is shot, the bullet hit him from above. The camera zooms on the roof of a house where Mark Damon is lying on his stomach with a gun in his hands and then he just winks at the camera
Sartana’s Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin: Sartana’s satisfied expression after shooting the dynamite
Django… Prepare a Coffin: Django playing with a parrot
For a Few Dollars More: *Mortimer watching with a spyglass finds out that Monco has been looking at him with binoculars.
Also the whole Prophet scene
God Forgives… I Don’t: Cat pushing Rose (Bad boy, Cat )
Cat and Hutch beating each other
Ace High: Drunk Hutch dancing
Dead Men Don’t Count: Johnny accidentally scares the living sh** out of Fred because Fred fell asleep during little bro’s story
Django the Bastard: The intro where Django arrives and places the cross on the street in front of bad guy’s house
Trinity Is Still My Name: Trinity slapping Wildcard Hendricks
Ben and Charlie: Ben running out of the bank so proudly after robbing it while yelling at Charlie to come and help XD
The Great Silence: Silence throwing matches into El Tigre’s glass
The most random scene I have ever seen in a spaghetti western comes at the end of Ride for a Massacre aka Fury of Johnny Kid.
Those that have seen the movie will know exactly what I am talking about but I’m not going to say what it is as I don’t want to ruin the jaw dropping experience (either in a good way or bad way) for those that haven’t.
In I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death when Holden (Klaus Kinski) is playing poker in the carriage and catches the guy cheating right before those bandits attack.
I love it because, instead of killing the guy, he just takes his money back and says something like, “Let’s start again, but no cheating this time. I’ll just lose anyways.”
It’s such a nice, funny break from typical Spaghetti Western norms.
In Django Defies Sartana, a bad guy is right below the barrel, then the wine pours down on him. There is an immediate flashback. This scene is very emotional. The descriptions may not be very accurate. Don’t know why, this film is stuck in my mind.
Same. I think in most other spaghetti’s it would have fallen flat but because …Johnny Kidd’s based on a Shakespeare play it worked very well. It was quite OTT but that can work in theatrical things.
My Name is Pecos (1967): Pecos (Robert Wood) is in a bar asking for tequila and three drunken, racist crackers are insulting about to get physically aggressive. Pecos acts like he’s going to drop the bottle of tequila and blows them all away. The song “La Cucaracha” starts playing loudly.
Django Kill…If You Live, Shoot (1967) The scene when Oaks (Piero Lulli and his gang are walking into the town (“the Unhappy Place”). They see a little girl dancing and humming the music of the song, " O Susannah."
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) Any of the scenes with the badly-dubbed, screaming little kid. Especially, when there are cuts to the reactive faces of the Rojo brothers (Gian Maria Volonte and Antonio Prieto) while Marisol (Marianne Koch) is busily trying to console the kid. Cracks me up every time I watch it.
Sabata (1969) The scene with Carrincha (Ignazio Spalla) talking to his acrobatic Indian friend Alley Cat (Aldo Conti) before the latter makes a death-defying somersault jump off the roof.
Tepepa (1969) The scene when Tepepa is about to be executed by the firing squad and he humorously swept to safety by the English doctor (John Steiner) in his automobile.
Return of Sabata (1971) I remember the townspeople being very quirky and Felliniesque.
Duck You Sucker (A Fistful of Dynamite) (1971) The flashback scenes of Sean’s (James Coburn) memories of Ireland. In particular, Coburn frolicking in a field with his lady friend and Irish revolutionary buddy while the Ennio Morricone song “Sean, Sean” is sung in the background.
There are probably many more images from random scenes that come to mind. But, I can’t think of them at this point.
One that comes to mind a lot is the scene from Tepepa, after they’ve escaped and the brit is trying to fix the car, Tepepa says something along the lines of “Hey, Americano, fix us some coffee.” Only to be responded to with “I’m an Englishman and I drink tea.” “Americans. Englishman, all blondes.” Such a great exchange.
In “Savage Guns”, there’s a scene when a main character (I think Robert Woods’ character) enters a saloon and it cuts to an old man dancing to music for a few seconds. There’s also the scene where Peter Martell, Gordon Mitchell and Lincoln Tate make a cameo appearance when they are introduced to the villain as hired assassins and they are called by their real names.
In the Franco & Ciccio Trinity spoof, ‘Franco’ is parodying the shuffling from the poker scene in “Trinity is Still my Name” but in an increasingly over the top way, until it finishes with him pulling out a literal house of cards.
Yeah, plus I think the melodramatic tone Spaghetti Westerns sometimes employ helps makes these feel less out of place.
That movie had two of my favorite Spaghetti Western actors, an interesting premise, and a good director. Feels like such a waste with how it turned out.
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