Not viewed this one yetā¦saving for a special occasion. The only Corbucci western I have not seen, and have a feeling it will be a favourite of mine.
Well thenā¦ go for it!
I think, itās a great movie although many fans donāt like it that much. I think, I know why: Corbucci has made so many classics, he invented Django, he made one of my favourite movies of all time (Silence), he gave us two terrific westerns about the revolution. OK, compared to those, Gli Specialisti somehow is a bit weak. So, people tend to say, itās not a good movie.
BUT compared to the many spags we know, itās still great entertainment
Great reviewā¦interesting and very informative as always. I found the film to be interesting, but a little slow. Also didnāt like the hippies or the silly ending. Guess i should check out the other Corbuccis as i have only seen Companeros, aside from this one. Funnily i used to love Companeros when i was younger but have gone off it a lot, i suspect because at the end of the day, these revolution films really arenāt my thing, which is why iāve never sought out The Mercenary. Also in recent years, Tomas Milianās shameless hamming has started to irritate me a little (so for me, favourite performances of his are Django Kill and The Bounty Killer, where he is at least a bit more subdued). Really should pick up a copy of Great Silence thoughā¦
Have you not seen Navajo Joe Silver ?
Ah yesā¦ :
Kind of forgot about that one :-[ And of the ones i have seen, thatād be my favourite tooā¦
I received this PM from Breccio, reviewer of the French WesternMovies net:
http://forum.westernmovies.fr/ucp.php?i=pm&mode=view&f=0&p=41631
Iāll add this info to the review later today
One question:
As I only realized after the review, the banker woman is also named pollicut, liek the bankers name in The great silence. You think that this one maybe was thought to be some kind of the great silence 2? I mean hud is also very quiet and excelent at shooting.
As far as I know the great silence was quite succesfull in France, and maybe Corbucci wanted to appeal to them again by choosing another french lead? What do you think about this?
[quote=āvalenciano, post:87, topic:243ā]One question:
As I only realized after the review, the banker woman is also named pollicut, liek the bankers name in The great silence. You think that this one maybe was thought to be some kind of the great silence 2? I mean hud is also very quiet and excelent at shooting.
As far as I know the great silence was quite succesfull in France, and maybe Corbucci wanted to appeal to them again by choosing another french lead? What do you think about this?[/quote]
I donāt think itās really meant to be a Great Silence 2, but FranƧoise Fabian actually was a good friend of Jean-Louis Trintignant, who advised her to take the part when it was offered to her. The bullet proof vest most probably is a remainder of Corbucciās/Van Cleefās original plans about a warfare specialist (and so maybe is the title, at least the French one). Still, itās not completely impossible that Corbucci is referring to The Great Silence; it might be a joke, something like: this is what Silence should have had (and in the happy ending he has something to protect his arm, if iām not mistaken). Like I said in the review, Hud is closer to Silence than to any other protagonist of Corbucciās movies, thatās maybe why he chose a French actor again. It also secured him of a hit in France, because like I wrote, Halliday was and is an incredibly popular artist in the french speaking world.
And the Pollicut thing? I donāt know, I noticed it, but if it was deliberate, I guess itās a kind of joke too. I donāt think the name āmeansā anything; as far as i know itās not the name of a famous banker, or something like that. But you never know.
The Specialists was called the 3rd part of a mud & blood trilogy after Django and TGS.
I always thought the film would make more sense in Corbucciās complete works if he was made between Django and TGS. But then it would have been a bit early for the hippie parts in 67.
I really like this one. Corbucci does wonders with action but I wish there ws more of it. I thought the costume for Hud was really cool. I didnāt like the hippies because hey reminded more too much of thoe dirty hobbits from the ring movies. They are way too over the top. I always thought hippies wer really lax and not jupy, whiny little children. Great alpine locations. Sorta different for a Corbucci movie. But still good.
Didnāt really like it that much. The youth gang almost ruined it for me. And Halladay is too damn slight of build to be a spaghetti hero! LOL Boy, get some meat on them bones! He looks anorexic and scrawny. Some good moments, and Corbucciās direction is masterful as always. The scenery was breathtaking, where was it filmed? Didnāt look like Almeria. Overall I would give it a 5.5 out of 10.
It was filmed in the alps at Cortina dāAmpezzo (where Sergio also shot The Great Silence) and in the Elios studios for the interiors and the town scenes.
well eastwood is not build much differently heĀ“s just taller. I thought halladay is convincing, but i never saw him as the singer he is known by many, because i guess im too young. Sometimes its hard to get an image out of your head, just saw Javier bardem in vicky cristina barcelona, and had to think of him in no country for old men all the time.
And yes the scenerey is great, maybe even better than in TGS, it just shows some great landscapes, and the cemtery is also wonderfull.
Actually Eastwood was very lean but he did have a sinewy muscularity to him. Apparenlty heās been lifting weights since he was a teenager. I read in a magazine in the 80ās that he did sets of 25 reps with 45 pound dumbell curls and has 4 percent body fat. Hallayday did a decent acting job though, I just thought he was too scrawny. Even his face looked skeletal.
Ah Stanton, thanks for the info. How could I not recognize it! Now that you mention it, the two movies are oddly similar in style and themes. The location actually does a better job of mimicking the American landscape than Almeria, which actually doesnāt really look like the southwestern states. Of course as an SW fan I gladly ignore this lack of authenticity.
Since you say there similar in style and theme I have to step in just to say I agree.
Colonel, what is your opinion of Steffen. Heās just as srawny.
Hey Korano.
Yeah Steffen is skinny and so is Garko, although he seemed to add some muscle in Lou Ferriginoās Hercules.
I guess there is a difference between being lean and being scrawny. Steffen is lean. Hallyday is scrawny, like a weakling. Especially that scene with his shirt off he looks like a weakling. I can imagine someone like Mario Brega or Bud Spencer snapping him in half like a toothpick!
I donāt think that somebody who looks like Halliday could be good in a fistfight. Maybe he would have a chance against Keira Knightly. Steffen and Eastwood are very slim too too but at least they have muscles and some power in their arms. On the other side he isnāt an easy target for bullets. 
i like him being scrawny. Makes him out of place, unusual- a characteristic which is, of course, one of the main reasons why i like spaghettis
I found this one to be a very nice surprise. An unusual film filled with Corbucciās usual blend of off kilter characters and sudden bursts of violence. It was also nice to see screen tough guy, Mario Adorf again. The cinematography, as mentioned, is striking in its beauty.
Corbucci is way off his best with this movie. Some nice stuff but not nearly good enough for a man who gave us Great Silence, Django, Companeros etc. This is what always frustrates me with Corbucci. Not a complete disaster but I expect better from one of the 3 Sergios.
I did like the scene where the whole town is stripped nude and lying in the street though and Mario Adorf was ok as the mexican bad guy. But I couldnāt help wondering how a band of Mexican Bandidos like this had got into an area clearly meant to be nowhere near the south west. :-\ I presume the italian alps are standing in for the rocky mountains here? Ah well.