The Unholy Four / Ciakmull, l’uomo della vendetta (Enzo Barboni, 1970)

I wouldn’t give this film a second thought if not for the skirmish in the woods, beautifully photographed amongst autumn leaves, and the frenetic/well edited gunfight that ends the picture.

If not for those segments this would be a 2 for me but a 3 with those inclusions.

Well, after a vacation from the genre I returned to the world of SW with this movie.
It was slightly above average although it had a lot of wasted potential. First, in the acting department. The supporting actors were way better than the protagonists. I didn’t care much for the lead and I would’ve liked to see more from Strode and Eastmann who were enjoyable as always.
Second, the soundtrack. It wasn’t bad at all (it’s Ortolani after all), but I found it totally inapropriate for the film. The main theme ruins the atmosphere in a few scenes, specially the ending.
On the plus side, the story was pretty good, with a few more layers than the typical revenge movie. And visually it was a really good movie. Here Barboni showed a great eye for images and sequences that sadly he pretty much dropped when he started making comedies. The shootout scene where the bank robbers get ambushed was great and the speedy editing and great closeups to the weapons showed an exciting approach away from the typical Leone closeups and much closer to the modern MTV/Arronofsky-esque editing tricks. And the shooting at the graveyard was quite good as well.
So, while being uneven and far away from being an essential, I think the seasoned SW fan will enjoy the little things that set it appart from the bulk of cheap, average revenge western.

tell me about that - i’m in one big genre vacation right now :slight_smile:
who knows when i’ll return to watching SWs

[quote=“tomas, post:43, topic:215”]tell me about that - i’m in one big genre vacation right now :slight_smile:
who knows when i’ll return to watching SWs[/quote]
Same with me. I have yet to see a lot of spags, but somehow I’m not in the mood.

I recently caught this movie.

It wasn’t bad at all. It held my interest and met all my personal criteria for “good spaghetti western” except one burning issue that almost became a show stopper for me.

The main reoccurring theme song. This thing (audio): the Unholy Four (1970) Trailer - YouTube

Not too be overly critical, but I have never encountered a more ill-fitting inappropriate bit of fanfare in my life. There would always be some tense, violent or even triumphant moment in the film and then out of nowhere this lighthearted theme song from a 70’s situation comedy would suddenly kick-in. It really feels like a mistake that was made while doing the audio in post or something.

Even hearing “thee” SW gunshot sound effect over the top of the offending track in the trailer feels like I’m being punk’d.

Very disorientating.

Just goes to show the power of soundtrack I guess, however wielded.

I agree on this cheerful, and quite mediocre, tune playing over and over again. It detracts from the viewing pleasure. Otherwise this is a pretty damn solid film.

1 Like

Not to beat a dead horse, as it’s obviously everyone’s biggest gripe with the film, but the music really does take this one down a peg. I actually think that if it had a better score, it would be in the top 50 easily. However, I’m a sucker for ensemble SW’s and this one has a great dynamic. I enjoy it quite a bit.

Agreed. Good, but could have been better with different music.

1 Like

saw it yesterday from youtube
good opening, the first 43 minutes was fast funny the midle became very boring at least the ending was good
great cast and very good music not something special for me but it delivers somehow, i like a lot george eastman character
3 stars for me

1 Like

I completely agree with comments that the main theme is too lighthearted and as such completely out of place for this movie. But apart from the main theme, rest of the soundtrack is quite different and actually a lot more in the vein of classic Morricone’s soundtracks…

1 Like

I too recently watched this movie on youtube (just discovered how many Italian westerns are on there and am making up for lost time in watching them) and found this one to be a really good movie. There was a lot to like about this movie, including the jaunty main theme: nothing wrong with the theme but it was used in the wrong places at times. Interesting characters and I liked the amnesia angle and the way the villains attempted to use the hero for their own ends. The ending was surprisingly poignant and it felt like to me there was the potential for another Chuck Mool story as he tries to find out who he is and where he belongs.

1 Like

It just occurred to me that the music in this one was probably influenced by the soundtrack of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid which was off course big hit just about that time.
I think that soundtrack also probably influenced Morricone on My name is Nobody few years later.

Just watched this yesterday. Great story, flawed film. Riz Ortolani’s bouncy (and massively overused throughout the movie, although aren’t they all?) theme tune was completely inappropriate. It belongs in some sweet-but-saucy English 60’s comedy like Please Sir! or something. Look at the final scene: Dead men lie everywhere, a grieving father holds his son’s corpse, Chuck Mull walks away in a daze having had his origins explained to him… it’s all very grim, and… cheer up everyone! here comes the theme tune! Do doo-doo, do-do-doo! (duh der-der duh! Duh! Der-der, duh-derr!) And what was with Chuck’s voice? Did Michael Jackson do the dub? Very high voice. Very wooden, too. And the bad guy’s son seemed to walk about everywhere without moving his arms.

Heh, sounds as though I didn’t like The Unholy Four, but that’s not true. It’s just that these silly flaws I feel have stopped a pretty good movie from being a really good movie, maybe even a great movie. It’s an enjoyable story as I said, it’s well shot in the main, it both opens and closes very strong (bank robbery/asylum fire and then the final shootout), and Woody Strode and George Eastman were very good indeed, Eastman in particular.

That bloody theme tune, though! :slight_smile:

One thing I don’t get about this film is the guys name - Chuck Mool? What kind of name is Mool??

Anyway, this falls into the category of reasonably entertaining, stupidity.

So thumbs up from me. :slight_smile:

It seems tp be an English adaptation of the original title Ciakmull. But actually I don’t have a clue what that title means either. It is most likely not an Italian word, maybe some kind of strange sounding name for a western. Like Sentenza, Django, or Sartana.

No idea were the name Ciakmull comes from either. Maybe there’s an explanation in the movie (Italian dialogue), but I don’t remember that.

Ciak means clapper board in Italian, but I don’t think they were used in the West.
Well, in the spaghetti West maybe.

1 Like

Cheers at least it makes a bit more sense now :wink:

It is paradoxical, you are absolutely right. In some way the title The Unholy Four seems in opposition to The Four of the Hail Mary, even though in Colizzi’s 2nd SW the title refers to sunset accompanied by the ringing of the Angelus bell and not directly to the prayer.

[hr]

In early March 1970 Ciakmull was rated ALL, with about ten seconds cut from the beating with a cane sequence.

I liked the first half of the film more than the second. The scenes in the woods reminded of Today It’s Me, Tomorrow It’s You, which is a better film. This was one still kept my attention. The Wild East disc is also very good quality. Having watched all three spaghettis with Mann, I realised that he plays the same type of character in each of film. He’s always kept in the dark. In Vengeance Trail, he didn’t know the truth about who murdered his family. In The Forgotten Pistolero, he had no idea who is real family was and in this one, suffering from amnesia, he doesn’t know himself.

The Kino Lorber disc looks great, impressive amount of detail… you can watch in italian with english subtitles, as well… doesn’t help that music theme though (why he thought it was a good idea to play it during action scenes?)