Tom Weisser "Untruth" Project

Town Hall Books & Resources
#1

I’ve created this new thread to try to organize the info related to Weisser’s inaccuracies.
As some of you may have read in the other thread devoted to Weisser, I have been in contact with his publisher and am going to submit to them a partial but representaive list of Weisser’s errors.
Phil calls these his “untruths” because “the term error implies a level of good will that is inapropriate.” I could not agree more so I have borrowed his terminology.
I am going to put this info in a table so I would like to ask forum members who want to contribute to exposing Weisser’s untruths give me the info in a certain format/way:

  1. Page Number
  2. Film title (where appropriate)
  3. Where the untruth occurs (title, plot synopsis, character identification, etc)
  4. What the untruth is
  5. What the reality is

Here is an example:

p. 47
A Bullet for Sandoval
Plot synopsis
Incorrectly characterizes the relationship of Warner, Don Pablo Sandoval, and his daughter.
Claims Warner’s family dies of the plague after receiving no help from the rich Don and that Warner had been “carrying on” with the Don’s daughter while married.
In fact, Warner intends to marry the Don’s daughter and it is the baby that they have had together that precipitates the drama. He was not married and had no family other than the Don’s daughter and their newborn son to whom he is devoted.

Last night I flipped through the book and, just casually, noticed problems with the plot synopsis of over 60 films. I am sure there are many more.
I am also interested in errors ANYWHERE in the book. I did notice one photo caption that was wrong. And there are untruths in the Personnel section in the back as well.

I am going to mine the other Weisser thread here plus the one on lovelockandload as well for info.

Thanks!

#2

Excellent idea. I’ll be sure to chime in.

#3
  1. page 317
  2. Thirteenth is A Judas
  3. Synopsis and characterization is completely wrong, nothing like the plot.
  4. O’brien is not a 'lawman-turned-bounty-hunter", Stratford is not “Monster of the Prairie”, and O’Brien is not pursuing him.
  5. O’Brien is a robber who has basically planned the murder of his fiancee. Stratford is one of the guys trying to find out what happened.
#4

[quote=“lordradish, post:3, topic:1563”]1. page 317
2. Thirteenth is A Judas
3. Synopsis and characterization is completely wrong, nothing like the plot.
4. O’brien is not a 'lawman-turned-bounty-hunter", Stratford is not “Monster of the Prairie”, and O’Brien is not pursuing him.
5. O’Brien is a robber who has basically planned the murder of his fiancee. Stratford is one of the guys trying to find out what happened.[/quote]

Perfect. Thank you!

#5
  1. page 274
  2. Sartana Kills Them All
  3. Synopsis/plot is completely wrong. Weisser must have just made it up.
  4. Sartana is not hunting down a “mysterious gang of gun traffickers”
  5. Sartana , with his friend is trying to get his hands on some loot from a stagecoach robbery.
#6
  1. page 215
  2. Matalo
  3. synopsis and characterizations wrong.
  4. THe film doesn’t open up with a stage robbery, Wells Fargo didn’t hire Ray to track them down, his name is not “Ray Matalo”. Matalo means “kill him”… duh…
  5. THe film opens up with Bart about to be hanged, he then kills his rescuers. Ray (no last name) is introduced in the desert, nearly dead from the heat, there’s nothing about him “working for Wells Fargo”
#7
  1. page 260
  2. Return of Shanghai Joe
  3. actor wrong
  4. Weisser incorrectly states that “Cheen Lie” is the same as actor “Chen Lee” (from the first “Shanghai Joe” film).
  5. They are different actors, something that would have been blatantly obvious to Weisser, if he had actually watched the film. Maybe he thinks they all look alike, who knows?
#8
  1. page 373
  2. Personnel Section
  3. States that Joe Egger is a pseudonym for actor Jose Calvo
  4. In fact, Joseph Egger is another actor who played opposite Calvo in Fistful of Dollars
#9

Ha ha this could become easily the thread with the most posts …

#10
  1. page 80
  2. Death is Sweet From the Soldier of God
  3. inaccurate description of character motif
  4. Weisser says this film is in the mold of “Django The Bastard” or “His Name Was Holy Ghost”. with an almost supernatural character on the trail of some guy for vengeance. He is very clear about this in the opening paragraph.
  5. Although there is the vengeance motif, there is nothing whatsoever like any of those mentioned films. Brad Harris’ Django character is your pretty run-of-the mill spag hero, nothing mysterious or even supernatural about him. Quite the contrary, as he gets his ass kicked. Once again, we have to ask… what film was Weisser watching?
#11

There is a ton of errors listed in this other forum:

http://www.lovelockandload.net/forum/index.php?topic=244.0

#12

I am very glad I do not have this book.

#13

Romaine, something else to possibly mention in your follow-up to McFarland… some of these movies undoubtedly no longer exist. Anywhere. Sure, nowadays, we’re lucky because we have Bittorrent and can get old VHS rips and such, but the point is there is no way Weisser could have possibly seen all of these movies, let alone read synopses about them somewhere. The IMDB certainly didn’t exist back in 1992 when the book was written.

Is there anyone on the DB who has at least 400 spags? I have about 225 at this point, I know some of you have more, but I’d be surprised to learn if any had more than 400, let alone 500 or so. There’s no way he could have seen them all.

#14

Check the old “How many sw’s do you have”-thread … My own collection must at this point include some 350 different spaghetti westerns at least (including Spanish westerns) … But violentprofessional in that thread claims to own 580 (!) spaghetti westerns … Is a rather high number so I guess some of those must include different prints of the same movie and/or things that aren’t really spaghetti westerns.

#15

I know one who has probably one copy of nearly every european western. Of course several in languages he doesn’t speak, and he probably hasn’t watched them all, but he was eager to collect them all, and he got them nearly all.

#16

I don’t have the book and I don’t think it’s worth buying …

@Stanton
You mentioned something about Weisser talking about an actor (I think Hilton) playing a character called Dick Luft in a film called (in German) Dicke Luft in Sacramento
Don’t correct that one, it’s too good to be untrue

#17

That’s the 2nd Tresette film.

The english title is The Crazy Bunch, but Weisser changes it to Dick Luft in Sacramento (a wonderful, but completely wrong translation of the german title which means Trouble [= Dicke Luft] in Sacramento). The funny part is he made out of Dicke Luft (trouble) the name of the protagonist (Dick Luft), cause Hilton is called Tricky Dick in the english version.

Hilarious

#18

Since I was able to manage to get a copy at a reasonable price, I’ll try to participate in this project…

#19

Well, that’s surprising, and I’d venture to guess, a rare occurrence. Still, what are the chances that Weisser has seen even most of 'em? Not much.

#20
  1. page 226
  2. Night of the Serpent.
  3. Plot synopsis and music.
  4. Weisser has the music attributed to Ennio Morricone, whereas everybody else reckons Riz Ortolani is responsible.
    His synopsis of the film is laughably (criminally) bad.
    Weisser reckons this is a film that has Pistilli (the Serpent) as a “notorious bandit who wreaks havoc on Silver City when, after attempting a bank robbery, he and his gang are trapped inside a saloon.”
  5. On my copy of the film, Pistilli is a Mexican federale officer who is trying to solve a murder to track down the inheritance of a youngster, with ideas of keeping it for himself. In this task he is thwarted by an ex-gunslinger and alchoholic who has holed-up with a gang of Mexicans. In fact the whole story (except for a few flashbacks) is set in Mexico … and I do not recall any mention of a Silver City. Weisser couldn’t possibly have seen this film! He also likens NOTS’s plot to that of Adios Hombres - which is almost completely set in a U.S. town, and is about a wrongly convicted man tracking down the real culprits for the crime. Again, there is no similarity whatsoever.