Was better than what I thought it would be. Overall it kept my attention and was even able to overlook the bull and lasso/airplane part and enjoy the movie.
I’ve bought the Filmax DVD for awhile now but never had the will to watch it. Finally decided to give it a try. This is not a bad movie, but compared with the other Corbucci’s zapata-westerns it seems misplaced. It works well as comedy/drama.
Just viewed this one again. Opening reminds me of the sort of scene from one of the directors better Revolution films. We soon drop into farce among the two leads though. Some of the sets and action pieces look on the expensive side. There is some writing on a wall in one scene “Viva Revolution” something or other, and could not believe how huge the writing is. Not the best western by the director, but not the worst either for me.
You saw the new fandub of this film, Ennioo?
Yes. Stronger colours and image than the T.V rip that had been dubbed into english. The new fandub is in around 1.85 widescreen. The audio drops out a little like the old english dub TV print, so I suspect the same english audio source has been used.
I recently bought the Spanish DVD of this. It is an ok widescreen, non-anamorphic image which is at least a vast improvement over the quality of the copy of a German TV recording that I was kindly provided by a forum member. Although it would have been nice to have Italian audio, at least the Spanish audio is much better than the horrible English dubbing that had been put on the aforementioned TV version.
The 10 minutes shorter running time on the DVD, noted in the database, results exclusively from the editing of one section of the film. The scene involving Albino ending up in the bedroom of the large female bandit leader is removed such that after the bandit leader shoots the soldier paying them for the severed hands, we cut straight to the Indians (with missing left hands) attacking which culminates with the leader then giving the speech about their ancestral land. Interestingly this seems to be a night scene on the TV version with cheap filters being used to create the effect, while on the Spanish DVD this all appears in the daytime and at least does not have the same fake, filtered look to it. After the Indian leader has given his speech, there is then a cut to Guido and Albino walking along the train tracks. This skips a short scene of Albino punching Guido who falls down a hillside as a peasant walks by with a cart mumbling about how the revolution just goes in circles with no one actually getting anywhere. Excluding the edits to this section of the film, which amount to about 10 minutes in total, the Spanish DVD seems to preserve everything else in the German TV version intact.
As for the film itself, this is a great Zapata-western that is a fitting third instalment to Corbucci’s revolution trilogy after ‘The Mercenary’ and ‘Companeros’. I particularly like the way all three of them begin and end with the same ‘book-end’ style to create circular narratives. This third instalment is slightly marred by some unwelcome scenes: the bedroom scene with the female bandit leader (its absence in the Spanish DVD is no great loss, although I would have liked the short scene with the mumbling peasant to have been retained); Guido running through the town with his face painted black; Albino being hit by a bull and landing in a car which is just badly filmed rather than conceptually bad.
For me this one is not as interesting as its two predecessors, as it lacks mostly the powerful images and visuals of those. Some ideas are, just like Novecento says, rather badly (or better lazily) filmed than badly shaped.
Database comment:
Corbucci’s third revolution western uses a similar flashback style as its predecessors, but is otherwise quite different. The gringos here are only two average Italians who are hardly good for typical SW heroes.
The many interesting ideas of the plot are realised without any greater enthusiasm, so that the film plods along quite unexcitingly, as does Morricone’s lazy soundtrack, which varies only a few well-known simple guitar motifs. Still worth a look for being uncommon.
Well I’d certainly rank them in quality according to their time of production: 1. The Mercenary; 2. Companeros; 3. What am I doing in the Middle of the Revolution. However, I still really like the third one and think that most of it is very well made indeed with good production values.
As for the bull and the car scene, it is so weirdly filmed that I wonder if Corbucci did it for comedic effect rather than laziness.
I also really love the way Corbucci weaves real historical figures into his trilogy. This one has Herrero, Carrasco and even features Giuseppe “Peppino” Garibaldi flying all over the place in a biplane.
Did miss the missing footage in the Spanish print.
The review of this movie has finally arrived
Took some time because it wasn’t an easy film to review:
I’m glad you took your time - I’d say that’s one of your best reviews Scherp!
Great review, thanks for all of your detailed analysis on Corbucci’s films, scherpschutter!
Excellent review of a rather mediocre movie.
Like some have said above, I expected this one to be worse than it actually is based on previous reports. Having said that it is pale in comparison with The Mercenary or Companeros and does include some unfortunate comedy elements which are misplaced, even in a light hearted episodic story like this.
I thought both lead actors were perfectly fine in their parts and the fact that neither seemed at home in the western setting fitted their characters in truth. They are outsiders and it is fitting that they seem so out of place. I did feel that the pace of the film was too constantly hectic though and this, of course, is down to Corbucci. The most inconsistent of the 3 Sergios. It’s a comedy for the most part for sure but it still needed to have some light and shade, some moments of calm to break up the action and constant jabbering of the panicking protagonists. As is stands it becomes exhausting and some good scenes lose their impact.
So, not Corbucci’s worst by a long shot but far from his great works and in many ways the least ‘western’ of all his westerns.
Excellent film with brilliant actors (not sure why some didn’t think so). The only thing I found frustrating was the abrupt ending. Other than that, the film has to be one of the best spaghetti comedies.
My feeling is that this is one of the films that for some reason is somewhat elusive in a few markets. As a result, it is often unfairly dismissed as something probably not worth viewing since no-one cares to release a decent version of it.
Where would I be able to find the Spanish DVD or the German TV recording here in September 2020? Ive been looking hard to try to find a version of this film with no success. Any help would be much appreciated - Thanks!
Not even a DVD of this in Italy. This is fucking ridiculous if you ask me… that’s as if there was no DVD of a lesser John Ford movie in the US… unthinkable.
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Yeah, it’s a Corbucci film, it’s really good, and it forms the third part of a trilogy. And yet all that is available is a cut Spanish release…
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Hard to believe really. It’s still on YouTube but I still need to check it out. Struggling to find time to watch films at the moment…I need to make this a priority though.