Probably not but “Super Fuzz”(1980) is still one of the best comedies ever made.
Quite a personal film for Corbucci and aimed largely at Italian audiences rather than International audiences which is why it is not very well known outside Italy. No Gringo mercenaries and no American actors in the cast. Vittorio Gassman is presumably cast because of La Grande Guerra and plays the role of a ham actor which is what Gassman was known as in Italy. He’s introduced in blackface as Othello, a role Gassman played on stage. Is this really about an Italian director trying to stop making westerns about the Mexican revolution but not being able to get out of it? The pace is frenetic, like Companeros Long Live Your Death and Run Man Run, there are endless shootings and executions, mixed with exaggerated Italian mugging and arguments and some downright farcical scenes as well as some of the most fake-looking severed hands I have seen in while. The trouble is, we have seen a lot of this before and there have been too many similar films and once you get to the third escape from hanging or firing squad and Guido harping on about his acting for the third time, one feels jaded. Corbucci can still stage decent action scenes probably the best of any western director though. The Morricone score was probably his most disappointing for a western - for once he is just phoning it in. Only one tune I remember and sounding like ‘The Penguin’ from Companeros or the main theme from Sonny & Jed. One suspects this may play better to an Italian than an Englishman as an Italian would pick up a lot more of the gags.
Good call … and in my book a very relevant statement that should be applied to viewing the artistic elite films, which so many critics fawn over, without having much of a personal grasp on what’s going on.
In this case, I found the film enjoyable as a knockabout semi comedy, but who knows how many in -jokes and historical and political references go over the heads of the non native viewers.
I have for a long time been sceptical when I listen to Anglo pundits tell us how great Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, Visconti etc are, when to be absolutely honest, most of their output has left me underwhelmed, simply for the reason that I have never lived in Italy nor have I degree in Italian sociology and political history.
It’s interesting too to watch the ‘Criterion closet’ videos on Youtube and see how many producers of drek mainstream cinema, choose all the essential intellectual movies to give the impression that they really know their business. There are a few genuine and interesting picks, but the vast majority are just posers … and if you really were such a hardcore committed film fan, wouldn’t you own copies of all the films that you choose in that closet ???
I know ‘bullshit’ when I smell it! … here endeth the rant.
I was never a fan of 1970s/1980s European ‘art’ cinema - Beunel, Godard, Besson, Antonioni all left me cold and English critics would fawn over their movies as if they were of great significance when all i could see was about 3 jokes, an excuse for gratuitous nudity and some middle aged bloke pursuing a much younger woman. Is there a single French art movie in which a housewife does not moonlight as a prostitute? I felt these movies were made for middle aged male critics and not for young (as I was then) people.
What Am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution? is made for Italians and is about Italians - the first spaghetti western to have Italian heroes? Interesting that Franco Nero never played an Italian mercenary - in a way that most of Corbucci’s other westerns are not and are more ‘universal’.
I’m an Englishman and I laughed throughout the film. The fact that the characters are Italians only made it more interesting. It’s definitely Corbucci’s most underrated piece of work. What a brilliant soundtrack, too!
I agree that it is woefully underrated. I can’t believe there is no nice uncut blu-ray release.
I had to watch this on You Tube (due to lack of decent DVD/Blu Ray) which has an English dubbed print of the complete version including the interlude with the amorous, fat bounty hunter lady and the scene of the bloke with the corpses lying over his ass who mutters about the revolution going on for ever.
Cut or uncut?