Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)
02/08/08:
ACQUASANTA JOE (Mario Gariazzo, 1971) 
Like SARTANA IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH, I watched this via C’Est La Vie’s R2 DVD and, in hindsight, both film and disc are of similar quality. The lead is Lincoln Tate in the title role of the bounty hunter pursuing Ty Hardin’s band of Renegade Union soldiers; Richard Harrison appears as one of the latter’s associates who later double-crosses him.
Having watched so many Spaghetti Westerns this past week, the films’ plots get intertwined in my mind – and, frankly, I can’t recall much of what this one was about!; I do know that Hardin’s gang carries with it a cannon to aid in their bank robberies and that his leadership is challenged at one point by a bald-headed associate whom Tate eventually dispatches with a horde of arrows in the style of Akira Kurosawa’s THRONE OF BLOOD (1957). Hardin eventually joins forces with Tate to retrieve a stash of money hidden in a cave, and also involved is Hardin’s half-breed (and gun-toting) woman – who has her eyes on Tate as well.
The director biography, included among the extras, makes some claim for him being a versatile film-maker but, personally, it’s the first I’ve ever heard of him: his career spanned all sorts of genres from Spaghetti Westerns to crime thrillers, horror, sci-fi and even erotica (as it turns out, he also made the sentimental drama THE BALLOON VENDOR aka THE LAST CIRCUS SHOW [1974] – starring James Whitmore and Lee J. Cobb – which, when released in Malta back in the day, proved a huge box-office success)!
02/08/08:
HOLD-UP (Alexandre Arcady, 1985) 
This is an earlier French film version of Bill Murray’s QUICK CHANGE (1988) which was here adapted by distinguished screenwriter Francis Veber (its American appeal extends to the attractive Montreal locations and a title song in English!). Jean-Paul Belmondo, at 52, is pretty wacky as the bank robber-dressed-as-clown. The supporting cast is not very well-known but the main characters (Belmondo’s meek partner, his police nemesis and his disgruntled ex-cellmate) are all played with gusto; also featured in the film as the love interest (of sorts) is future Hollywood starlet Kim Cattrall.
Having only read a negative review of it on the “Films De France” website, I found the film to be quite engaging overall with a surprisingly consistent first half; it does peter out eventually but is enlivened again in its latter stages by the appearance of the fat cab driver (Jacques Villeret). Alexandre Arcady is a new name for me but his half-hour interview on the R2 DVD supplements is fairly interesting (albeit if only in French) as he says that Belmondo violently bumped his head while performing one of the film’s stunts himself; also worth watching was the featurette seeing celebrated stunt co-ordinator Remy Julienne rehearsing the scene in which Belmondo’s car breaks into another bank through the front glass facade.
02/09/08:
SAVAGE GUNS (Demofilo Fidani, 1971)
This is the first film I’ve watched from the Italian Ed Wood, Demofilo Fidani aka Miles Deem. The above title was superfluously added later on since there exists another similarly titled 1961 movie starring Richard Basehart which was Hammer Films’ Michael Carreras’ one and only stab at the Western; the genuine Italian title was originally translated as HIS NAME WAS SAM WALBASH, BUT THEY CALLED HIM AMEN…although it was actually WALLACH in the Italian variant which, of course, implies a tribute of sorts to Hollywood actor Eli!
While certainly not unwatchably bad, instances of clumsiness and ineptitude abound so that I was often cracking up into howls of laughter: a horrid number by a would-be irresistible French
chanteuse; a totally irrelevant bar-room brawl; actors doing somersaults when being shot; an aged villager doing an impromptu dance routine; ineffective use (indeed abuse) of slow-motion; and, easily the most preposterous, seeing Gordon Mitchell and Lincoln Tate play two gunfighters (sporting the actors’ own names!) hired by the villain to kill off the title character and then never having them appear in the rest of the film at all!!
Lead actor Robert Woods is just that even down to ineffectively whispering the Amens over the bodies of his victims. Supporting actress Simonella Vitelli (actually, the director’s own daughter!) as the villain’s broad is quite a looker but, unfortunately, she doesn’t get to do much in the film – despite having a change of heart towards the end. The main musical theme is actually pretty good but, again, the title song is, in itself, quite lousy.
02/09/08:
CAN BE DONE…AMIGO (Maurizio Lucidi, 1972)
One of Bud Spencer’s star vehicles without his partner Terence Hill takes him back to familiar Spaghetti Western territory. Despite a good cast (Jack Palance, Francisco Rabal, Luciano Pigozzi) and crew (screenwriters Rafael Azcona and Ernesto Gastaldi, cinematographer Aldo Tonti and composer Luis Enriquez Bacalov), the film rambles amiably along without ever becoming sufficiently memorable.
Spencer seduces Palance’s virginal sister (having mistook her in the dark for another dance-hall girl) and flees from her pursuing pistolero/showman brother until he meets an abandoned child in the desert whom he takes under his wing (shades of two films Bud would later make with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND [1977]’s Cary Guffey); as it turns out, the boy is the proprietor of a dilapidated wellspring which turns out to be rich in oil but they soon fall foul of outwardly harmless sheriff/judge/preacher Rabal. Spencer indulges himself in several of his typical fist-fights and even “Paco” Rabal gets to taste his trademark hammer-blow to the head; amusingly, he puts on his glasses before a fight so that he can think more clearly! Palance scores best as Spencer’s laid-back, black-clad, pursuer-cum-partner and brother-in-law to-be. The title song is an agreeable one although it’s only played during the opening and closing credits sequences.
I have missed out on this one several times on Italian TV over the years but I did catch the free-for-all finale once; since the quality of the DVD I watched was quite terrible – not just pan-and-scanned but extremely washed out as to lapse into practically black and white at various points!; although it was nice to hear Palance and Rabal’s own voices in English, I’ll make it a point to tape this one when it’s shown again on one of the major Italian TV channels.
02/10/08:
CUT-THROATS NINE (Jose` Luis Romero Marchent, 1972)
I knew this Spanish-made Spaghetti Western had some kind of notoriety in Euro-Cult circles but, since I was totally unfamiliar with its director, I didn’t really expect a lot from it; as it turned out, it’s one of the nastiest films of its kind – surpassing even DJANGO, KILL! (1967) in its bleakness, nihilism and graphic depiction of extreme violence!
The plot itself is highly unusual: a cart-load of slimy, murdering convicts is being transported through dangerous terrain in the mountains by a cavalry officer and his daughter; the catch is that one of them was responsible for the brutal killing of the soldier’s wife – and, ingeniously, their gold cargo (coveted by bandits) has been disguised as the length of chain shackling the prisoners together! Soon, they lose their transport, provisions and one of their number – and they’re forced to continue the journey on foot; the already tenuous relationship within the party continues to deteriorate – as the sex-crazed men turn on the girl, leading the soldier to himself commit cold-blooded murder; then, half-way through the picture, the convicts get the upper hand and the soldier (ostensibly, the hero figure) is killed in gory fashion! Still, the girl has a surprising ally in one of the remaining prisoners…except that his tenderness is belied by the final revelation concerning the nature of his crimes (most of the characters’ back-story is effectively retold in intermittent flashbacks heralded by freeze-framing)!
The effective choral score (reminiscent of gothic horror movies, no less) admirably evokes the danger and the savagery of the narrative; while most of the cast members were also unknown to me even when their faces looked vaguely familiar, I especially appreciated the contribution of a couple of Jess Franco
alumni – namely Emma Cohen (from the startling if still little-known THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR [1973]) as the only female presence in the film of any stature and Alberto Dalbes (star of all three of the Spaniard’s Universal horror pastiches) as the gambler leader of the chain gang.
To get to the brutality, it comes in all varieties (including a shot to the back of a woman’s head at point-blank range) – though, especially disturbing, is its propensity for severed limbs, charred corpses and, worst of all, gut-spilling!! I should mention here that the script (courtesy of renowned Euro-Cult scribe Santiago Moncada) also includes a sequence where one of the prisoners suffers a hallucination of the murdered soldier’s corpse coming back to life to haunt him. The finale, then, sees no survivors – as the long-suffering girl decides to take the matter into her own fragile little hands with a single, definite explosive act.
02/10/08:
THE FIGHTING FIST OF SHANGAI JOE (Mario Caiano, 1973)
Minor, enjoyable and surprisingly violent Spaghetti Western, one of a clutch of such efforts embellished with an Oriental touch in the form of a martial-arts exponent hero (as can be gathered from the title). The film was enough of a success to boast a sequel – THE RETURN OF SHANGAI JOE (1975).
Chen Lee is the typical meek Oriental who becomes deadly when provoked; we’re given plenty of opportunity to see him at work here, particularly after he falls foul of a slave trader. The latter despatches four ruthless assassins to exterminate the Chinaman – three of whom are played by well-known actors and popular Euro-Cult figures of the era: Gordon Mitchell, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart and Klaus Kinski, the other by Robert Hundar (ill-fated hero of CUT-THROATS NINE [1972], which actually preceded this viewing!). Kinski receives second-billing but his contribution lasts all of 7 minutes (and he only turns up 68 minutes into the film!).
Eventually, we learn that the title character is one of only two masters of a specific martial arts technique – so, naturally, the boss eventually calls on his equal to fight the hero! The most violent moments occur when Joe gouges the eye of one of the hired killers – a scene which surely must have inspired Quentin Tarantino for his KILL BILL (2003/4) saga – and the confrontation between the two Orientals, which involves dismembered limbs and busted torsos! As usual for films of this genre, the music score is a notable asset which is here provided by Bruno Nicolai.
02/10/08:
JONATHAN OF THE BEARS (Enzo G. Castellari, 1993)
Director Castellari reteams with star/co-producer Franco Nero in this Italo-Russian production which is a belated follow-up of sorts to their earlier, acclaimed collaboration KEOMA (1976). This newer venture shares with that earlier one not only its Western setting and a similarly grizzled, long-haired hero but also a touch of pretentiousness and a painful song score (composed by the unsympathetic minstrel figure who appears intermittently throughout)!
The film starts well enough with the black and white flashback to the hero’s traumatic witnessing as a young boy of his parents’ slaying by a trio of greedy badmen after their gold, while the segments featuring the boy’s interaction with a playful bear cub are also quite amiable. However, we have seen the “white man among the Redskins” scenario – albeit incongruously played here by Mongols – which follows soon after (complete with their seemingly interminable quasi-mystical passages) far too often for those scenes to propose anything new. Equally predictable are David Hess’ villainous overtaking of a town, Nero falling foul of Hess and his henchmen and their various confrontations; interestingly, Hess had to complete his part in a short space of time because he couldn’t get along with Nero – with whom he had previously acted in HITCH-HIKE (1977).
Things are enlivened by the late entrance of powerful entrepreneur John Saxon who, with his aged group of gunslingers, wipes the town clean of Hess and their unaccountably campy rivals – a group of stud-sporting, leather-wearing, bare-chested musclemen!! Like Keoma before him, Franco Nero’s character here occasionally steps outside of himself and is witness to his own past experiences as a child; also, he suffers greatly at the hands of the current villain including crucifixion. The climactic confrontation (staged, again as was KEOMA’s, in a barnyard) is appropriately rousing and ends the film on a positive note which redeems some of its earlier flaws.
02/10/08: THE FIVE MAN ARMY (Don Taylor and Italo Zingarelli, 1969)
To begin with, this is one of the first films I ever recall watching – my father having acquired a copy on 16mm when I was still a kid!; needless to say, I’ve been wanting to re-acquaint myself with it for several years – particularly to see how it stacked up against other Spaghetti Westerns which, naturally, I came across much later…and, this, in spite of Leonard Maltin’s unflattering
rating!
As it turned out, the film lived up to my expectations in being a middle-of-the-road genre effort – not one of the best, perhaps, but reasonably entertaining all the same. Incidentally, it forms part of a handful of Spaghetti Westerns with the Mexican Revolution as backdrop; an added attraction to the film, then, is its main plot involving a caper aboard a moving (and heavily-guarded) train – it has, in fact, been referred to as a cross between THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960; in view of the select group called upon to aid in a cause) and THE WILD BUNCH (1969; which had a similar robbery as a subplot)!
While the central train sequence involves some notable tension (the elderly dynamite expert loses part of his equipment, the samurai falls off and has to run across a lengthy stretch of fields in order to rejoin his associates), the gang is never shown to be in any serious danger throughout; the final confrontation with the Army, for instance, is nothing at all like the notorious massacre seen in THE WILD BUNCH itself – in fact, none of them gets wounded or killed…and even the tension within the outfit over whether they should hand over the gold to the revolutionaries or else keep it for themselves is resolved without so much as a punch (rather it’s shrugged off with a laugh!).
The multi-national group is played by Americans Peter Graves (well cast in a basic extension of his signature role in the classic MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TV series) and James Daly (his presence here isn’t displeasing yet quite baffling, as he can’t have been at all a familiar name to Italians – personally, I only knew him from his brief role in PLANET OF THE APES [1968]!), Japanese Tetsuro Tamba (who’s just as anonymous as Daly – perhaps the film’s budget could afford only one foreign ‘star’) and, of course, Italians Bud Spencer (a staple of the genre and, thankfully, resorting only very briefly to his trademark comic brawling) and the youthful Nino Castelnuovo (who, naturally, sides with the Revolution all along). The supporting cast includes another genre contribution from Italian starlet Daniela Giordano (as a Mexican peasant girl who shows interest in samurai Tamba): her lovely presence is always welcome – and I still recalled the scene here in which the Army General tears off her clothes from all those years ago! – but it’s not quite as captivating as in the two other films of hers that I’ve watched; there’s also Giacomo Rossi-Stuart – who, for an actor of his stature, is given very little screen-time as a lieutenant to the Mexican General.
Having mentioned the surprise casting, one also has to question the decision behind offering the directorial reins to a minor-league American, former actor Taylor; incidentally, years later, when Giordano was asked by a magazine to comment about the film, she couldn’t even recall him being on the set and that co-director Zingarelli handled most of the proceedings! Dario Argento was also behind this film as a scriptwriter – which makes the film’s tameness all the more curious and, given its derivative nature, perhaps shows his ultimate disenchantment with the Spaghetti Western genre…or else he was already thinking of branching out into direction (his debut film, the seminal
giallo THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE [1970], was released not long after). THE FIVE MAN ARMY is marked by yet another rousing Ennio Morricone score – which is cited by fans as being among his best from this era but, to me, it felt somewhat too similar to his work on Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” trilogy!
Finally, I couldn’t really determine the running-time of the film – since it was interrupted by numerous publicity spots (I watched a VHS recording of a TV broadcast); however, curiously enough, the Italian version is listed as being only 91 minutes long on “Stracult”…whereas the edition prepared for U.S. consumption is 107 minutes!
WHAT!?
I thank you.
I just can't believe you're reacting in such a way to this. Even in one of your favorite movies, SEA OF LOVE, there's a guy in it who "makes his own rules" and has a certain criteria for why he wants to kill people --- it's called 'going crazy'!
