Don’t Torture a Duckling

Don’t Torture a Duckling

Original title: Non si sevizia un paperino

Directed by: Lucio Fulci

Thriller/horror, 1972

Italy, 98min

Distributed by: Shameless Films

I won’t start this with a rant on how Lucio Fulci made so much more than the classic video nasty’s he’s infamous for.  I’m quite convinced that anyone who really bears a passion for the works of the late master of genre, will already have ventured back past those seminal works and discovered the real masterpieces of suspense and thrill, hidden away in his back catalogue. If you haven’t seen the movie, I’d recommend that you first check it out before we get into this, as certain spoilers are featured in this text. If you know the movie, then buckle up and let’s go.

I’ve already covered some of the early pre-Gialli thrillers such as Una sull’altra (One on Top of the Other) 1969, Sette note in nero (The Psychic) 1977, and even a couple of the comedic works such as All’onorevole piaccino le donne (The Senator Prefers Woman) 1972, Il cav. Constante Nicosia demoniac, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza (Young Dracula) 1975, and even a few of the Spaghetti Westerns; Le colt cantarono le morte e fu… tempo du massacre (Massacre Time) 1966 and I quattro dell’apocalisse (Four of the Apocalypse) 1975. It’s time to take a look at the bookend movie of the early thriller trilogy, Non si sevizia un paperino (Don’t Torture a Ducking). On one of the greats from his early period, one of those movies where he was started to perfect the themes that would make him a god amongst fans of genre cinema in the years to come.

In a small rural village, someone is murdering young pre-adolescent boys. The Carabinieri are stood almost helpless as they have a hand full of suspects ranging from the village idiot, to the witch who roams the landside, to the shaman who taught her his magic. A curious journalist arrives in the village and together with a somewhat strange choice of companion, starts to poke around the case, coming to a shocking conclusion about the killer’s identity.

I often talk about setting tone as early as possible… Well try this on for size: a woman [Florinda Bolkan] claws at the dirt under a motorway overlay. Her thin soiled and bloodied fingers produce the skeleton of an infant from a shallow grave in the dirt. A young boy (Tonino) shoot’s a stone from his slingshot that upon impact crushes the small lizard he was aiming at whist he sits keeping lookout for a specific car to swoosh by. Editor Ornella Micheli (Fulci’s frequent editor before Vincenzo Tomassi made his entrance) rapidly establishes the small village with a series of fast edits to the diegetic sound of church bells ringing. We enter a church in mass, were two young boys  (Bruno and Michele) sneak out to share a gauloise under the same overlay we saw earlier. Tonino comes running towards them whilst screaming, “They’re here, they’re here” and the trio run off to a shack, where some blokes greet the two prostitutes who have exited their car. The women have  “tits like water melons” in the excited boys’ opinions – but the village idiot Giuseppe wrecks their intended session of sordid voyeurism. Instead they turn their attention on him and start verbally bullying him, as he too was planning to watch the two men shag the prostitutes. As they boys taunt Giuseppe, he screams that he will get they, he will get them…

Potent stuff, and definitely an impressive couple of minutes which accompanied by Riz Ortolani’s short but harsh stinger cues, establishes a lot of stuff, which will come to play within the movies narrative later on. But be alert, those moments establish more than you could ever have guessed. The location is set, a small rural village, where the church is the centre of the town. The crazy woman – Florinda Bolkan’s is presented, and we understand that there’s a dark secret in her past. We learn that the kids are adolescent young men with a budding curiosity of the opposite sex. But they are still kids and can easily turn from their sexual curiosity to a taunting mob, which evokes fear in those they decide to single out. In the subtext we can assume that sex is something sacred and kept within the confinement of the family unit. This can be presumed as the village is most likely a stern follower of catholic values, and the men take their “imported” prostitutes to a shack outside of the village vicinity. But it’s not all presumptions, this is all true, and will give you a rush of insight upon the conclusion of the film.

If you know your Fulci, then you know that he enjoyed giving the church a kick in the ass on any given moment. My theory is that it's due to the tragic events in his personal life. I can’t really see a creative person being a devout follower of religion, when that religion takes away loved ones. Somewhere that bitterness has to vent, and I’m saying that the way Fulci aimed critique towards the clergy was one of them.

There’s a delightful irony that motivates the murders and definitely a provocative one in more than one way. The village priest, Don Avalone [Marc Porel], is the murderer of the piece, and it’s not only a stern poke at the church, but it also presents a delightful dilemma as one can in some strange way empathize with what Don Avalone is trying to do. In his complex state, his philosophy is to kill the yearning young lads as to protect them from committing sin, hence allowing them to enter heaven instead of the burning pits of hell. I’m a sucker for the moral twists of doing bad, for doing good, and Fulci nails this one on the head. Then he makes the priest – or the clergy in the larger picture – pay a most terrible and harrowing death as he has his face torn to pieces against the rock walls, before breaking every body in his bone when he smashes into the hard rock below. If there was one thing Fulci could do, it was provoke.

But perhaps the most provocative moment of the movie is found early on when Barbara Bouchet’s character Patrizia, who oddly enough rents a penthouse flat above the Spriano family, reveals herself as a paedophile! Now this isn’t a Feliniesque moment like the opening one, where the lads merely want to catch a glimpse of the prostitutes “tits like melons”. This is a raw, confrontational, full on flirtation where the fully naked Patrizia invites Michele to go to bed with her. If not for being saved by his mother who calls him back to the first floor. Patrizia, talk about a complex character, and it’s later revealed that she not only has an appetite for young boys, but she’s a recouping Junkie too…  Not that this was the first time Fulci, used paedophilia to provoke, it plays a vital part in the narrative of Beatrice Cenci 1969 too, where both Tomas Milian and Georges Wilson are part of the cast. Fulci, no stranger to getting in trouble with the law – i.e. the puppet dog incident following Una Lucertola con la pelle di donna (Lizard in a Woman’s Skin) 1971 – once again ended up facing another trial when the scene where the naked Bouchet takes to seducing Michele caused a stir. Always the one with an ace up his sleeve, Fulci presented the "little person" Don Semeraro (who almost thirty years later stared in Joe D’Amato’s The Hobgoblin) who had been the stand in for the child actor, and the case was dismissed.

So how does this come together with the opening montage? Well basically Florinda Bolkan’s Macaria character is insane the whole time. Yes, she performs her voodoo-like ritual with the three dolls in the images of the three taunting kids – I told you they where trouble, and they disturbed the grave of her child, hence forcing her to move the dead baby from it’s resting place and have her perform her mumbo jumbo voodoo vengeance. But that’s merely a red herring to toss you off track, just as the trail of village idiot Giuseppe [Vito Passeri] is too. Barbara Bouchet is a red herring too, despite her wonderfully complex character. The church and the whole Catholic Church bit is all about Don Alberto’s modus operandi. Yes, there is a veil of Catholic values draped over the town, and to save the children from corruption – which we see they are on the way to being with the smoking and desire to peek at prostitutes, and possibly masturbate at the same time – Don Alberto saves their souls by murdering them. Then in the last moments of the movie, good Old Catholic guilt comes over him and he takes his own life… ironically as suicide damns the deceased to an eternity in purgatory.

There’s an interesting use of the off-screen space in Don't Torture a Duckling. At first several characters are isolated out  there, the killer, and at least two pairs of hands tampering with the voodoo dolls. The off-screen space had been a safe haven for murderers to lurk around in since Powell’s Peeping Tom and Hitchcock’s Psycho, both 1960, and a genre-defining trait when it came to the Giallo. What Fulci does is use it wisely; he keeps the characters in the off-screen space until he needs to reimburse them into the narrative. Such as when we need to introduce a second red herring, and Bolkan’s character finally comes into frame after tampering with the voodoo dolls off screen since the opening.

It’s said that Don’t Torture a Duckling was Lucio Fulci’s personal favorite amongst his films, well looking at the movie from a retrospective angle, it all rings true, in some way’s the movie is more a piece of Neorealism, with a smidgeon of thriller traits added. It’s definitely the Fulci movie that lies closest to Neorealism, and it is a fair interpretation, which possibly could explain why he was so fond of this little obscure gem. Considering that Neorealism is the big Italian contribution to film history, one can understand his fondness for the film.  With the knowledge that Don’t Torture a Duckling was Lucio’s favourite film, this could explain the reason why he later used several key moments –and beats - from this movie in his later more typical horror films.

Chains whipped against a tender frame of human flesh, creating deep gory gashes, which you all know and love from the “You ungodly warlock” opening of  …E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’alidià (The Beyond) 1981, when a band of villager’s once again take vigilante justice into their own hands. A face being smashing against side of mountain as character plumages to death and presents insightful inner dialogue at the same time, much like the opening visions that torment Jennifer O’Neil in The Psychic. Amusingly enough the film also features a first poke at Disney and primarily Donald Duck. A Donald Duck doll is decapitated and it’s torso dragged around. Originally Fulci wanted the movie to be titled Don’t torture Donald Duck, but when Disney protested, the title was changed. Exactly ten years later the killer of Lo squartore di New York (The New York Ripper) 1982 would disguise his voice and talk like Donald Duck, and Fulci finally got his poke at the cooperate suits of Disney Co.

Don’t Torture a Duckling really is an “all comes together” flick in so many ways. Fulci has an amazing cast, several of which he’d worked previously or would work with again; Florinda Bolkan, Tomas Milian, Marc Porel and Georges Wilson. Not forgetting one-offers like Irene Papas, despite holding a rather small part, and Barbara Bouchet, who delivers a great performance here. Keeping that tight Fulci grip on those he enjoyed working with, the maestro delivers a movie with a water tight script, penned by Fulci, Gianfranco Clerici and Roberto Gianviti (who wrote a stunning twelve screenplays together with Fulci through the years), editing is superb and definitely amongst the best of the eighteen flicks Ornella Micheli cut for Lucio, and without saying, Sergio D’Offizi. Damn, the more I see of this man’s work the more it becomes a mystery to me why he never landed an international career like, say Vittorio Storaro. At least give the man an honorary award because, some stuff like Don’t Torture a Duckling and not forgetting the innovative “found footage” approach of Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust 1980, is all D’Ofizzi. Someone give credit where it’s due!

Riz Ortolani’s score, which is pretty tender at times, has a short moment that fan’s of the Cannibal Holocaust soundtrack will recognize. Not that it’s a complete tune or anything like that, but there’s a small build which Ortolani later used on Cannibal Holocaust and if you know that soundtrack you will find it. Following the violent beating of Florinda Bolkan one can hear the song Quei giorni insieme a te, performed by the domestically renown Ornella Vanoni. It’s a delicate piece written by Ortolani and Jaja Fiastri which definitely set’s a sentimental mood for Bolkan’s dying moment… but just wait for a moment, things are about to get kinda strange here. I’m more curious about the funky shit-kicker Crazy, here performed by Wess and the Airedales, the same funky ass shakers that played on stage in Umberto Lenzi’s Orgasmo 1969 and Paranoia 1970. The same version of Crazy (originally written by Armando Trovalioli), which is heard on the soundtrack to Dino Risi’s Vero Nudo 1969… Now take a guess who wrote the screenplay to Vero Nudo? Jaja Fiastri, the same who wrote Quei giorni insieme a te with Riz Ortolani. Just another reason why I love Italian genre, it’s all interwoven and connected to and fro for all eternity through captivating intertext.

Unlike other releases, Shameless have given the movie a release with the original Italian soundtrack, and an optional English Dub. Now I do find that these movies are more fun with the English dub, but I also prefer to be able to watch them with the original language option. Thanks to Shameless, that’s now an alternative. If you watch one version of Lucio Fulci’s somewhat overlooked masterpiece Don’t Torture a Duckling, then make sure it’s the Shameless Films Version.

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist
Original Title: Il cinico, I’infame, il violento
Directed by: Umberto Lenzi
Italy, 1977
Poliziotteschi, 100min
Distributed by: Alpha Digital

Of all the genre’s that Umberto Lenzi tried his directing skills in, I feel that the Poliziotteschi flicks are among his finest. Obviously there are several brilliant entries of his to be found on the other sphere’s – Cannibal Ferox 1981, Nightmare City 1980, The Oasis of Fear 1971, Seven Bloodstained Orchids 1972 and Eyeball 1975 to name a few, but it’s the Poliziotteschi that I find myself returning to and rediscovering with a new passion that wasn’t there the first time around. The Tomas Milian pieces, like Almost Human 1974, Rome; Armed to the Teeth 1976 and The Rat the Cynic and the Fist, stand out and have against all odds stood up to the tests of time.

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist is a fantastic piece of Italian genre cinema where the title possibly refers to Sergio Leone’s splendid spaghetti western The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 1966 and saying that, there’s more to the movie than just a cryptic title. Maurizio Merli is obvious the Fist as he slugs his way through the antagonists of the film, then there’s Tomas Milian in one of his finest performances ever, as Luigi “the Chinaman” Maietto, without a doubt the cynic of the piece, leaving John Saxon as the rat, or rather the Infamous as the original titles call him. Some stuff just get’s lost in translation doesn’t it.

Performances are tight, and well acted, Merli is great in this sequel to Lenzi’s previous piece Rome: Armed to the Teeth, which also sees Merli in the role of Inspector Tanzi. But the movie definitely belongs to Tomas Milian in a performance that out shines both Merli and Saxon by yards. He owns this piece with his sneering, sinister criminal who just oozes cynicism towards the law officials, the mob Boss Frank Di Maggio and even towards his once cohorts that he eliminates on his struggle towards the top of the food chain.

As usual, here’s a quick fix on the movie to remind you, or wake your interest for the film: Leonardo Tanzi, once Rome’s most feared police inspector has handed in his badge and now works as an editor of murder mystery novellas. (Watch the scene closely and you’ll see that its Gialli books he’s working with) When he learns that upcoming criminal Luigi “The Chinaman” Maietto has been released from the pen, he’s not so surprised to find his own obituary waiting for him under his door when he returns home. Shortly there after Maietto’s hit men make their entry [Bruno Corazzari and Claudio Undari], and after taking a few shots at Tanzi, they leave him for dead. Once a cop, always a cop is the pathos that Tanzi lives by, and after his former boss, Commissioner Astalli [Renzo Palmer] forces him into hiding so that they can lure the guilty by claiming that the legendary Tanzi is dead, Tanzi becomes a one man vigilante working outside the law. Obviously Tanzi doesn’t hide from anyone, and pretty soon he gets himself involved in rescuing a colleagues young sister from the hands of a pornographer who keeps his models/prostitutes on a strict diet of smack. (Bo A. Vibenius Thriller - A Cruel Picture anyone?) Herein also lies the connection to Maietto.

Trying his damndest to move in on American mobster Frank Di Maggio’s [Saxon] turf, Maietto is pushing the good old “Protection” racket, which obviously clashes with Di Maggio’s interests and Tanzi’s morale values. Slowly but surely the three opposing parts twist and grind their way through a grid of double crossing, enforcing violence, cunning heists and sadistic actions towards a climax, a climax that comes with a splendid blaze of glory as the three leads finally stand face to face.

What I feel makes this piece quite entertaining is that there are so many rifts and conflicts on both sides of the law. There are the conflicts on the criminal side, Di Maggio vs. the newcomer Maietto, and there’s certain tension between Tanzi and commissioner Astalli, which gives a deeper dimension to both the characters and the narrative. It’s an amazingly entertaining ride which I already said stands out among both the genre and Lenzi’s work.

Along the way there’s some great supporting cast performances by Bruno Corazzari, Claudio Undari, and the man who is almost everything worth watching Fulcio Mingozzi makes yet another short appearance. It’s a pretty male dominated movie, as nearly no women hold any specific role in the plot, other than scared victims for Merli to rescue and save, although Gabriella Lepori does have a bit of importance as she brings the narrative to an important junction, and connects the pornographer’s mischief to the racket Maietto has going.

Now there’s no way to discuss this movie without mentioning the great Ernesto Gastaldi. Ernesto Gastaldi’s name in the screenwriting credits is enough to make me want to watch the movie. If you are a regular reader, you will now that I can rant on about on his resume – Bitto Albertini’s Human Cobras 1971 and all those great Sergio Martino, Luciano Ercoli and Lenzi movies to name a few names - and there’s no doubt that Gastaldi is among the greatest of the Italian screenwriters. He frequently manages to bring depth, and complexity to the characters that so usually are mere generic personality. Just take a look at what he did to Maurizio Merli’s character police detective Leonardo Tanzi in the two movies of that series. In the second of the films, The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist, he injures the lead character, Tanzi, early on in the movie only to have him rubbing his sore wound over and over again. It also works as an instrument to give the character some personality and bring him down to a human level. He is vulnerable, but still doesn’t back down from busting up a few criminals despite his injuries, even if his actions make him sore. It’s something that action hero’s seldom consider as they move from one scene of severe damage to full fledged ass kicking without any side effects in the next scene. If you pay attention to the names of the writers in the opening titles, you will also spot Dardano Sachetti among the writers. With movies like Dario Argento’s Cat o’ Nine Tails 1971, Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood 1971, almost everyone of Lucio Fulci’s classics, Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes 1977, Zombie 1979, City of the Living Dead 1980 and the others, Antonio Margheriti’s Cannibal Apocalypse 1980 and many many more, it’s no understatement that Sachetti is quite possibly the greatest of them all, and with the two giants of Italian screenwriting working off a Sauro Scavolini story, on the same movie, there’s no more reason to hesitate about this one. The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist is a must see movie with an excellent script, great actors, and a terrific entry into the Poliziotteschi genre.

Franco Micalizzi’s score is excellent, and holds some strong reminders of Stelvio Cipriani’s scores for movies within the genre, although with Micalizzi’s unique fully orchestrated funk jazz umph to it. For some strange reason the Soundtrack is available under the name Violence… Once again Eugenio Alabiso’s editing is tight and ferocious, adding to the rapid pacing of the scenes, and thanks to the widescreen presentation that I recall wasn’t there in the previous vhs version I used to have of this magnificent movie, Federico Zanni’s excellent cinematography come to it’s right. Certain scenes could actually be lifted from this movie to show cinematography students the power of composition and value added to a scene by simple effects as framing the shot in the right way.

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist is a definitive statement to the craftsmanship of Umberto Lenzi, a guy who easily get’s lost as a second rate director among the many cheesier of his movies, especially the later ones, but this one is a gem and proves that Lenzi really had the knack for putting forth tight action movies that still work perfectly to this day.

Image:

Widescreen 16:9

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono, English Dubbed version, which will give you a few laughs with the voice Saxon has been given.

Extras:

Nothing special, just the original theatrical trailer.

Django Kill ...If You Live, Shoot!

Django Kill… If You Live Shoot!
Original Title: Se sei vivo spara
Directed by: Giulio Questi
Italy / Spain, 1967
Spaghetti Western, 117min
Distributed by: Blue Underground

There are two main plot devices that make for a great Spaghetti Western: Greed and Vengeance. If you know how to use those ingredients the right way you will probably have made a movie that we still enjoy to this day.

Guido Questi’s Django Kill ...If You Live Shoot! is a very entertaining Spaghetti Western featuring the great Tomas Milian [Sergio Corbucci’s Compañeros 1970, Umberto Lenzi’s Almost Human 1974, and Stephen Soderberg’s Traffic 2000] as “the Stranger”. Note that he’s called the stranger in the movie and not Django, as the re-titling would have one believe. In fact this movie has nothing to do with Corbucci’s 1966 classic Django, (apart from being in the same genre), as it’s once again merely a distributors trick to cash in on the success of the previous movie. This is unfortunate and it’s understandable that Questi, dislikes the Django re-naming as his film is a completely different kind of movie even though it uses the same sort of plot devices. But Questi has a few tricks up his sleeve to push this one a bit further than the common Greed and Revenge motifs, and the main protagonist; Milian, has a change of character throughout the movie.

Through an eerie opening sequence, where two Indians find the Stranger clawing his way out of a grave, back story is explored in a series of rapid and forceful flashbacks as we are brought up to date with the stranger, now coming back to his health. We understand that the Stranger was double crossed by his one time partner Oakes [Piero Lulli – Tonino Valerii’s My Dear Killer 1972, Mario Bava’s Kill, Baby… Kill! 1966] who massacred the half-breeds (Milian among them) and left them all in a shallow grave after a heated discussion about his reluctance to divide the stolen booty with them. So instead he kills them all and steals the bags of gold that they have swiped from a Welles Fargo Wagon. Back to now, the Indians heal the stranger and prepare his tools of vengeance, the few pieces of gold that the Stranger had on his person have now been molten down into Golden bullets – “It is your gold, the gold you died for!” “Gold bullets better than lead, go deeper!”– the Indians explain. All they want in exchange is that the Stranger tells them of the happy hunting grounds he has seen on the other side of the river of life. The dialogue is almost a religious text as their wisdom is spoken – The Stranger must use his knowledge of the other side wisely in his choices to come ahead.

At the same time Oakes and his band of outlaws ride into the town that the Indians call – the unhappy place, where the unfriendliness of the town is set through the use of a few small and subtle images; the two children fighting, a young boy being forced into submission under the boots of his “Uncle Max, the married couple fighting behind their windows… The men almost look scared as they enter the saloon, and damned right too as in only a matter of minutes saloon owner Bill Temblar [Milo Quesada – Mario Bava’s initial Giallo, The Girl Who Knew Too Much 1963 and Jesus Franco’s Night of the Bloody Judge 1970] has noticed that Oakes is a wanted man and that they are holding a large amount of gold. After rallying up the towns folk the gang are all shot down and strung up to warn off other intruders. Oakes looks as if he’s going to get away, but then the Stranger and his two Indian companions arrive. The Stranger (who Oakes thinks is a ghost) shoots Oakes but doesn’t actually kill him; instead he meets a fate much worse. Mr. Sorro and his band, all dressed in black, arrive. He stops the townsfolk from stringing up Oakes, and orders the town doctor to get the bullets out of him, as he wants to know all about the gold. And when the old doc pulls out a bullet of pure gold from the groaning, wounded Oakes, they go crazy tearing him apart to get to the golden bullets.

It’s a sinister little sequence that not only introduces the two antagonists’ Temblar and Ackerman, but also establishes the subplot with the Mexican bandit Sorrow’s gang, who also want a piece of the gold. [Sorro played wonderfully by Roberto Camardiel] It’s also the scene where the young Ray Lovelock [Amando Crispino’s Autopsy 1975, Jorge Grau’s Let Sleeping Corpses Lie 1973, and Umberto Lenzi’s The Oasis of Fear 1971] is introduced into the movie as Evan, son of Bill Temblar. Further there once again is a reference to Milian having returned from the dead – “You’ve come back from hell! – Go On! Fire, you’re supposed to be Dead!”

Keeping Sorro out of the loop, the gold is now divided between the two companions, Temblar and Ackerman [Francisco Sanz – also seen in Grau’s Let Sleeping Corpses Lie 1973, Amando de Ossorio’s The Blind Dead 1971], the stranger left without his share. But this is a Spaghetti Western and greed soon raises its ugly head once again as Temblar and Ackerman argue over the gold. The gold is the tool that everyone in the own needs to get out and start all over again.

The movie takes an interesting turn here, as Milan is “played” by all parts, Templar wants to befriend him to get protection from Ackerman and Sorro, Ackerman offers up his house, and wife Elizabeth [Patrizia Valturi – Antonio Margheriti’s Naked You Die 1968] in his request that the Stranger protect him from Templar and Sorro, and Sorro wants the Stranger to join his merry band and become one of his companeros so they can steal all the gold from Ackerman and Temblar.

Young Evan sees that his father’s new lady, Flory [Marilù Tolo also seen in Tonini Valerii’s My Dear Killer 1972, Sergio Martino’s Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery 1982, and good old Calvin Floyd’s The Sleep of Death 1981] is simply interested in his father because of his new found wealth (this will be shown several times during the rest of the movie) and punishes her by slashing her dresses. Expensive dresses that his father presumably bought her. He then begs Milan to take him with him, no matter where, just away from here. See, everyone wants’ out of this town.

Evan ends up being kidnapped by Sorrow’s gang in an attempt to extort his father out of the gold, but the Stranger steps in and saves Evan, for this time, and get’s an invitation to Sorrow’s ranch in the procedure. Milian later gambles with Sorrow and saves Evan yet again when Sorrow tells his men to shoot the kid after Temblar refuses to pay the ransom. But for some unknown reason, Evan steals a pistol from one of the bandits the next morning and takes his own life… Now at first it seems illogical, then you try to figure some sort of reason out, and it has been suggested that Evan is gangbanged by the bandits during the night and it is with the shame of this ordeal that Evan chooses to take his life. Sure there is enough to support such a claim, the looks Sorro’s men give Evan, and the way they play with Evans hair, but it’s still kind of far fetched. I opt for the answer that Evan refuses to be yet another pawn in his fathers games, to be a victim of his greed - and the simple fact that he’ll be returned to the one place he’s struggled so far to escape from.

Back in town Ackerman and Temblar fall out with each other, as Ackerman refuses to pay half the ransom demand for Temblar’s son. A ludicrous demand to make, which terminates the little friendship that was between the two men, as they both start plotting how to trick the other out of his share. Milian brings the body of Evan back to his father and gets into a fight with him – possibly because he’s so frustrated and angered that his father’s greed has led to the boy’s death - a boy who the Stranger saved several times previously. Instead, Ackerman, who offers up his wife in return for protection, houses the Stranger. And protection he gets’s as the Stranger fends off Sorro’s men who try to claim the gold later that night. After the Stranger get’s his rocks off with Elisabeth that is.

Flory still in lust for all the gold, even Ackerman’s share, convinces Temblar to hide his gold in Evans coffin to keep Sorro’s gang from finding it as they search his house. Ackerman’s final diabolical plan is set in motion. As Temblar returns from Evans funeral Ackerman shoots him in cold blood with the Stranger’s gold bullet pistol, framing him in the process. He then rallies the towns’ folk to find and kill the Stranger, who flees right into the arms of Sorro’s gang who wants to know where the gold is and sets about torturing the Stranger. But ironically it’s love that brings about the downfall of the vile Ackerman - Elisabeth devastated that her lover and possible rescue from the terrifying town – told you that everyone wants’ out didn’t I – sets herself alight with a box of matches resulting with the whole house going down in flames. As the townsfolk gather to watch, yeah watch there’s not to many trying to extinguish the fire, Ackerman tries to salvage the one thing he holds dearest, his gold. But it has all melted in the immense heat and instead of retrieving the bags of loot he if drenched in a pour of molten gold. It reminds me of the South American Indians pouring molten gold down the throats of the conquistadors to settle their thirst for gold.

There’s plenty of gritty violence in the flick, not perhaps as harsh as it would become over the years, but for a mid sixties Spaghetti Western it kind of takes the trophy; Mass execution, close range shots to the head, torso’s torn apart by human hands, scalping, torture by bats, iguanas and a mole and people burning to death. Heavy stuff to unleash on an audience accustomed to the old bang bang-fall down action of the genre. And it’s intriguing that Guesti seems to have a fetish for the transportation of dead bodies. There are plenty of scenes where dead people are moved from one location to another in scenes reminiscent of those seen in war journals where soldiers are moved to and from safety.

The characters are fiendish, holding no respect for anything but themselves. This is proven by the montage where Oakes gang walk into town, the way the town’s folk execute all of Oakes gang, the way they hang them up afterwards, the cynicism of Lori when Evan is kidnapped, Ackerman murder of Temblar, the way he pimps his sister on Milian, the way he manipulates the towns folk to go after the Stranger and his Indian helpers. The coldblooded remarks made by the town people as Ackerman and Elisabeth die in the flaming house. It’s all driven by egocentrism and greed that leaves a devastating wave of death and violence in its way. The Stranger escapes, terminates all the Mexican bandits in one bang, and rides into town just in time to witness Elisabeth die in the flames of the burning house. Instead of claiming his revenge, reclaiming the gold or getting the girl, the stranger rides out of town empty handed in a rather low key ending to this excellent classic Spaghetti Western.

The idea of Milian’s religious aura, like an after death Lazarus presence if you prefer, is evident throughout the movie, and I can’t really shake it off. And even though Questi denies it in every interview he gives about the movie, it’s in there. The religious symbolism can’t be denied. You can even go as far as claiming that Milian even looks like Jesus on the cross in his minimal loincloth, all oiled up for torture by Sorrow’s gang.

I mentioned that Milian's "the Stranger" has a change of character, well its partially true at least. After taking his revenge, without actually killing Oakes, he goes into a remorseful and very passive mood. He only shoot’s his gun a few times and there’s never a deadly shot released, well one, the one that kills Sorro, but considering that Sorro is the main antagonists, it’s only fair that the hero get’s to off the bad guy and his black shirted bandits. After all it’s Sorro who kept the town in fear and drove it’s inhabitants to be the dark characters that they where. The Black Shirted men are most likely political critique against the fascist paramilitary groups of Italy (camicie nere) that Questi fought against as a young anti-fascist partisan during the second world war, and probably what inspired some of the atrocities that take place in the film. This is why the passive character puts an end to the bandit gang in such a violent manner, being forced to put an end to the grip of fear Sorro holds over the town.

The movie has some extremely forceful editing by Franco Arcalli, [the masterful editor of such classics as Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist 1970, Vittorio De Sica’s A Brief Vacation 1973 and Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter 1974] He really splices the heck out of this movie and in the more rapid sequences the images stay for only a four-five frames before blasting on to the next image. It’s ferocious and effective and brings frenzy with it. Many of the action sequences, like the Strangers explosive escape from Sorro’s prison are so violently edited that it’s almost impossible to see what we are being shown, but after a few sequences of rapid cuts the image is all to clear and it’s a innovative way of showing the carnage instead of just landing in shots of corpses and intestines. This is also how Arcalli brings the back story into the movie, with small almost incoherent glimpses that eventually come to reveal the necessary information. Now this isn’t just a postproduction gimmick that Arcalli came up with, as he also co-wrote a number of screenplays too. I can’t say how much he wrote on the movies, [Bernard Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris 1972, and 1900 1976 to name a few] but I wouldn’t be surprised if he during the writing hadn’t already started to edit an imaginary movie in his head. I’d also say it’s a fair bet that Donn Cambern had seen Arcalli’s style found here in Se sei vivo spara when he edited the transitions on Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider 1969.

Upon it’s premiere in ’67 the film did decently but then voices where starting to be heard about the violence and tone of the film, so down it went and after being submitted to the censors two of the most violent scenes – The townsfolk tearing out the gold from Oakes body, and the scalping of the Stranger’s Indian helper where snipped out. But don’t worry as they are reinserted for this Blue Underground release. Obviously cuts like this are the sort of cuts that don’t necessarily damage a movie’s narrative, but it does harm to the vision a director had, as he wanted those scenes in there. But at the same time cut scenes of violence help the film in a way as it creates a buzz about that removed stuff, which soon becomes like a holy grail of missing material. Much like the legendary piranha sequence from Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust 1980 – always rumoured to be missing, but eventually it was revealed that they never even shot the sequence. Remember Se sei vivo spara has been called the most violent western ever and perhaps that’s not the case, but the violence is sadistic to say the least.

Guilio Questi’s Se sei vivo spara is well worth checking out, it’s very interesting and almost has an arty approach to the classic Spaghetti Western formula that brings movies like Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo 1970 to mind. Tomas Milian is an almost unique protagonist in this movie as he takes his passive approach to the actions in front of him, but when he needs to react he reacts big time – the dynamite attached to the horse that rides straight into Sorro’s gang is possibly the most aggressive put on screen. The movie also holds a strange aura due to that “after death” thing, and several scenes could have been found in a EuroGoth movie. Elisabeth with her pancake makeup and Ackerman’s demise certainly has a Edgar Allan Poe / Andre de Toth's House of Wax 1953 feeling to them to say the least. So do yourself a favour and check out this oddity, you may end up with a new favourite cult classic on your hands.

Image:

Widescreen 2.35:1 / Anamorphic 16x9

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0 English or Italian Dialogue with English Subtitles Optional.

Extras:

Theatrical Trailer, linear notes by William Connolly – Spaghetti Cinema editor, Poster and stills gallery, and the 25min featurette Django, Tell! Where Questi, Lovelock and Milian talk about the movie.

Compañeros

Compañeros
Original title: Vamos a matar, compañeros
Directed by: Sergio Corbucci
Italy/Spain /West Germany, 1970
Spaghetti Western, 118min
Distributed by: Blue Underground.

Story:
Swedish arms dealer Yodlaf Peterson arrives in San Bernardino to sell weapons to general Mongo. In San Berdnaninio he meets Mongo’s top henchman El Vasco, who doesn’t find the intruders presence a pleasure. When General Mongo finally arrives he tells the Swede about his sinister plan to crack the town safe and steal the valuables, which he offers to split with Yodlaf. The only problem now is that the only person who knows the combination to the safe is Professor Xantos, who is incarcerated in the state prison. The two foes Yodlaf and El Vasco have to put their differences aside and put together a swindling plan to break the professor out of his prison. A job perhaps easier said than done.


Me:
Sergio Corbucci, possibly one of the finest directors of Spaghetti Westerns, and easily on par with Sergio Leone, directed Compañeros in 1970 and is together with his two previous films Django (1966) and The Great Silence (1968) often quoted as three of the finest entries into the Spaghetti Western genre. Although lacking the grittiness and harshness of the two above mentioned movies, Companero’s takes a slightly lighter approach to the genre. Sure the violence and grit is still there, it’s just eased up with a few comedic scenes and several humorous encounters. But this works in favour of the movie as it brings a healthy balance to the relationship between the two lead characters The Swede [Franco Nero], and El Vasco [Tomas Milian] as they work out their love hate relationship throughout the movie. From that first meeting in the town square, to the final stand off at the end, they insult, torment, tease and bicker with each other all the way through, even though they are working towards the same goal they are very dependant on their represented counterpart. And finally we end up with them starring at each other in glorious Spaghetti Western close-ups in a final climactic duel, where the love/hate relationship shows its true colours. But I’ll return to that later.


I find it very amusing that Corbucci shows the real crook in this movie, is not as in US westerns, the Indians, the Mexicans, the Chinese, or the Europeans etc, but the rich white man and their corporations. When all of your main lead characters are in one way or another villains, Yodlaf, El Vasco, John the bounty killer, you have to put something else in the contrast frame. And Corbucci does it with subtlety. There’s two small scenes in the movie were vile business man Rosenblum demands that Professor Xantos [Fernando Rey] gives him uncompetitive access to the oil found in the land, and if he agrees to this they will contribute a large donation to the revolutionaries cause. But when Xantos refuses, because the land belongs to the people of Mexico, Rosenblum pays a visit to the mercenary John [excellently portrayed by Jack Parlance] and asks him to take care of the professor. Contracting Professor Xantos death to lay his hands on that valuable oil.


Let’s stay with Palance for a moment. His villain, like the rest of the cast, villains, is a rather interesting character. A bounty killer who cares for nobody but his pet hawk, a hawk which we learn saved his life after Yodlaf and he had a rather nasty encounter in Cuba. Hence the agitation towards the Swede, who he by the book tracks down and leaves hanging from a noose in the middle of nowhere. Determination and the satisfaction of completing a task, and also the promise of more marijuana cigarettes drive this cold blooded killer who not only fails his task once, by three times. But not before he kills the Professor, making all the struggle and overcome obstacles of the movie ironically pointless.


Sticking close to the rules of the genre, no Spaghetti Western is complete with out its grand finale showdown, and just like in the previous movie, Django, the Gatling gun is brought back out for a final frenetic thundering explosion of death and bullets as the Swede and Vasco go up against General Mongo and his men. But then there’s the added value of the wraparound tale. The main body of the movie is told as a long flashback initiated from those opening scenes where El Vasco and the Swede are staring each other down in a final duel. A Final duel where the two characters affection for each other overcomes their hate, and instead of shooting each other, they take out John’s henchmen who have hidden away in the background. Then they fight off John in one last blaze of glory. There’s a fine thread in the movie where the two lead villains, El Vasco and later Yodlaf actually evolve and take up new causes in life. They both walk from the path of villains, to become revolutionaries and fight for a good cause instead. Remember that Yodlaf early on in the movie says that he doesn’t care who he sells his arms to, as long as they pay. But in the final scene he revaluates his position and free of charge chooses to fight with the revolutionaries for freedom and a better future. It’s a neat detail that sets up a great climax to the movie. These evil characters come over to the good side.

It's fascinating that so many small details planted through out the movie return at one point or another just to play a larger role than first indicated. It’s these small details that showcase the craftsmanship of Carlucci once again. There’s the arms wagon that Nero arrives in town with which later is his salvation from John’s bullets, the dollar given to Vasco which later becomes his lifesaver, the wealth and value of the people of San Bernardino which gets flipped upside down in a last surprise as the safe is opened up by Yodlaf, it all comes back very nicely bringing the threads to a satisfying payoff. And even though Corbucci lightens this one up with a few gags, and comic themes, there is still a dark sinister tone, and the theme of Greed saturates the movie. Everyone is driven by their greed. Their greed for money, power, dope, revenge, or simply for peace and justice.

Compañeros is indeed a grand Spaghetti Western, complete with top notch cast, one of the best Morricone soundtracks, beautiful cinematography, wonderfully edited by Eugenio Alabiso (just feel the pacing of those shootouts, frenetic to say the least.) that brings it all tightly tighter, standing the test of time and is easily comparable to some of Leone’s better movies. A must for fans of the genre.

Image:
Widescreen 2.35:1 / 16x9

Audio:
Dolby Digital 2.0. English or Italian soundtrack, with optional English subtitles.

Extras:
The 17 minute, In the Company of Compañeros where Franco Nero, Tomas Milian and Ennio Morricone discsuss the movie, the Theatrical Trailer and written talent bios.