California

Dark, moody, angry, filty, windy, dusty, bloody Spaghetti Western that highlights the plight of the Confederate army following the end of the Civil War. Why would that be dark?

Guiliano Gemma is one such soldier. Just like the rest of them he's miles from home with no money and no job and one cigarette that he can only take one draw of a day. Gemma doesn't want anything to do with anyone, but ends up travelling with a young guy called Willy, who earned himself a medal for valour during the war and is now looking forward to heading home to his family.

It's not easy when everyone hates you. They also keep crossing paths with a bunch of ruthless bounty hunters who kill everyone they are tracking down (led by giant German Raimond Harmstorf, who is most famous for crushing a raw potato in his hand on television). A random fight with some relatives of a Yankee soldier lead to a sudden death and Gemma trying to find redemption.

The only light that shines through the darkness is when Gemma and Willy try to catch frogs for dinner, because after that it's short tempered gunfights and trekking across the land, hostage situations and the spectre of the war hanging over everyone. The stupidest thing about all this is that despite me watching The Master Touch, I was still taken aback by the ferocity of the fight between Romano Puppo and Gemma - they guys must have loved using each other's bodies to destroy things.

It's a shame that the Spaghetti Western died a death, because these late-era films are amongst the best. It's like directors like Fulci (Silver Saddle), Martino (Mannaja) and Lupo decided to pull out the stops give the best they could. Pity they couldn't save the genre. If you look at the films produced around this time that were more popular, sex comedies were top of the list.

Maybe they should have put some boobs in there.

Michele Lupo does a creditable job of directing CALIFORNIA. Photography is far superior to what you normally see in a spaghetti western, and the acting generally better, too. Gemma posts one of his finer career performances and the script is reasonably logical, so I did enjoy it.

The negatives: overlong by about 15 mins, far too much boxing where shooting would have been expected, and a 1970s soundtrack in a movie about people who lived about 100 years earlier.

Interesting revisionist angle on the revengefulness of Union in relation to the Confederacy. and touches of a road movie as Gemma and Miguel Bosé travel long distances together, on foot and on horseback.

No, this Italian/Spanish production does not pretend to take place in California per se, it's just the nickname of our leading man, played by Giuliano Gemma. The man becomes an outlaw when released from a prison camp on account of the end of the civil war (tough break!) We can tell his heart is in the right place as he defends the honour of a little white kitty (and a plate of beans) in this dreary wet town. Young William Preston (singer Miguel Bose) also notices and being in the same predicament, keeps nagging California to take him on as a sidekick. Naturally California resists at first, but they soon bond during a spot of leapfrog catching in the mud with some other nondescript men. William wants to see his sister, who is actually played by the guys real sister Paola (a case of smart casting or of cheap family politics?). As always, there is also a bounty hunter on their trail who goes by the name of Rope Whitaker (not the singer).

You can tell this was made more than ten years after "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" by the fact that the three main characters are now "The Goodlooking, the Cute and the Handsome". Another dead giveaway is the disco beat accompanying the mouth organ heavy score. Just when you think the two heroes are getting a bit too close for comfort (they only have one horse between them), there is a shocking slow mo twist that I won't spoil here. This is followed by another thing I cannot mention without giving away the first one. Harumph. this is turning into "The Crying Game". Well anyway, revenge is in order and California takes it upon himself to eliminate the bad guys one by one (as you do). Whenever this guy gets into a fight, he literally tears the entire house down and leaves the other party lying in the rubble. The action also includes more tiresome slow motion work that only John Woo fans can truly appreciate. California eventually makes Whitaker sing his 'last farewell' and gets Williams' real life sister thrown into the bargain, but only at the cost of the decline of the Spaghetti Western.

4 out of 10

Explains why they stopped making spaghetti westerns..average, Humourless and ultimately boring

In the days following the Civil War, defeated Confederate Giuliano Gemma and a young traveling companion encounter various killers, low-lives and unsympathetic citizens. When his friend is killed, Gemma stays with the boy's family and protects them from a vicious gang of bounty hunter turned outlaws.

As usual, Gemma's good. However, he's defeated by an unrelentingly depressing story, an atmosphere of doom and gloom and a grating, almost non-stop soundtrack. One interesting thing though, are the sights of the crumbling, once great spaghetti western sets of the previous decade.

One thing I didn't quite get is that early in the movie, the boy makes a big deal of how he comes from Georgia and his family lives in Georgia and how he's headed back to Georgia. When Gemma gets to the family farm, it's in the middle of the desert! What happened to Georgia?

Watch The Outlaw Josey Wales instead.