THE GRAND DUEL is a typical entry in the spagwest genre. With a script by Ernesto Gastaldi, Italy's hardest-working scriptwriter of the period, and direction from Giancarlo Santi, who worked as assistant director on THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, it has brilliant credentials behind it as well as a cast of some of the genre's heaviest hitters. It could have quite easily been a classic and parts of it are – the haunting music and theme that plays repeatedly throughout the movie manages to out-do Morricone and is possibly my favourite spaghetti western score; Tarantino must have liked it too, because he used it in KILL BILL. However, THE GRAND DUEL loses something because of its focus on outrageous comedy and the kind of bumbling antics that Bud Spencer became associated with. If it had stayed deadly serious throughout, I imagine that this would be a much revered film today.
Instead it's merely a quite good western, sometimes very good, sometimes awful. The stunt team is certainly spot on, although I could have done without the see-saw bit at the beginning where a guy is propelled into the air like something out of a cartoon. The action scenes are well handled and the final duel even manages to approach the ending of THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY in terms of quality, with superb accompanying music and decent camera-work. Essentially, though, what makes this more than watchable is the leading presence of Lee Van Cleef, appearing exactly the same as he did in FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE and giving another stern performance with his acting for the most part in his eyes – hands down Van Cleef is my favourite spagwest actor and he hasn't disappointed me yet.
Van Cleef is given some good support, especially from the likes of regular German bad guy Horst Frank and newcomer Peter O'Brien, who only acted in this one film before disappearing off the face of the earth (he looks uncannily like Ray Lovelock in THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE). The big and bloated Jess Hahn is also around for comic relief, although he's so badly dubbed that I dreaded him popping up on screen, while Klaus Grunberg has a ball as a homosexual villain and Marc Mazza's bald head steals much of the film. Also present is Dominique Darel, a very attractive leading lady who died at the tender age of 28, six years after this film was released. Italian cinema lost a true beauty with her passing.
