The Specialists

In the late sixties director Sergio Corbucci made four spaghetti westerns in a row--the classics THE MERCENARY, THE GREAT SILENCE, THE SPECIALISTS, and COMPANEROS. Three of these, all except THE SPECIALISTS, are constantly turning up on ten best lists when spaghetti westerns are rated. Until recently all I had seen was a very poor quality compilation with some English, some Italian, a fuzzy picture, and it was nearly incomprehensible. Now, having seen a beautiful widescreen version with subtitles (still in two languages, however), I can safely include THE SPECIALISTS in that group of four classics. Johnny Halliday is very good as the charismatic Hud, a notorious hand with the gun returning to Blackstone to investigate the death of his brother, who was lynched by the townspeople for losing their savings. It involves a voluptuous beauty who owns the bank, a Mexican bandit leader, El Diablo, who was once friends with Hud, an honest sheriff who dreams of better days, and a small band of hippies--well, it was the late sixties, and hippies were everywhere, even apparently in our westerns. It's not a desert western, shot in the alps somewhere, and is lovely to look at. There is a bit more nudity than I expect in a western, but that's not a bad thing. Sylvie Fennec is lovely as Sheba, who may be Hud's niece, or dead brother's girlfriend...that's never made clear. This film deserves to be seen, and once again, we plea for a nice DVD with all the trimmings--I think THE SPECIALISTS would be as well known as any of Corbucci's other westerns, and that's high praise indeed.

You gotta love the spaghetti western universe. The vision of a west where good guys get shot point blank with no warning, cartoonish villains chew the scenery in extreme close-ups, and the anti-hero walks away from the girl in the end. A lot of people call Corbucci's films 'depressing'. I find that a bit dodgy as far as descriptions go. I think bleak and unforgiving are more apt mostly because 'depressing' suggests a level of sentimentality almost every Eurowestern director ignored in favour of painting characters in broad strokes.

GLI SPECIALISTI must be seen in all its widescreen glory before it can take its proper place in the Sergio Corbucci canon. It's a beautiful movie. And it makes sense that Corbucci wanted to blow off some steam with COMPANEROS after the unremitting one two punch of THE GREAT SILENCE and this (although he would later revert back to his usual tricks with the foulmouthed SONNY AND JED). There's still a certain amount of caricature that detracts from the overall grimness of the movie, imo it hurts more than does any good to have a needless inclusion of three kids dressed like hippies skulking around town in search of gold and trouble. And it hurts to have Mario Adorf playing Mexican one-handed bandit El Diablo as over the top as he always plays his characters.

Those minor gripes aside there's more than enough here to wet the palate of the spaghetti aficionado. Shootouts galore, the population of an entire town reduced to crawling naked in the dirt, the typical iconic badassitude of the laconic antihero (played by Johnny Halliday), the moral bankruptcy of almost every character in the movie. Corbucci might never receive the acclaim of the more famous Sergio or the American patriarchs of the genre but you and I know that's a gross injustice for a very talented director. His dynamic shot selection, in depth staging with objects sticking close to the camera and receding in the background, his flair for quick pacing and feverish energy in moving a story that wasn't always all that along, the way he photographs open spaces, everything in his work makes me sure that if Corbucci was American and had emerged 15 years later along with Mann and Hawks, the Cahiers du Cinema critics would have lauded him as an auteur worthy of serious critical consideration.

The Specialist 1969 (Sergio Corbucci ) yey another revenge based Spaghetti Western, of particular interest in this one is its not directed by Sergio Leonne or features a soundtrack composed by Ennio Morricone. What it does contain is French Singer Johnny Halliday, who was France's biggest rock pop (The French Elvis) star throughout 60s/70s and into the 80. He was known as much for his hell raising as his singing (there is a great documentary about him, made just after he died in 2017, if you able to find it) What about the film, well its a decent western, like most of the genre, there is a reason for all the carnage, in this case its, the return of the gunslinger Hud Dixon, to avenge the death of his brother by the town's folk of Blackstone . This Dead Man's Shoes but with cowboy boots and chaps. There's villain's El Diablo, the Mexican with one arm, crooked businessmen and politicians (aren't they all) and the love interest Sheba played by actress Sylvie Fennec who I've never seen in anything before who is drop dead gorgeous.

There are also some random hippies and a pacifist sheriff who has flowers in the barrel of his pistol (it was film in 1969 after all) great stuff but not a great film. 6/10 . If you want to try a Corbucci film, try The Great Silence, at least it features a Morricone score, and is based in the snow, I'm sure Tarantino got ideas for Hateful 8 from this.

The copy of this movie that I have seen is not very good. It's grainy and has almost no color in some parts. It switches back and forth between English and French, often in mid sentence, and sometimes even in the middle of a word! To make matters much worse, there are no English subtitles during the French language parts, which I think make up at least one quarter of the film. But, amazingly, the movie is still very understandable and enjoyable, even in this condition, and I think that says a lot about how well-made this film is.

This is a top notch spaghetti western with great acting, an interesting storyline, and an excellent music score. It also has a cool protagonist, a beautiful dark-haired girl, some strange characters and events, and an overall feeling of melancholy. This film has "Euro" written all over it.

I hope there is a pristine negative or print of this film out there somewhere, because it deserves a quality DVD release, and when it comes out I will be one of the first in line to get it!

The whole town of Blackstone is afraid, because they lynched Bret Dixon's brother - and he is coming back for revenge! At least that's what they think.

A great Johnny Hallyday and a very interesting, early Mario Adorf star in this Italo-Western, obviously filmed in the Alps.

Bret Dixon is coming back to Blackstone to investigate why his brother was lynched. He is a loner and gunslinger par excellance, everybody is afraid of him - the Mexican bandits (fighting the Gringos that took their land!) as well as the "decent" citizens that lynched Bret's brother. They lynched him, because they thought he stole their money instead of bringing it to Dallas to the safety of the bank there. But this is is only half the truth, as we find out in the course of this psychologically interesting western.

But beware, it's kind of a depressing movie as everybody turns out to be guilty somehow and definitely everybody is bad to the bone...

Still, I enjoyed it very much and gave it an 8/10. Strange, that only less than 5 people voted for this movie as of January 12th 2002....