Dir: Giancarlo Romitelli
Star: Richard Harrison, John Silver, Klaus Kinski, Luciano Pigozzi
a.k.a. His Name was King
This movie achieved something of a spike in popularity after Quentin Tarantino included Luis Bacalov’s title song, His Name was King on the soundtrack for Django Unchained. That, along with the naming of Christoph Waltz’s character as King Schultz, suggests it may be a genre favorite of Tarantino. It’s hard to see why, as it’s a muddled and confusing piece, with little to recommend it. The aim appears to have been to set up Harrison’s character, bounty-killer John ‘King’ Marley, alongside the likes of Django or Sabata, but the lack of any subsequent sequels suggests it met insufficient commercial success to justify proceeding.
It was, however, a reunion for Harrison and Kinski, as they had both appeared the previous year in the war film, Churchill’s Leopards, respectively playing an Allied soldier and his German twin, and a Nazi officer. Here, at least initially, they’re on the same side, Kinski’s Sheriff Foster first appearing alongside King, celebrating the marriage of the latter’s brother. However, the newlyweds find themselves captured by the Benson gang, who have a beef with King after he killed one of their members in an earlier encounter. As revenge, they kill the brother, rape his wife and sent her back to town. Needless to say, that provokes King into heading after them, leaving the widow in Foster’s care. However, complicating matters is a document implying King was involved in a shipment of weapons which is now being used against the army, which makes him a wanted man, being hunted himself by federal agent Mr. Collins (Pigozzi).
There are a couple of scenes where Foster is entranced with a pocket watch and the tune in plays. These seem obvious nods to For a Few Dollars More, where Gian Maria Volontè’s character, leader of the gang in which Kinski played a member, was similarly obsessed. Here, neither the execution nor the payoff is as impressive, though it does lead to probably the movie’s best scene, where Foster discovers a transgression by his deputy, and takes punitive action. Otherwise, there isn’t much of Kinski early at all: his role becomes a good deal more important over the course of the second-half, and is positively pivotal during the climax. It’s just a shame they didn’t let Klaus do his own dubbing, or at least find someone more appropriate, because the voice they use just doesn’t work.
The main problem, however, is a script that seems to specialize in obscurity, with what you’d think were important facts – such as Foster being the sheriff – apparently being concealed, or at least, made insufficiently clear. As a viewer, you’re left watching scenes whose relevance and importance is obscure, in the hope that, eventually, it will all make some kind of sense. To the film’s (bare) credit, it does end up coming together, with a moderately decent one-on-one face-off in the streets that’s preceded by an impressively rapid-fire evacuation by everyone else, people literally diving through windows to get out of the way of the upcoming gun-fight. While amusing, it’s definitely incongruous, playing more like something out of Blazing Saddles than a serious spaghetti Western.
Outside of Kinski, there isn’t much point to seeing this: Harrison’s career was spiralling down, though he hadn’t yet reached the Grade-Z Philippines and Hong Kong schlock he’d make in the eighties. None of the other aspects are in any way memorable, and even the theme song, apparently beloved by Tarantino, is forgettable musak. I do note that the film, according to the IMDB, has a running time of 90 minutes, while the version I saw clocked in at a brisk 76. It’s possible that there may be an alternate version out there which is more coherent and/or interesting. I’d be lying, however, if I said tracking that down was in any way a priority.
