Tag: spaghetti western

Dir: Mario Caiano
Star: Chen Lee, Piero Lulli, Carla Romanelli, Klaus Kinski

Spaghetti Eastern? Noodle Western? I’m not quite sure what to call this combination of two genres, which probably counts as among the oddest mash-ups – quite saying something, in a decade that also gave us horror/kung-fu crossbreeds such as Dracula and the Seven Golden Vampires. In this case, it’s a kung-fu Western, with the titular Joe (Lee), coming to the United States to make his fortune, only to find just about every American is a racist. He ends up innocently involved in a scheme to smuggle Mexicans across the border as slave labor, but when he witnesses a massacre, he realizes the truth, and embarks on a mission to take down the man responsible, Spencer (Lulli). Needless to say, Spencer is unimpressed, and hires a pack of thugs with names like ‘Pedro the Cannibal’ and ‘Scalper Jack’ (Kinski) to make sure Joe doesn’t interfere with operations.

This brings home one of the delights of Project Kinski. If it hadn’t been for Klaus’s presence – and he’s only in it for a few scenes, amounting to little more than a glorified cameo – I’d almost certainly never have bothered watching the little gem. Oh, don’t get me wrong: in conventional terms, this is not a “good” movie. Far from it. But if you’re not braying with laughter when the hero karate kicks an obviously stuffed bull’s head into unconsciousness, then you clearly do not share my sense of absurdist humor. Put it like this: if someone had sent me the script, I’d have been more than happy to show up and do a cameo, for the sheer lunacy of it. Maybe that’s why Kinski is in it, though I suspect it was more the usual financial inducement than the attraction of the surreal lunacy it contains.

Given the era, one suspects Chen Lee is trying to channel Bruce, though he actually looks more like a young (and pre-plastic surgery) Jackie Chan. I liked the way he was dubbed into impeccable English, almost BBC pronunciation – it really enhances how dickish the locals are being. Lee does have some decent moves, though any sense of reality is severely eroded by the obvious use of tricks like slightly off-screen trampolines and reverse footage. Were those ever convincing to an audience, even back in the seventies? The best bit, is probably where he pokes one of the killers in the eyes and yanks out the eyeballs.  The main problem is the stretching the film requires to get around the issue that kung-fu isn’t exactly bulletproof: with the exception of Kinski’s character, if the other killers sent after Joe behaved with moderate intelligence, the film would be over. As is, it’s only at the end, where he goes up against a colleague from the same school (or “boss level”), that there’s anything like a reasonably fair fight.

Kinski plays the penultimate boss, and is in the film for eight minutes, tops. He discovers Jack’s whereabouts after interrogating a doctor whom Joe called to tend to Cristina (Romanelli). the Mexican lady who has been helping him. As mentioned, Jack the Scalp Ripper is the only one to displaying some common sense, starting off by shooting Joe in both legs. He then terrorizes Cristina for a bit, draping the doctor’s scalp over a doll to ghoulishly effective result, it must be said, before setting his sights – and the portfolio of knives he keeps inside his coat – on the lovely senorita’s locks. Of course, Joe won’t stand for that kind of thing. Mostly because he was shot in both legs, remember? Hohoho! Let’s just say, it ends with Spencer receiving a gift that made me wonder if David Fincher, the director of Se7en, had seen this [I’m also fairly sure Quentin Tarantino has, since I was reminded more than once of Django Unchained – not for the first time in a spaKinski Western]

Despite my cynicism, and an amount of Kinski which belies the font size of his name on the sleeve, I was definitely entertained by this. It may be ludicrous – actually, there’s not much “may” to be found – and hardly counts as anything more than a Frankenstein’s monster of moviemaking, sewing together elements from different genres, regardless of their suitability or coherence. However, it’s certainly never dull, and makes up for in loopy inventiveness, what it lacks in more traditional cinematic qualities.

Dir: Giorgio Capitani
Star: Van Heflin, George Hilton, Klaus Kinski, Gilbert Roland
a.k.a. The Ruthless Four

This certainly lives up to its title, beginning with a literal bang, as Sam Cooper (Heflin) blows up a goldmine and his partner, after the latter tries to double-cross Cooper out of his share. He struggles back across the desert to town, where his return without said partner lead to suspicious gossip. Needing a new partner to get the gold out, he calls up Manolo (Hilton), who was almost Cooper’s foster son. However, Manolo then brings his friend, Brent the Blond (Kinski) in as another participant, much to the chagrin of the original owner.

Worried he is outnumbered and likely to meet an unpleasant fate in the mountains, Cooper tries to even the odds by turning to Mason (Roland), who deserted the army alongside Cooper, but now holds a grudge against him, believing he turned Mason in to the authorities. The four new stake-holders head out on the long journey back to the mine’s location, known only to Cooper, and it’s not long before they are attacked by a group apparently keen on jumping their claim. Once they arrive, it soon becomes clear that everyone seems to have their own plans, with alliances forming and melting as each of the participants maneuver for superiority and the upper-hand.

This is a solid one, with a script that keeps the viewer entertained as it twists and turns. There’s a creepy vibe, fairly daring for the time, hinting at an unhealthy, possibly homosexual, relationship between Manolo and Brent [there’s also a rather odd scene in a bath-house which also seems rather out of place], though Hilton is probably the weakest of the four actors. There’s one scene in particular – you’ll know it when you see it – where he isn’t so much chewing the scenery as gnawing on it like a rabid beaver.

On the other hand, Kinski is very restrained: he’ll go into a bar and ask for a glass of milk, and for no particular reason, he’s dressed in priest’s garb. But any doubt whether this is a fraud is dispelled by the scene where someone greets him as a cleric. It’s entirely clear who is the dominant partner (emotionally, if not necessarily sexually), particularly in one scene where Manolo is gabbling away, trying to convince his partner that they don’t need to kill the “old and harmless” Cooper, and if they take care of Mason, then Cooper will be “no problem.” Brent does little more than stare back, as Manolo pleads his nervous case, before dismissing the argument: “You think too much. Just take orders from me. If I want you to kill Cooper, you’ll kill him, won’t you – because you’ve always taken your orders from me. Isn’t that right?” There’s also a cool shot in the mine, where a cloaked Brent looks like a pick-ax wielding incarnation of the Grim Reaper.

Heflin, a supporting actor in classic Westerns such as 3:10 to Yuma, was once famously told by Louis B. Mayer, “You will never get the girl at the end.” His character here certainly looks like he has a story to tell, just based off a face which looks like a granite outcrop. Heflin was already in his late fifties, and would only make a couple more movies, before his death from a heart-attack in 1970 – it’s nice to see a hero who isn’t an obvious leading man type. But it”s the constantly-shifting dynamics between the quartet that are most engrossing, with a real sense of underlying violence, never far away. The gun-battle at the burned-out mission on the way to the mine is particularly well-handled, and I also appreciated Capitani’s creative use of silence – most notably, the early sequence where Cooper struggles back from the mine, with little or no water and increasingly exhausted.

Despite undeniable similarities to John Huston’s classic Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the overall result is a solid piece of work, that works within the standards of the genre, yet still manages to generate no shortage of new wrinkles. Most of which appear to have found a permanent resting place on Heflin’s face. The Italian title translates as Everybody for himself, and seems perfectly appropriate – but even more so would have been the title originally planned, Ognuno per sé (e Dio per nessuno). That one translates as: Everybody for himself (and God for nobody).

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.