Year Of The Western! #21 El Topo (1971)

Challenging your expectations and your boundaries can be a good thing. I will never regret taking the time to try and experience something I am not familiar with. I would rather know I took the time with a piece of art that I ended up not understanding or liking rather than the possibility that there are works out that would set my brain and my spirit on fire and I just chose not to bother with them. 

So I do not regret experiencing El Topo. I just am not sure of what I just watched and how I will truly feel about it later.

Film #21 El Topo (1971) 

Never has trailer explained exactly how I feel and don't feel at the same time.

As I feel that this post is going to be way different than the other 20 I have completed before, I am going to change the format up a little bit.

Here is the wikipedia page about the film. Here is Roger Ebert's review when then film was released on DVD in 2007. I would suggest reading his review, he captures the essence better than I feel that I am about to.

The film feels like it is broken into three distinct segments. The first is of El Topo (the writer and director himself), while taking his naked son out to the dessert to have him bury a picture of his mother and a toy 'so as he is now a man.' Afterwards, they encounter a town that has been absolutely slaughtered. Every man, woman, and child has been killed horribly. He finds out that the Colonel and his men are responsible. El Topo finds the Colonel and confronts him and humiliates him in front of his men (he cuts his dick off) and the Colonel kills himself. A woman who was forced to serve the Colonel wants to run away with El Topo, but his child gets in the way of them. So he leaves the child with some friars. 

Second, the woman and El Topo wander the desert where she tells him there are four gun masters that he must find and kill if he is to be considered the greatest. He finds them, each representing a different philosophy or religion. He defeats them with luck or trickery. Along the way another woman joins El Topo and the original woman. She is dressed in black similar to him and starts tempting the other woman away from him. After completing his task, he has doubts and feels abandoned by God. The black clad woman makes the other woman make a choice and hands her a gun. She shoots El Topo and they leave him to die. A group of physically deformed people find him and take him away. 

Thirdly, El Topo awakes from what is a years long meditation in a cave under a mountain and the same deformed people believe he is their savoir. After a drug fueled 'rebirth' he believes he can get out of the cave (the only opening is high up and as the people are deformed or mentally handicapped, they are not able to make it) and dig a tunnel freeing them so they can get down to the nearby town and get help and live a normal life. El Topo gets out of the cave with a small woman who helps him busk in town for coins in which they can use to buy equipment and dynamite to speed up the tunneling process. The town, as they find out, has sick delights (branding people like cattle, having men with barb wire wrapped boxing gloves slugging it out in the street) and she worries that maybe her people won't be welcomed in the town when they are freed. A friar comes to town and is disgusted by the religion the people follow and tries to put a stop to it. El Topo ends up crossing paths with this friar, and he realizes it was his son that he had abandoned. The friar recognizes him too and vows to kill him. The small woman tells his son that he is now doing good things and about the tunnel. The friar agrees to let him live until the tunnel is finished. Soon, they are working together to finish it faster and when they breach the inner chamber, his son realizes he can't kill his father. At the same time, the people in the cave rush to the town for help and they are met with gunfire. Destroyed, El Topo picks up a gun again and wipes out the town and then sets himself on fire. The son, dressed like his father was at the start of the film, the small woman (oh she was pregnant with El Topo's child and had just given birth) and her baby, leave town. 

It is clear that this film is full of imagery, ideas, and statements from beginning to end, I just can't tell you what many of them were and what they meant. That doesn't mean that I am not aware that El Topo is trying to say something, its just that maybe I wasn't understanding its language or... 

...I just have a difficult time getting into more of the independent artistic cinema. 

This isn't the first film to challenge me to watch it as a work of art and let it be more of a emotional experience as to opposed to an intellectual one. Even stating that this is not an intellectual experience is not correct either. There was a lot of thought that went into this film. I just hit a point while watching where my brain stopped trying to asks questions as to what everything stands for and I just let go and let it crash over me. That sounds like a transcendent experience, right? If you consider drowning to be transcendent, then sure. 

There are many, many, more qualified people that can speak to what they believe this film is than myself but I will try my best to explain why films like this tend to hit me flat and hopefully I don't come across as some kind of neanderthal bitching about why everyone thinks fire is so ahead of its time. 

When anyone makes something that is deeply personal to them, its never going to be 100 percent clear what their intent was, unless you ask them directly, and even then you may never know. I am perfectly okay with that and understand that my experience will not be yours and vice versa. I feel like poetry, physical art (in this case, I mean paintings but I understand that art is more than something you hang on your wall) and music can get away with people expecting it to be more up to interpretation. I feel like films have a red line where interpretation can only go so far and reasonably expect the viewer to go with them till the end. I don't think El Topo gives a single shit about whether it loses people along the way, and while I can respect that artistically, I can not find enjoyment in that. 

Generally when I write these posts, I keep the score from the film running until I am finished as it helps keeps me in the mood of the film. I broke away from that because I had to find the right way into thinking about my reaction to this film. The only way I can put it in perspective is from the same way I approach Radiohead. I am currently listening to a mix of Amnesiac, Kid A, and Ok Computer. Each one of these albums I didn't like the first time I heard them, but I would revisit them a few months later and something about them just clicked and I love them. 

Another way for me to approach it to is think about one of my favorite Picasso paintings, Guernica.

Some people might be off put by the abstract imagery and the chaos it is presenting. For me, once I learned the origin of the piece, it all snapped into view. How do you make a single image that tries to encapsulate all the feelings and desperation that would come from such a devastating event? Picasso decided to go for something surreal and it resonates with me. Someone else might be too off put by the style to let it speak to them. I can't fault them for that. I hope people won't fault me too much for not really digging El Topo.

Here is a scene that I can present that I think speaks to the hypocritic power of faith that I think the film is trying to point out. The church leader is saying that God will protect them if they have faith and then hands out a revolver with a single bullet in it. A person will need to put it to their head and pull the trigger to see if they have faith.

It's a miracle until it isn't and tempting fate is not the same thing as having faith. So there are things I can say I liked and feel that I understand about the film. 

I feel like this is a film I should give another chance after having time to let it gestate but for now it was not a revelatory first watch. I welcome the dialogue about how I didn't allow myself the right perspective or if there is other information I need to consider in order to appreciate what is being said.

I will never regret the journey. I would appreciate it if someone can help me read the map along the way though. 

Western Checklist (this time it is not a checklist but a series of questions):

• Why did the child at the beginning have to be naked? I am sure it was a statement about innocence but he was naked for a long time.
• Why did the one bandit have an assortment of women's footwear? Why did the other one make a naked lady drawing out of beans and then try to sex it? 
• Was the deflating balloon to signal a gunfight a joke about how arbitrary those moments can be in other westerns?   
• Were any fake animal carcasses created for this film? I don't think so. It feels like every gutted horse, skinned goat/sheep, and rabbit set on fire were real. 
• Was there a particular reason why men's and women's voices were gender switched at times?
• How did you convince the actors to be near a real lion that was just chained up a few feet away?

Not a question, but here's a piece of the score that went along with El Topo. It isn't bad. 

Rating:

I am not going to give this film a rating. This is not because I didn't particularly enjoy the film but because I think films like El Topo defy rating. This is an experience, for good and for ill, and your mileage is going vary greatly on how much you enjoy pure surreal imagery. 

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Year Of The Western! #20 Sabata (1969)

I am sure it was not planned like this when I asked my friend and resident genre movie database, Kevin to give me a wide swath of westerns to watch for this list, that it would seem like one film's extremes would stand out in contrast to the previous one's. More than likely it is that my mind is just taking it that way because there is no true order to these films other than release date. Either way, after the teeth rattling grit and reality of The Wild Bunch, I walk into the world of Sabata, which as far as I am concerned, is a borderline Italian anime just missing the actual animation portion of it.

Sabata is many things. It is over the top. It is ridiculous. It is logic breaking. The one thing it isn't is serious. 

Let's get weird, Sabata Weird, shall we? 

Film #20 Sabata (1969)

Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production (by the way, there isn't much on either page... Once Upon a Time in the West this is not). 

Okay, the plot. A bank has been robbed in the night with $100,000 in it. The execution of the heist is actually quite complex and requires acrobats, a team of horses, and a premade section of twin railed track to roll the safe out on. 

While this is going on, we meet Sabata (Lee Van Cleef), who is listening to a drunk Civil War veteran, Carrincha, (Ignazio Spalla). Carrincha won a medal in a battle and is trying to convince Sabata to take it so he can buy a bottle of booze. He tells Sabata medals are worth nothing after the fight is over. Sabata flicks a silver coin with accuracy and ease (more on this later) into Carrincha's palm and then enters the local saloon. Carrincha will now follow him the rest of the film as a defacto sidekick. 

After shooting a craps table with his gun to show people that the dice being used were loaded, Sabata provides his own dice, rolls a seven to help an older man win back his money and then leaves, not before having a pretty girl stand aside from a player piano so that he can throw a (perfectly aimed) coin in its slot to turn it on. On his way out, he sees the aftermath of the bank robbery and sets off to find the men who stole the safe.

He does. And easily picks them all off at great distance with a small rifle. He returns to town with the safe and gets an award from the US Army as it was their $100,000 in the safe. 

Turns out that some of the more nefarious business leaders in town set up the robbery so that they could take the money and buy the surrounding land because (say it with me) the railroad is coming through soon and the land will be worth a lot more very shortly. The leader of these men, Stengel (Franco Ressel) believes that he is superior to those around him and keeps an odd assortment of suits of armor, two odd black painted wood cutouts of silhouetted men in a gun duel that are used in a deadly showdown game, and a half cane with a trigger that shoots what appears to be a poison tipped dart, in his place of business/home (it isn't quite clear but I don't know if poison shooting canes are more of a home decor thing or business appropriate). 

Realizing that as Sabata has returned the safe, their plans could be found out, Stengel orders his men to kill anyone that was associated with the robbery. Sabata figures it out and keeps some very incriminating evidence for himself and tells Stengel and his business partners that he will take $20,000 and then give up the evidence. Stengel, thinking he can just get Sabata killed for cheaper, hires a lot of different people to kill Sabata with very little success. Each time they fail, Sabata's price goes up.  

Meanwhile, there is another mysterious stranger in town that plays a banjo and seems to have a past with Sabata. His name is... Banjo (William Berger, but for some reason I kept seeing Roger Moore). He seems to help Sabata and is one step ahead everything, but is just biding his time until he can find the opportunity he is looking for. 

Oh, and there is a Native American who doesn't speak but perches on rooftops, watching, and helps out Carrincha and Sabata. He can make amazing leaps and flips and is good on a horse. He has no name but Carrincha calls him Alley Cat.

Did I mention Carrincha is also deadly accurate with throwing knives? And that Sabata has a small revolver that has separate gun barrels in its handle? And that Sabata carries a bag with him at all times that he can rig so that his hand gun fires from inside it? Oh, and that Banjo's banjo is also a gun? If any of that makes you smile, then Sabata is probably a great film for you. 

After Day of Anger, I was happy to see Lee Van Cleef again. His Sabata is probably the closest I will get to see him as a good guy, but even here he is good only by virtue that he is working on the side of the law to blackmail the other bad guys, so good is probably not the right word. He is a better guy. 

His gunfighting skills here are super human, that's the only way to put it. He never misses and he comes up with Macgyver level traps to distract the bad guys. There is one sight gag of him posing like a picture in a frame that is so over the top, you have to respect that the film makers went there. No matter how much disbelief you have to suspend (and it would be all the disbelief in the world), Van Cleef makes Sabata so damn cool. 

Speaking of disbelief, Alley Cat's agility is laugh out loud amazing. The film wants you to believe he can jump down and then leap up to his next target, but in reality you can tell they put mini trampolines behind the objects he was leaping onto so that he can spring upward to the next thing. It works but it is so silly. I do appreciate that even though he is mute, he gets across some friendly warmth toward Sabata and Carrincha.  

Banjo as a character is equal parts badass and frustratingly unbelievable. William Berger always plays the character with a smile at the corner of his lips and you get the feeling that he plays the banjo as more of way to annoy people than really to entertain. His outfit is tasselled with jingly bells that cause him to jingle and jangle with each step. And I just wanted to give him a haircut so goddam bad. 

I need to speak about Franco Ressel's Stengel. His character's feel and look vaguely reminded me of Javier Bardem's Silva from Skyfall. There was an effeminate quality in this character that would have been way more interesting in a more serious western. It still works here and Ressel's arrogant and kind of twisted performance made him a good bad guy. He would have been at more home in Django Kill ...If You Live, Shoot! with the rest of those dark townspeople. 

There is a scene between Stengel and Sabata that I wish I could link but I am not able to find it. It sums up the whole film quite well. They are in the room with a large long dining table that has a number of glass liquor bottles on it. Sabata sits down, tells Stengel to sit. As Stengel sits, he places his dart cane on the table, perfectly aimed at Sabata. Sabata, while talking, places a glass bottle in the path of the cane. Stengel, responding, awkwardly and blatantly moves the cane further to the right, with another clear shot at Sabata. Sabata then places another bottle of liquor in the way. It was the world's best worst game of chess I have ever seen. You can appreciate the posturing going on but it was so weird and funny.

Below is a scene that is a showdown between Sabata and Banjo. Banjo is turning on them as he has been offered a lot money to do so. Check out the music that plays during the clip, it is so great.   

That bit contains ridiculous dialogue, weird guns, unrealistically accurate gunshots, and sweet organ music. Not much more needs to be said about the tone of Sabata. 

Speaking of the music, it is my favorite part of the film. The score was done by Marcello Giombini, and it is just as over the top as the film is. Some serious parts but then it has a great guitar riff that is similar to the title theme to Riz Ortlani's Day of Anger score. I can listen to this one on a loop and makes me wish I had it on vinyl. 

When researching The Mercenary, I learned about how comedy started seeping into Spaghetti Westerns and immediately sunk the sub-genre. I can see why that would be and it is a bummer because I feel like there was a brazenness I have seen in Leoni's and Corbucci's films that I feel like could have been explored more before this era closed. Comedy can have its place, but if it stifled the direction these films were heading, then it is a shame. Sabata is ridiculous but it makes me wonder what they could have done if they would learned more into the darkly weird like Django Kill! than the over the top suspension of disbelief breaking action they chose to go with here.

Sabata is a fun film and worth a watch. This is the perfect film to have on in the background during a get together because you can watch Alley Cat do some crazy jumps or see Stengel use his dart cane or see Sabata throw his coins and hit every target he intends and laugh and shake your head at what craziness you just watched. Carrincha would agree with that. 

Western Checklist (nowhere near official or scientific):

• Weird gang member names? You have an Alley Cat and a Banjo. Checked and marked.
• Beautiful landscapes? The one thing I will point out is Stengel's murder office. The rich reds and weird architecture belonged more in a horror film than a western and again, I wish his portion was in a more serious film.
• Any terrified horses? Not like the last few films. A covered wagon explodes, so I am sure that bothered some of them. At least it wasn't a horse bomb. 
• How many Ernest Borgnines? Outside of Van Cleef, there isn't anyone here that I can recall seeing in another film.
• Does Lee Van Cleef rival Fonzie in his ability to throw coins and make things happen? I mean, I know the Fonz would either snap his fingers or bang the side of a jukebox to make it work, but it's the same principal. They are equals in this regard. 
• A better title for this film would have been 'Heads I Win, Tails You Die!'
• Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? Kind of. Listen to the compilation below and you will hear the name Sabata said out loud followed by some laughter. I love this score.  

Rating:

I am going to give Sabata 3.5 out of 5 tin stars. It is fun movie and Lee Van Cleef is great as always. The ridiculous ways guns are used and deployed are half the fun. Again, I wish some of this material was played more seriously but that's on me and not this film. The music is amazing. This a fun breezy watch and there are worse ways to spend a hour and forty five minutes. 

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Year Of The Western! #19 The Wild Bunch (1969)

So after watching a film, I like to go and dive into the trivia and productions notes about it. I normally post the links to imdb.com and wikipedia at the top of my posts (and I will do the same here) but I want to point out one bit of trivia that I feel speaks a lot about The Wild Bunch.

John Wayne complained that the film destroyed the myth of the Old West.

I wonder how accurate that is but it feels oddly appropriate after having just seen True Grit before this, a film that takes the piss out of the traditional western and has some shocking moments of violence with some less than respectable characters. Did it honor the myth of the Old West? 

The only honor the Wild Bunch worried about was amongst Pike and his gang. 

Film #19 The Wild Bunch (1969)

Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production. 

Set in 1913, Pike Bishop (William Holden) and his gang, Dutch (Ernest Borgnine!), the Gorch Brothers (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson, Angel (Jamie Sanchez) and handful of others, are on the very edge of the Texas-Mexico border where the west is still wild but that time is soon coming to an end. They rob a bank dressed as soldiers but are ambushed by Deke (Robert Ryan) a former member of Pike's gang that was sent to prison but given a conditional release if he can capture or kill the gang within 30 days. 

The ambush is a complete massacre as Deke's posse is made up of scraps of men that are bounty hunters but are quick to shoot and not think about consequences. What happens is a lot of local townspeople end up in the crossfire and the streets are littered with their bodies while Pike and most of his gang escapes, with one of them blinded by gunfire and can barely stay on his horse. When that man falls, he tells Pike to just end it fast and Pike shoots him point blank, knowing that any weakness will slow them down and that once a man has served his purpose, they are not worth much more. 

After getting across the border, they stop long enough to split their score to find out the bags of gold coins they thought they had were full of metal washers. They know that Deke set a trap for them and it almost cost them their lives. 

Pike is getting older and knows that his life as a bandit is ending because of his age and that the times are changing. 'We got to start thinking beyond our guns, those days are closing fast,' he tells them as they are planning their next move. They head further into Mexico to Angel's village in order to throw Deke off of their trail and while they are there, they learn that what little the village has has been taken by General Mapache (Emilio Fernandez), a corrupt officer with the Mexican Federal Army. Angel finds out that his father was killed by Mapache's men and a girl that he loved has run off to join them. Pike warns him that if he makes this about revenge, they will leave him in the village and be on their way. He agrees to stay with them and not make it an issue.

They leave the village and head towards the next major town in hopes to figure out their next move and find themselves in the middle of Mapache's troops and the General himself. They decide to go to talk to his men in hopes of trading their extra horses for supplies. While sitting down for a drink, the girl that Angel loves walks by them, he calls out to her, she rejects him and laughs in his face and goes and sits on the lap of Mapache. So Angel pulls his gun out and shoots her in the chest, killing her. This gets the attention of the General, thinking that Angel was trying to shoot him. Both sides talk, and come to an understanding: Mapache needs guns and ammunition to keep his fight against the rebels going, and Pike and his men need gold. 

An uneasy agreement is formed, the five of them will rob a US Army train (something that Pike has had eye on as a target for while now) for their weapons shipment and each of them will be paid 2,500 in gold. They agree to the deal as they have little choice and so begins a three pronged dilemma: the gang robbing the train and delivering the weapons, playing along with Mapache long enough to get what they want without being killed, and Deke hot on their trail as soon as they set foot back in the state of Texas. 

Okay, that's the main thrust of the story. I feel like I will end up spoiling the rest of the film in order to talk about it a little more, so if you have not seen The Wild Bunch, please stop reading and go watch this film. You will not regret it and much like The Great Silence, it would be terrible if I was to rob anyone else of the jaw dropping gut punches that are thrown repeatedly over and over again in this film.

The violence in this film is equal parts horrifying and beautiful. I have talked before about how a lot of the films up to this point would show someone getting shot, they clutch their chest and fall down, with blood showing up later on their person. Even though you clearly see someone getting shot, there was a tidiness to the violence, no weight with the actions. This is not the case in the Wild Bunch. 

For example, this is the ambush at the bank robbery at the start of the film:

The Wild Bunch tricks you at the very start of the sequence (not seen in the clip) with the gang  crossing the street to the bank, they bump into a older woman who drops her packages. Dutch picks them up and offers to carry them for her, and Pike walks her by the arm across the street. No violence, these are civilized men. Then when the job turns sour and bullets start flying, you see actual squib (the exploding packs of blood that simulate gunshots) work here and it really sells the chaos and terribleness of the situation. What also sells the moment? Seeing an innocent woman getting stomped by a panicking horse. Oh, and all the kids watching while their families die around them. 

Not only are there practical effects improvements that showcase the reality of violence here, but also advancements in film making itself. You will notice that the pacing of the sequence is very up tempo with a lot of quick edits and going back between real time and slow motion. This new technique (of effective smooth slow motion) was shown to director Sam Peckinpah and he knew immediately he wanted to use it in The Wild Bunch. If you slow down the violence, it looks like it hits twice as hard. You see the odd and gruesome ballet of a how a human body spins against their will and then falls to the ground. You see the horses trying to charge forward but they veer to the side like a boat slowly capsizing. It's something we take for granted now (Zack Snyder has made a career on powerful slow motion shots and Michael Bay has destroyed our attention spans with his lighting quick edits) but this feels like it was blazing a trail with a new visual vocabulary of how you could tell a story. This may be too grand a statement, but for me, The Wild Bunch is to westerns what Citizen Kane was to dramas. I left both with the same feeling that what would come after should be affected by their presence. 

It is also fitting that the medium would be moved forward into more modern techniques and more reality based story telling with a film that is all about the end of a specific time period. I think I said in one of the earlier posts that the Old West was roughly between 1865, the end of the Civil War, till 1895, so a span of thirty plus years. With The Wild Bunch taking place 1913, it is very end of that time and soon electricity would be available to a lot of country, telegraphs could submit information quickly between towns, we had already had sustainable flight, and the automobile would be quickly replacing the horse. The days of robbing and crossing state lines with the reasonable knowledge you could get away was over. When the gang sees General Mapache's vehicle, they are truly taken aback by it. One of them even asks it if runs on steam. The 20th century was coming to them whether liked it or not. 

This is a theme I have seen in previous westerns on this list (even going back to the first film Johnny Guitar with Vienna building her saloon/casino in a location that she knew would eventually be along the route of the still being built railroad) but it feels more present here in The Wild Bunch as its eye wasn't towards the future, the future was now and you had two choices, go along with it or get swallowed up by it. We got to start thinking beyond our guns, those days are closing fast, indeed.

A few notes about the guns in the film before I forget to mention them. First, Peckinpah made it a point to have all the gun shots sound different and appropriate for the weapon being fired. Up to this point, no matter if it was a hand gun, a rifle, or a shotgun, a lot of films would have the same stock gunfire sounds. This would change the way guns were treated in films going forward. Second, the type of guns used varied from old six shot revolvers to slide action 9 mm handguns to pump grip shotguns to a heavy duty tripod mounted machine gun. Dutch even uses some grenades. The efficiency of violence was progressing. 

None of the men are presented as inherently good but you get the feeling of loyalty that has been earned by many jobs pulled off together and the years of barely getting out alive. Pike has a hard code that he lives by and he doesn't like breaking it. Dutch trusts Pike and will ride with him wherever he goes, even if he knows that odds are not in their favor. Deke, only driven by not wanting to go back to prison (which they show him getting flogged by guards in a short but nasty flashback), doesn't really want to chase down Pike as he states that he would much rather be with them than hunt them, as he knows that he has basically turned on his family. I appreciate that these bad men are bad and won't hesitate to shoot someone if they are in their way, but it gives them a little more depth as they do care about each other. Even the Gorch brothers (the other two in the gang... I would mention them more but they aren't given much to do outside some weird comedy relief with them partying with some local ladies in very large barrel of wine), who were always challenging Pike over his decision making but ultimately fall in line when they have a job to do and with the group's back is against the wall. 

The train robbery sequence is amazing and surprisingly, a lot of fun. It was cool to see how they planned to take the engine and the single cargo flat car with the munitions without alerting the soldiers that were in the passenger car escorting the supplies. It went from a silent slow moving heist to a full tilt chase sequence that eventually lead to Pike sending the train backwards down the track after getting what they needed as they headed off with a wagon full of weapons. It all culminates in a tense moment where they are crossing a bridge into Mexico that they had rigged with dynamite. They lit the fuse but then the wagon gets stuck on the bridge, so they are trying to free the wagon while the army and Deke's men are coming down on them. Just watch the finale below.

Those were real stuntmen with horses on that bridge when it exploded. You will never see anything like that done again as it is just too dangerous, but goddam, that is sight to behold. There is a quick moment when Pike takes his hat off to say goodbye to Deke, as you would see in most westerns when the bad guy gets away, but once the bridge explodes, you see the horror on his face at what actually happened. Spectacle has cost. 

They get away and arrange a payment system with Mapache (as they don't trust him to honor his word... and rightfully so), but the General takes Angel captive in the process as he found out that Angel gave some of the stolen guns to his village so that they can fight back. They rest of the gang are paid and can leave, however, Dutch points out that Angel earned their trust and he did his part in the heist and he is worth saving. 

So, with Deke right on their heels, they make a decision to go back in Mapache's lion's den to get Angel out and to keep Deke away. Its a dangerous gamble and they know it. Mapache won't give up Angel and keeps him tied up to back of his car and drags him around the courtyard, with children laughing and hopping on his back like he is a sled. Pike is warned to not push it and go enjoy the spoils of victory as they delivered on their promise of getting the weapons. 

This brings about one of the most badass moments I think I have ever seen in a film. Without much spoken between the four of them, and a laugh from Dutch, they load up and walk towards where the General is feasting.

Not only is the way they carry themselves badass, but the way the sequence is shot is amazing. Watch how people cross in the front of them and how almost everyone stays in focus in the foreground, the middle, and the background. It creates a sense of how they are being watched and almost swarmed but they just keep marching forward. 

What happens after that is probably one of the most violent sequences I have ever seen in a film. It is equal parts shocking and breathtaking. The sheer amount of violence is one thing, but then how the individuals carry themselves during it is also noteworthy. One of the gang uses a woman as a human shield. These are not good men and they use every advantage they have and the film will remind you of this often.

William Holden as Pike is stellar. Very similar to Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West as both have a charisma about them and both know they are on the losing end of time. Also, both have kind faces when they want but can turn to stone in a moment's notice. You don't see leads like this anymore and it is a shame. There is an inherent complexity to a character when you cast an older actor in the role of someone near the end of their profession. Much like Lee Van Cleef in Day of Anger, they know they aren't what they once were but they are crafty enough to still make it work.

Ernest Borgnine as Dutch was great. He was given the chance to bring some range to a character that could have just been a side kick. He also knows that times are changing, but as long as he rides with Pike, they have a shot. He gets a great twinkle in his eye when a plan is coming together and you just smile with him. I will always love him no matter the role he plays.

Robert Ryan as Deke Thornton is also worth mentioning. He always knew what Pike was going to do, but was given such little resources, he knew that it was always going to be an uphill battle. He also did not like his role in being the judas goat (which is what he was called at one point early in the film). You can tell he was conflicted in going after the gang, and there was atmosphere of resignation he carried with him. He was a tired broken former bandit that was doing what he had to do live. Ryan's performance really got that across.

The score by Jerry Fielding is very rich and complex and fits the film very well. It goes from having military drums to the muted horns and strings you would hear in Spaghetti Westerns. There are times where it felt like it was almost television drama-like, but I think that was more of an effect on how TV changed its sound after this film came out. Its a good score and it feels like the most Hollywood of the ones I have heard recently.

I have talked a lot of Pekinpah's stylistic choices for the film but I haven't mentioned how beautiful it is in general. There are plenty of wonderful shots of the open blue sky with some clouds scattered about that just pop. Every frame of this film was stuffed with detail and it shows. Its weird to say that there is beautifully shot violence but that does apply to The Wild Bunch.

This is a great film and it deserves it place on all the Best Ofs that it is listed on. It is a gritty, fully realized work that tells a story of hard men making hard decision with bloody consequences. It never intended to have a good ending and rode hard all the way to its massively violent finale. Watch this film and understand a lot of what we appreciate and love that came after this owes a debt to The Wild Bunch. 

Western Checklist (nowhere near official or scientific):

• Weird gang member names? Well, Pike is a badass name and Dutch is just cool.
• Beautiful landscapes? Yes, it was shot in Mexico and it has those wonderful old Spanish sanctuaries that were functional but in ruins. 
• Any terrified horses? Yes. So many. And at least one real death as a horse drowned in the bridge explosion.  Also, there are scorpions tortured at the beginning by children. You see them being placed in a pile of swarming ants and then they are all SET ON FIRE. It fit the films themes very well but I am pretty sure those scorpions didn't volunteer.
• How many Ernest Borgnines? I didn't realize when I made this joke during the first film I watched that he would be in another western on the list. He is so great and I am glad I got to see him dig into a bigger and better role than he had in Johnny Guitar.
• Any buildings catch on fire? Surprisingly for a film with so much realistic violence, there was not a single building fire. I am sure had they done it, it would have been beautiful and horrific in equal measures.
• Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? No, but here is a portion of the score and like I said above, it is quite good.  

Rating:

I am going to give this 5 out of 5 tin stars. I think I prefer my westerns bloody and darker and this fits the bill nicely. The editing and use of slow motion gives this film a different feel to what I have seen before and it adds weight to what you are witnessing. The acting is top notch and the realistic effects of gun violence really drive the point home that the lives of these men came at the cost of many others. Highly recommended and please, if you have not seen this film, do it as soon as you can. 

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Year Of The Western! #18 True Grit (1969)

I believe this will be the last John Wayne film on the list. I have seen him three other times (The Searchers, Rio Bravo, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) and each time he has grown a little more on me. I can see why he belongs among the greats to define a genre. This was a really fine way to say goodbye to the Duke for The Year Of The Western! 

Film #18 True Grit (1969)

Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production. 

The film starts off with meeting the Ross family as the father, Frank, is about to go away to buy some horses with his assistant Tom Chancy (Jeff Corey). Frank says goodbye to his 14 year old daughter, Mattie (Kim Darby) who is smarter than her years and tells her father to be careful. She does not trust Tom. 

The very next scene, Tom shoots Frank in the street after a drunken argument and then takes off. 

Mattie comes to town to collect her fathers belongings, including his massive Colt Dragoon handgun, and wants to talk to the local law enforcement about their search for Tom. They say there isn't much they can do as Tom ran off to the Indian nation and she would need to talk to a U.S. Marshall who can travel that territory. Mattie meets Marshal "Rooster" J. Cogburn (John Wayne), a drunk who has a habit of shooting and killing the wanted criminals instead of bringing them back to face trial. She convinces him to look for Tom (with some money flashed in his face). Meanwhile, a Texas Ranger, named La Boeuf (Glen Campbell), which sounds likes La Beef, is looking for Tom Chancey as well. Turns out Tom, who goes by other names, also has a habit of shooting people and then running. Mattie wants Tom dead, either by her hand or to be hung in the local county, and Le Boeuf wants to take him alive so that he can get a big reward in Texas... and then hang him. Cogburn just wants to drink and get paid... so he can probably go drink some more. 

What goes on from there is a triangle of sorts: Mattie wants to come along with Rooster as he hunts down Tom, La Boeuf wants to team up with Rooster but leave Mattie behind because she is just 14 and is likely a liability, and Rooster doesn't respect La Boeuf or any 'Texicans' and flip flops over Mattie's involvement because he likes her stubbornness (it reminds him of him). The three ride together but aren't always on the same page. Hilarity ensues.

This film is an odd duck to say the least. It wants to be an irreverent comedy at times, slap sticky in others, and then deadly serious in others. It is a fine line to walk and I don't know if it earns it.  

For example, like I said above, it's the second scene in the film and Mattie's father dies faster than Bruce Wayne's parents. It is sudden and brutal. The scene after, Mattie is in town and making smart aleck know it all comments about everything around her. It is almost psychopathic how little she doesn't seem to care about her father's death but gets tied up in commenting on almost everything around her. At the boarding house she is staying at, the host asks her is she wants more biscuits and gravy. Mattie's response? She takes more and says that as she is being charged 25 cents for the meal, she better make it worth her while. When the same person tells her that the boarding house is full and that she would have to share a bed, Mattie states that she should only expect to pay half the fee for the room then. 

I understand that the point of her character is that she thinks she has the world figured out and that she will not take no for answer. It is supposed to be somewhat endearing as she is facing off against a number of much older adults, but it feels very forced and awkward at times.

I also think part of it is the fault of the handling of the source material. I can't say I have read the book that the film is based on, but I get the feeling the dialogue is almost shakespearean in a way in which a lot of words are said but it takes a while to discern their meaning, at least until you get into the patterns and rhythms of the dialogue. 

Go back up to the trailer 1 minute 39 seconds in (or click here), La Boeuf is telling Mattie, a 14 year old girl, "A little earlier I gave some thought to stealin' a kiss form you, although you are very young... and you're unattractive to boot. But now I'm of a mind to give you five or six good licks of my belt." Those lines don't roll off the tongue and Glen Campbell does his best to get through it.  Aside from it being creepy, that isn't how conversational English sounds. I think the person who adapted the book into a screen play must have loved all the dialogue as it was printed but didn't read it aloud as they were turning it into a film script. 

I will admit that I have not seen the Coen brothers 2010 remake of True Grit but I get the feeling that they understand the langue and tone of the book better than what was presented here. Its not a knock against this film, anytime anything challenges your perspective is good thing but I just feel that a lot of people in this film were not up to the delivery of the colorful lines they were given.

Except John Wayne. Even if he runs the dialogue over with his bulldozer swagger, his unique cadence makes it work. Rooster is an odd character (bird?) that are equal parts piss, vinegar, and booze, but you still kind of like him no matter what is going on. He carries himself as larger than life but then he gets blackout drunk and passes out in a bed in the back of a chinese butcher shop. When he keeps sneaking drinks along the journey, you know it is bad, but it never leads to a poor decision being made or to him not being in the spot to save the day. At the end of the film when he takes his horse and jumps a four post high fence, the smile on his face is genuine and you want to ride off with him. You can see why he won an Oscar for this role. 

I will state now that Glen Campbell does okay in his role. His La Boeuf rubs Rooster the wrong way but ultimately they are on the right side of the law and have each other's backs. It is a proto buddy cop vibe in that way. I think the stunt casting of him in order to draw attention to the film with a song (more on that down below) could have went way wrong. I think Dean Martin in Rio Bravo was a stronger actor but his character was given more to do, so I won't hold that against the large shoes that Campbell had to fill as being a musician cast as a sidekick to John Wayne.  

Okay, back to the weirdness of the film. All that I said above makes it sounds like more of a comedy than a true western, and the actors and the music really want you to believe that, but there is a streak of darkness that runs through True Grit that is hard to reconcile with its overall lighter tone. Like the father dying brutally was quick and unexpected. The town Mattie went to to get her father's things was full because of a local three person hanging (the crowd was festive just like in Hang 'Em High), which they then showed, abrupt drops with abrupt stops and their feet still moving as they die. 

Then there is this scene. Rooster, Mattie, and La Beouf come across a 'dug out' (I am guessing a small abandoned mud covered hut with a fenced in pen for horses) that was supposed to be empty but they find two men inside, one with a leg wound (Dennis Hopper). Rooster believes they have information on where Tom is and is willing to play the two men against each other in order to get the information he wants. Just watch what happens.

Holy shit. Dennis Hopper getting his fingers chopped off, getting stabbed brutally in the gut, and then dying on the floor spilling his guts, so to speak, to Rooster. There is nothing funny about that scene and it comes out of nowhere to stab you in the gut as well. 

This film can't always figure out what it wants to be. It feels 10 years older than it actually is (the fact that this came out after Once Upon a Time in the West baffles me) with the upbeat score and John Wayne doing John Wayne things, but then it drops some very graphic (for a Hollywood made western that is ) violence on you and it can't make up it's mind if it wants to be a romp or a coming of age story for Mattie and what the real cost of revenge is. Her firing the Dragoon is not played for laughs but the moments right after are, and that kind of sums up the film.

True Grit is an interesting film as it shows American made westerns could try to be something different and they could grow in different directions. It is also a great showcase for John Wayne. He seemed so comfortable and confident in every scene he was in. When you see him face off against four wanted men in a clearing with only his hand gun and single shot rifle, you never doubt who is coming out on top. And goddam, they way he flips the rifle to load it is badass. No wonder the Terminator stole that move. 

Thanks for letting me ride along John, I hope to see you again after this list is completed.

Western Checklist (nowhere near official or scientific):

• Weird gang member names? You got a Rooster, a La Boeuf , a man named Moon (Hopper) and a man named Pepper (A severely underused Robert Duvall).
• Beautiful landscapes? This takes place mostly in the mountains of Colorado and it is very pretty. Like a beer commercial but with guns. 
• Any terrified horses? YES. I don't want to know how they get them to fall down when an actor gets shot and has to fall with the horse.
• How many Ernest Borgnines? John Fiedler played the oft talked about Lawyer Daggett. He was the voice of Piglet for almost 40 years. 
• Does it have a cat that acted pretty chill in front of the camera? Yes, and his character's name was General Sterling Price. I didn't even know cats could serve in the armed forces.
• Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? Yes. I really thought we had moved passed that point but then True Grit comes along and surprises me. For a song that has no good reason to exist, it's pretty damn pleasant to the ears.   

Rating:

I am going to give True Grit 3.5 out of 5 tin stars. I gave the Searchers a 3 and I liked this one better than it. I know that sounds arbitrary and it is but I didn't dislike this film. I enjoyed John Wayne's more lose and rough around the edges Rooster Cogburn and he carried the film a long way. It does pique my interest now to watch the remake and see how they address the tone and if they can find a better balance with the humor, the sudden violence, and the oddly poetic dialogue. 

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Year Of The Western! #17 Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

After the absolute knockout punch that The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly gave me, I was really looking forward to this film. I was not disappointed, but what I thought I was expecting, I did not get. That's a very good thing. Just like how I have come away with different thoughts and feelings on the three Corbucci films I have seen, Once Upon a Time in the West leaves me in a different headspace than where I ended up with after The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Film #17 Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) 

Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production. 

Once Upon a Time in the West (Which I will now shorten to 'Once Upon.' As much as I love wordy titles, it  does prove a bit much to type out each time) starts with a three men (two wearing dusters) taking control of a distant train station. Once the train pulls in, no one gets off, or so the three men think. As the train pulls away they hear a haunting harmonica melody. It is coming from across the tracks and belongs to a nameless man (Charles Bronson), who was expecting to meet a person named Frank. Frank is not there and sent three men to kill this nameless man. It doesn't go well for them.

We then meet the McBain family as they are preparing for a large party on their homestead. Mr. McBain (Frank Wolff from The Great Silence) is getting married and his new wife is arriving by train that day. While the family is getting everything ready, a gang of bandits show up wearing dusters and kill the whole family except for the youngest son. When one of the gang asks the leader 'What are you going to do about the kid, Frank?' Frank (Henry Fonda) states well now since the kid has heard his name,  he promptly shoots the kid. 

The wife of Mr. McBain, Jill (Claudia Cardinale), arrives at the local train station and is taken to her new home, new family, and new life. Along the way, she stops at a trading post. Once inside, a sudden eruption of gunfire and violence occur outside. With everyone looking at the door with hesitation, a man by the name of Cheyenne (Jason Robards) walks in with his hands chained together. While getting his chains broken, he hears harmonica music playing before seeing the nameless man sitting in the back. Cheyenne refers to the man mockingly as Harmonica and the name sticks for the rest of the film. Cheyenne's gang, who wear dusters, show up to free him (which he already did himself) and they leave. 

Jill ends up at her new home and life and sees that the whole family has been murdered. The locals say that it was a group of men in dusters and believe Cheyenne and his gang did this. 

We then learn that the railroad's western expansion, overseen by Mr. Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti), has been using Frank and his gang to intimidate and remove whoever is getting in the way of the railroad. Frank used the dusters as way to frame Cheyenne and his men for the murders as Cheyenne is a known and wanted bandit. Morton despises that Frank killed the family but is willing to overlook it as he has a crippling disease that is killing him rather quickly and he just wants to finish the railroad and see the Pacific Ocean. 

Thinking that McBain's land now has no owner, Morton and Frank think they will be able to get the land easily. Neither one knew about Jill and her rightful ownership of the land. Her very existence has complicated their plans. 

So you have a widow that lost the life she didn't even have, a bandit that was framed for killing a child, a harmonica playing stranger that isn't telling anyone his reasons for coming to town, a hired killer who wants more power than what a gun can bring, and a tycoon that has the power but not the time to complete his vision. All of their paths are crossing due to one homestead in the middle of nowhere. 

This film is a slow burn. Again, that isn't a negative, but you have to have patience in order to see how Once Upon places it pieces on the table and how those pieces will then play against each other. 

It will show you things that make you question a character's...well, character, but then down the line their actions make sense. Hell, you don't get to Harmonica's underlying motivation until the last 20 minutes of the film and keep in mind the run rime is 2 hours and 46 minutes long.

Each of the main characters in this story is not without sin and that makes for a more complex story. Cheyenne is a bandit but he actually didn't commit this crime, Harmonica has no problems killing people if they get in the way of what he wants, Frank is always looking for the advantage and will turn on his own if it benefits him, Mr. Morton has let his disease push him into make morally troubling decisions, and Jill didn't really love Mr. McBain, but she used his proposal (and his supposed wealth) to get out of working as a prostitute in New Orleans. They all have things they want, but the path to them is complicated. 

 There is something different about this film versus the others I have watched on this list but it is a little harder to put into words what it is exactly. I have seen flawed characters in other films (3:10 to Yuma's Ben Wade comes to mind) but this group is different. Maybe it is because they all have different motivations for their actions but the ends line up together so you get some alliances but those come at cost with friction. The only truly evil character in the film is Frank, but even then you have Harmonica helping him out when Frank's hired men get a better offer and turn on him. When Jill calls Harmonica out for saving Frank's life, he says to her, "I didn't let them kill him, and that's not the same thing." His statement sums up the film. This is a film set in the west with guns, trains, horses, and murder. But it's not the same thing.

Upon reading about how this film came to be, I found out that Leone wanted to step away from westerns as he felt that after the Dollars Trilogy, he had said all he wanted to about westerns. He was only drawn back in for two reasons; he would get to make the gangster film he wanted to do (this would eventually become Once Upon a Time in America) and that he would get to work with Henry Fonda. So Leone agreed and spent almost an entire year watching other westerns and working with two other people and came up with this love letter to the American western. I know he would go on to make one more western (and it is on the list, so I am sure I will have more to say about that at that time), but this feels almost like a deconstruction of what he did in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The pacing is slow by design. The individual shots go on and on. There are times when all you see (or hear) is the aftermath of violence. The first showdown in the film doesn't go the way you expect. The final showdown is behind a building, with rocks, dead trees, and dirt. This is not the grand circle of white stones that you saw in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. This is not epic, it is personal.

I have put both of those scenes down below. Spoiler warning: if you do not want to know the ending. Don't watch the second one. 

Charles Bronson as Harmonica is great and a different take on the man of few words. I know Leone wanted Clint Eastwood for this role, but I think Bronson is great choice. He doesn't have the expectation of character that Eastwood would have had from the Dollars Trilogy. Bronson does't have the squint of Lee Van Cleef or the burning gaze of Eastwood, he has a haunted, unflinching, stare that gives you all you need to know about Harmonica. I really liked his performance and he still was able to have some awesome small bits of dialogue that would sound sarcastic from anyone else that he manages to make sound very matter of fact. 

 Henry Fonda's performance as Frank took a role that could have been a mustached twirling bad guy and turned it into a really compelling character. It is one that you still hate, but you can see he has more going for him than just being 'the bad guy.' Reading up on this casting, I didn't realize how much of a departure this was for him as he was always the good guy in westerns. The only way I can imagine that impact is if they did a remake with Tom Hanks as Frank (Frank Hanks?). When you see Fonda smiling at the end of the film, and to finally see what he is smiling at, is monstrous. When I do a look back on all of these films after finishing the 30, Fonda's Frank will be up there with great performances and villains.

Jason Robards as Cheyenne was another surprise. When you first see him enter the trading post, you assume he is going to be one of the main bad guys that Harmonica is going to have to deal with but he takes a turn and his goals line up with Harmonica's and and Jill's, at least for a little while. Robards plays Cheyenne with some compassion and that seperates himself from Frank. They both take, but Cheyenne doesn't take everything. When Jill assumes that he and his men will take whatever they want and rape her, he just asks if she has any coffee made. He may be a bandit and he may be wanted, but that doesn't make him unsympathetic. There is some nuance here that Robards brings and it is welcome. 

Claudia Cardinale as Jill is a frustrating experience, not because she played her role poorly or that her acting wasn't effective. For being a main character in this film, I wish they would have given her more to do than be 'former prostitute that wants to change her life but still falls for men that aren't good for her.' She isn't as paper thin as that description sounds but it isn't that far off. The film wants you to believe that by the end she is going to be a major player in the developing of the town around her but it never gives you a moment to see her take control and lead the way. It would have been nice to maybe get a smidge more of Joan Crawford's Vienna from Johnny Guitar in Jill's character.

What is not lacking is Leone's direction. There are some amazing long takes where the camera pans with a character and then moves into a large crane shot showing the amazing hustle and bustle of Flagstone. There is one really great shot (you can see it in the trailer) when Frank enters a train car but the camera stays outside at ground level and tracks right with all the dead bodies strewn across the dirt and then stops when Frank exits the train car. These shots tell so much story with no words and with so much style. Every frame of this film is filled with detail. You could watch it without the sound on and still be blown away with how the camera flows in the scenes. 

Speaking of sound, the sound design here is amazing. The first 10 minutes or so of the film has no music what so ever and very little dialogue. You hear the wind of the desert, the flies buzzing, a repetitive screeching of a rusty windmill blade spinning. It creates a sense of tension as you don't know when it will stop or when someone will finally take action. Later on, you hear the sound of Morton's train engine at rest and it sounds like the beat of a large steel heart. It is the sound of progress. When Harmonica plays the one fragment of a song he knows, it sounds almost like a banshee wail. 

There is a wonderful score here, again done by Ennio Morricone, and it is used more sparingly than the other films I have watched recently with his work in it. It helps build the bigger moments and make them more epic. There are some beautiful strings, horns, and a distorted electric guitar bit that is the backbone for the score in Red Dead Redemption. I loved it. 

Once Upon a Time in the West is a damn near perfect film. I do like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly more, but I know that this one is the better of the two. If you are a fan of masterfully made films, watch this film. It is a western, but its not the same thing. 

Western Checklist (nowhere near official or scientific):

• Weird gang member names? The three gunmen at the beginning are named Stony, Snaky, and Knuckles. 
• Beautiful landscapes? Yes. I honesty thought the whole film was shot in the US but the majority was shot in Italy. There was a sweeping shot of Monument Valley that was Leone's John Ford moment. 
• Any terrified horses? No, there were some pheasants that looked like they totally got shot at the beginning though.
• How many Ernest Borgnines? Keenan Wynn appeared as the sheriff and didn't get much screen time. He played the lead in one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes, A World of His Own.
• Were there any intense close ups of people's faces and eyes. Plenty and it was wonderful. I don't think I will every have a moment in my life where I will look as focused as Bronson or Fonda.
• Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? No, but like I was saying above, the Morricone score is beautiful and shows more variety here than some of the other compositions I have heard. 

• Bonus item: In honor of a man named Harmonica, I bring to you Bob's Burgers song about a fictional western character named Banjo. 

Rating:

I am giving this 5 out of 5 tin stars. This is a sweeping epic that has great performances, beautiful composition of camera shots and sound design, and a wonderful score.  No matter your predilection for westerns, you should watch Once Upon a time in the West. 

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Year Of The Western! #16 The Mercenary (1968)

And here is the palate cleanser after The Great Silence. Phew, I was worried I was going to be stuck down that sad dark wintery hole for a while.

I made another slight error in trying to review these films in their release order. This one came out a month or so before The Great Silence (in Italy anyways... it is hard to pin down exact release dates for some of these as they opened in different markets at different times. Some of these didn't make it to the US until a year later). I am okay with this after discovering my error. I think the lighter tone and romp that is The Mercenary arrived just on time.  

Film #16 The Mercenary (1968) 

Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production.

The plot on this one is a little odd and I will admit that I had some difficulty keeping all the pieces in place, but I will try to stick to the basics. The film starts off with a circus performance/comedy rodeo (?) where Sergei Kowalski (Franco Nero) sees the main clown/actor as someone he knew from before. The film then flashes back to that person, named Paco Roman (Tony Musante), who is border line slave labor at a silver mine. He and his fellow works stand up to the boss and humiliate him in front of everyone. Paco is sent to be executed, but his friends save him and they run off. 

Sergei is a mercenary and is hired by the owners of the silver mine to go and make sure the shipments get to the United States as there are now rebels blocking the path. Sergei goes to the mine, sees the leadership there has been killed by the rebels lead by Paco. Sergei, finding out that the pathway to the mine has been destroyed, sees that there is no job for him and decides to leave. Just then, the owners show up with the army to fight the rebels. Desperate, Paco pays Sergei to fight for him and his men. 

Sergei asks what Paco wants, he says he wants revolution but can't really describe what that means. Sergei tells him as long as he gets paid first, with gold not paper money, he will help get Paco his revolution.

Meanwhile, Sergei has a rival named Curly (Jack Palance), that is seeking revenge against Sergei and Paco for humiliating him earlier. 

The film then follows the story of Paco's revolution and how successful and unsuccessful it was and how he ended up as a clown in the arena. 

What I just said doesn't feel quite right and I might have gotten some of the details incorrect but it boils down to a hired gun who knows he can keep getting paid (and keeps raising the price) and a revolutionary that is enjoying the spoils of power but maybe not the responsibility of it.

This is a mix of western and comedy that works more than it fails. It does't have the silly music cues like the 1950's American westerns to let you know that this scene is the funny one. The humor is through out. Sergei confronts a man cheating at Craps with loaded dice (they always come up 7) and as he is confirming his suspicions, Sergei keeps rolling the dice without looking and they keep hitting 7. Later, Curly tosses those same dice at Sergei while confronting him about one thing or another and they roll to a 7 in the dirt by Sergei's head. It was a quick blink and you will miss it moment, but it was well done. 

Sergei also has a knack for lighting a quick strike match off of any surface, people's cheeks, their teeth, a bottom of a foot, even a lady's cleavage. Over time, this bit got funnier and funnier due to how silly it got. The trailer above thankfully shows some of these skills off.

Sergei's demands keep getting more and more ridiculous. He has everyone stop in the desert and empty their water bottles into a large barrel so they can suspend it over his head. He shoots through the bottom to make it into a makeshift shower and he takes his time cooling off. He knows he can get away with this too as he made Paco sign a contract stating as such. So he keeps pushing and Paco keeps giving in. 

My favorite part of these moments is another super fast bit. Paco's men are on horseback riding through a river that is coming up to the middle of their horses' bodies and off to the right we see a large wooden raft with Sergei's horse standing on it, with him on top of it. Even his horse has special privileges.  

You can tell Franco Nero is having a lot of fun playing the character that's always a step ahead, is kind of jerk to everyone, but is still so cool you want to see what he does or says next. Also, he may have the prettiest eyes in all of westerns. He is a charming figure that carries this film comedically, but you don't question his badassness when he is using various machine guns in the film.

Tony Musante as Paco Roman felt very much like a younger and less capable Tuco to me, and that's not an insult. The character wants to feel big and important and is larger than life when things are going his way but he falls apart at the first sign of complication. He also has a few funny moments, especially during a fist fight between Paco and Sergei. Paco gets knocked into a hen house and as he stands up to keep fighting, he pulls a chicken out of his shirt, and tries to hit Sergei with it.

I wish they would have given Jack Palance more to do in the film. After seeing how scary he could be in Shane, I knew he can play a great bad guy... which he is here, but there really doesn't seem to be a lot going on motivation-wise for him other than he hates the other two leads. He does get to stick an active grenade into someone's mouth though, so there's that. 

Tonally, the film is an odd duck. It looks like there was a trend of comedic Spaghetti Westerns that starting coming out and having success, so finding the balance of the drama/action and comedy in a film and still making it cohesive must have been difficult. You dial it too far one way and you have a generic film about revolutionaries and the companies/government trying to stop them with mercenaries making the money in between, and you dial it to far the other way, you would get something ridiculous that has no gravity to it whatsoever. The Mercenary tries to walk that line and it does an okay job of it. This film is not to be taken as seriously other westerns, and it knows it. 

One of the last scenes in the film (spoiler, you have been warned) takes place at the arena where the movie started. Curly has found Paco (still in his rodeo clown make up) and is going to kill him. Sergei intervenes and then a duel takes place. The scene is played vary seriously, which makes Paco's make up all the sillier. And when you see how the duel ends, it is a very dark pratical joke. 

Palance's reaction to the outcome, and then to the real outcome, is great. The three mean in a ring does remind me very much so of the end of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and I wonder if it was kind of poking fun at that. Bonus points for Paco being dressed as a Fool, Curly dressed for his own funeral, Sergei dressed like a tourist. 

I am appreciating that Sergio Corbucci (director of D'Jango, The Hellbenders, and The Great Silence) doesn't stick to the same tricks in the large genre sandbox that is the western. I have seen four of his films that are very different from each other in tone, look, and execution. It was fun to watch him lean into comedy on this one after the other three (that I have seen, he has 64 directing credits on Imdb.com) were a lot more serious in tone. You almost get an Indiana Jones feel from how the scenes can switch from somewhat dramatic, to comedic, and yet the action stays top notch. 

The score again was done by Ennio Morricone. You will see the obligatory link to it below. 

The Mercenary is a fun breezy film. I can see this playing in the background of a lazy weekend day as you work on a birdhouse or plot your own revolution against your neighbor, (Gary, the tyranny of you taking up the shared driveway ends now!). You would look up at it for a moment or two, smile at it, and then get back to work. There are worse ways to spend your weekend.

Western Checklist (nowhere near official or scientific):

• Weird gang member names? Sergei has a nickname, one that I am not going to type here. 1968 was a different time. 
• Beautiful landscapes? Nothing that really stands out to me. The wholesale destruction of a town near the end of the film was a sight to behold, though.
• Any terrified horses? Yes. Too many. Also, a pigeon coup got thrown at one point and I felt bad for those birds. Oh, Franco Nero punches a donkey. Hard.
• How many Ernest Borgnines? I am going with Jack Palance here. He was named Curly for goodness sake. That was the same name of his character in City Slickers. How can you not overlook that?
• Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? No, but again, another interesting score from Ennio Morricone. This one is as tonally all over the place as the rest of the film is. Its not bad, just really upbeat and fun in parts, and then very grand in others. I liked it but it didn't feel as an altogether complete piece like others that I have heard so far.  

Rating:

I am going to give this 3 out of 5 tin stars. A fun film with some good comedy in it, but it felt like there was something off about it the entire time. The end of the film sums it up nicely. The title card is in italian and said 'Fine.' I know it means End, but Fine is as good as word as any to describe The Mercenary. 

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