So you will notice that this film came out a year before El Topo. I had to make a executive decision at the last moment because Companeros was harder to find than I thought it would be. Also, it doesn't help that the word Companeros is a fairly common Spanish word so any search for it brought up pretty much everything that was not this film.
Either way, I am glad that I watched this after the incredibly challenging El Topo. Sometimes you need a soft landing after an incredibly hard fall. Much like The Mercenary coming right on the heels of The Great Silence, this film was a nice palate cleanser.
Film #22 Companeros
Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production (again, not much).
The film starts off with a lady, Lola (Iris Berben), running through a small Mexican town searching for someone. She finds who she is looking for, El Vasco (Thomas Milian, from Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot!) facing off against Yodlaf Peterson (Franco Nero) in what appears to be a traditional final showdown between two foes. The film then goes back to where the story started.
El Vasco is shining the boots of the local army Colonel in charge. The townsfolk are serving the army like they were servants. The Colonel insults El Vasco, and he stands up and stabs the Colonel. Within moments, the townsfolk revolt and overtake the army. Seconds later, Mongo, a self appointed General, comes in and tells the townsfolk he is the new leader. He sits down and El Vasco starts shining his boots. Mongo then makes him the part of his group and gives him an instant promotion.
I just want to point out that the sudden revolt and change of power is actually quite funny. El Vasco is confused as to what just happened and Thomas Milian's face as he sits back down to shine Mongo's boots is great. From the start you know that this film is not going to take itself too seriously.
Shortly after this, Yodlaf, who is Swedish and free to travel about the country as an ambassador, shows up to town with a train car full of explosives and guns intended for Mongo. Yodlaf is dressed in a nice vest and coat and from the moment El Vasco sees him, he calls him Penguin. The Penguin makes El Vasco look like a fool in front of his men and so begins their love/hate relationship.
Mongo tells the Penguin that he does have the money to pay for the guns but it is in a safe they can't open but they know who can. There is a professor that knows the combination who is in opposition to Mongo (and is leading a counter revolution with college students and Lola) and is currently being held captive by the US Army across the border. Mongo convinces the Penguin and El Vasco to team up together to retrieve the professor so that they can open the safe and the Penguin can get his money and Mongo can get his guns.
Meanwhile, an old associate of the Penguin's, an American named John (Jack Palance) is seeking to even the score as Yodlaf left John crucified in Cuba and the only way he escaped is because his pet falcon, Marsha, ate his hand and freed him. He now has a wooden hand, a bird that likes human flesh, and a very good reason for revenge.
So that's the basic starting point. Throughout the film, the forced relationship between El Vasco and the Penguin is the focal point, with each one having the opportunity to abandon the other and come to their rescue. They do need each other, but they don't mind if the other is left in a compromising situation for a while longer than they have to be. It is where the bulk of the comedy comes from and it is wonderful.
The Mercenary, also directed by Sergio Corbucci, was a 50/50 western and comedy, so there are moments in that film that feel like it is trying to be taken seriously. Companeros feels more 25/75 with more direct focus on comedy. Not every scene is slapsticky but you get Franco Nero smiling with some great one liners in a lot of them. As much as The Mercenary felt like a easy breezy watch, Companeros is even more breezy. This is not a bad thing.
So far from binge watching of westerns, it is evident that a good western doesn't always have a be super serious or dour affair. I will say that my own personal taste that is developing in regards to the genre leans that way more often than not, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate and enjoy what a lighter, but still very well put together film Companeros is.
There are various scenes, like when the local army comes across Yodlaf and El Vasco and Yodlaf tells them that El Vasco is his servant, Thomas Milian's frustrated face sells the moment. When the army says they need to take a photograph of him as he is undocumented, he doesn't understand what taking a photograph is and when they shine light in his face to take the photo, he just shoots everyone. In another film, this would be monstrous, here it is a punch line to the joke that they were going to shoot him (as in a photo) but he shot them first (with a gun). I was entertained.
Later, when Yodlaf ends up in a noose, standing on a barrel on its rounded side trying to keep balance and alive, El Vasco climbs the water tower to free him but then says he has vertigo and can't climb across and cut the rope. Nero's panicked face is great and the bit works.
There was a moment where El Vasco was caught by John, and while stretched out on a rock, they tie a basket with a hungry rat in it to his torso, knowing that it will eventually burrow itself into his body. Yodlaf, in the distance, hearing initial crazy laughter (as the rat is tickling him inadvertently before burrowing) says to another person, 'Oh that's crazy Vasco having one of his laughing fits' 'All by himself?' 'He gets them often.' Nero's nonchalant line delivery is actually very funny. Don't worry, Yodlaf does go back and save Vasco. He isn't heartless.
There are plenty of moments like this that pepper the journey to free the professor and to get him back across the border. It makes for an entertaining ride.
Companeros does tread similar ground that The Mercenary did in the way that Nero's character is involved just for the money at the start of the story but ends up getting mixed up in the Mexican Revolution. It also makes similar commentary about how both sides say they want the same thing but in reality they just want control. 'We fight for the cause of liberty and justice!,' Lola tells Yodlaf. 'I've heard those words in every country where I've sold guns.' That line would have been right at home in the Mercenary.
Nero's Yodlaf/Penguin is great. He carries such a confident swagger and easy charm that you just know he is going to come out on top somehow. I could watch a series of films with this character always getting in over his head for want of money and see how clever and lucky he gets along the way. He even gets to pull a match lighting gag similar to The Mercenary.
Thomas Milian as El Vasco is wonderfully rough and tumble. He is the perfect Daffy Duck to Nero's Bugs Bunny. I have mentioned a few times how he has great facial reactions to some of the situations that he is in and it just shows how good his sense of comedy and timing was. He plays the character with a head full of steam, making decisions because of emotion and not because of thinking and it makes for some fun moments in the film. His performance was a welcome surprise.
Jack Palance as John is just weirdly great. I also want to see a film with him traveling the west with a wooden hand and Marsha by his side, settling scores and smoking thin cigarettes. Palance plays him with an accent (Irish it sounds like, but I am not sure) and a very laid back line delivery that is very different and trippy. He was great and I would recommend that everyone give this film a shot for his portions alone.
This is the fourth Corbucci film I have watched on this list (and fifth overall) and I have to say that I respect his flexibility within the genre. It would be easy to make the same stylistic choices over and over again, but each one of his films have felt different enough from each other that you can see that he was making an effort to have them stand on their own. Granted, this film doesn't hew too far away from The Mercenary but its commitment to a lighter tone is what separates the two. I don't think one takes away from the other. They are good complimentary films to set side by side.
I normally try to show a scene that I feel is a good snippet of what the film is like and this one was just hard to find any thing outside of the trailer. So here is a video that someone did compiling all the kills that Neoro and Millan had over the course of Companeros. It at least shows some of the fun action sequences.
Before we get to the very end here, I do want to mention the main theme to the film. You hear it in the trailer and that above video and it starts the film off and comes back multiple times. It is fun and upbeat but I will say that I feel it was used a bit too much to let the audience know 'this is a comedy!' and it stepped on the rest of the score. The whole thing was done by Morricone and it is great but I don't know if this is one that I would come back to over and over again like some of the others I have been listening to since watching them for this list. However, I will take slightly forgettable Morricone over a lot of other scores any day of the week.
Companeros is a fun film. I will give it the slight edge over The Mercenary because I enjoy Nero's and Palance's characters more in this one. Also, it has a falcon named Marsha. That makes it better than a majority of films.
Western Checklist (nowhere near official of scientific):
- Weird gang member names? Well, there is a Penguin. So that works.
- Beautiful landscapes? Yeah, it wasn't the focal point of the film but the Italian desert is pretty.
- Any terrified horses? Yeah. That bridge explosion in the clip above looked pretty rough on the horses. Also, Marsha was probably upset when they had her wrapped in a coat at one point.
- How many Ernest Borgnines? I will give this to Jack Palance again like I did with The Mercenary.
- Any coffins or machine guns? Corbucci can't not have a coffin and a machine gun wielded by Nero in his films. They are both represented here and I dug it.
- Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? Yes, it is does and you can here it in both the trailer and other video above. I decided instead of adding it a third time that I would link to a Morricone playlist of other pieces from Companeros. Like I said, it is fine but there aren't many parts of this score I would come back to for the relisten.
Rating:
I am going to give this 3.5 our of 5 tin stars. Companeros is a fun film from beginning to end with very likable performances from Franco Nero, Thomas Milian, and Jack Palance. This is a perfect Sunday afternoon couch crashing watch. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.
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