Apache Blood (1975)

Ray Danton
Dewitt Lee

Inventory

• Bear fighting
• Cactus calthrops
• A music box
• Rattlesnake chucking
• Wild pigs
• Biting the head off a live lizard

Summary
The movie opens with the notorious Apache war chief Yellow Shirt chasing, killing, and scalping an army courier. A narrator provides a bit of back story, which shows Yellow Shirt to have a legitimate beef with the U.S. Cavalry. The courier, we soon discover, was bringing a message to a small surveying team consisting of a Major, five troopers, and a civilian scout, telling them to return to the fort because Yellow Shirt is on the war path.

The directing, camera work, and editing are unspeakable. For some reason, this movie contains a lot of extreme closeups, occasionally of miscellaneous body parts, such as feet, and more frequently with the camera not well centered on the actor's face. These are normally reaction shots, either one of the troopers trying his best to look concerned or Yellow Shirt simply looking inscrutable. The frequent and inexplicable cuts within a scene bring to mind a seriously low-end music video.

This film actually made a respectable effort to depict the Apaches as great and mysterious warriors. None of them speak, which meant that they didn't have to fake Apache and pay for subtitles. The sad fact is that they end up looking like the least competent group of bad guys since Hogan's Heroes as the entire band is killed, one-by-one, by a nearly dead cripple. The climactic chase scene at the end could easily have been called the The World's Slowest Indian.

The movie staggers to an end three times. In the first, our hero is shot dead by a soldier a hundred yards from the safety of the fort. Not shot dead, as in Dawn of the Dead, where it was bitterly ironic, or as in Platoon, where it was allegory. This is clearly a case of the two Lee brothers, sitting around the table, trying to find an ending.

"Wait, I know. What if I shoot him just before he gets to the fort? No one will see that coming."

The movie then has a five-minute montage of the key scenes, in a slightly jumbled order. This may have been an attempt to get arty, as Sam dies, but he wasn't present for many of the scenes, so it makes no sense at all. Finally, the movie ends a third time with the camera panning slowly over a charcoal portrait of Yellow Shirt for three minutes, while someone sings a song called, "A Man Called She", which is just as bad as it sounds.

Dewitt Lee was one of the co-writers, along with his brother Jack, both of whom figure in the ridiculous ending. What's interesting is that they appear to have made exactly one more film, The Legend of Jedediah Carver, that would appear (according to IMDB) to have the exact same plot.

Ray Danton had a successful acting career that ended soon after this disaster (go figure), but not before he played Derek Flint in a television movie. He did go on to become a highly successful television director. On a personal note, Danton went to school at Carnegie Tech, as did your humble reviewer.

Since the cast and crew are all clearly American, this doesn't actually qualify as a spaghetti western, particularly as it was filmed in central Arizona. I'm including it for completeness, since it showed up on the DVD.

Dialogue
Considering that almost two-thirds of the movie has no one speaking and that less than half the cast say a single word, it's just not possible to find a single quotation that captures the dialogue in this movie.

Story

If this isn't the worst movie that I've ever seen, I must have suppressed the memories of those that were worse. Honestly, a high school drama class could have done a better job.

Music

The oddest part of this movie, which is saying a lot, is that the soundtrack is actually pretty good (excepting the completely bizarre concluding song). Ed Norton is listed as having provided original music, but considering that he only composed for three movies (and based upon "A Man Called She", I've got a good idea why), but served as sound editor for literally hundreds of television episodes, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that much of it was put together using stock music. At least Norton made a serious effort to find music that fit the action on the screen, even when the dialogue, acting, or cinematography didn't.

Acting

The best acting by far is by the spouses of the two protagonists, to whom the movie cuts at regular intervals. Neither speaks a line, but both do a nice job of wandering around the set and trying to look busy.

Trinity and Sartana (1972)

Alberto Dell'Acqua (Robert Widmark)
Harry Baird

Inventory

• An old gnome playing piano
• One saloon brawl
• A top hat with a spring
• Texas Rangers
• A lot of pink long johns
• A player piano
• A slingshot
• A Gatling gun

Summary
We have our first African-American primary character, Trinity, so called because he was born in Trinidad. This begs the question, if he had been born in Barbados, would he be called Barbie? These are the kinds of deep questions that watching very low budget movies can inspire. As is so often the tradition, he starts the movie in jail, with a sheriff who sports a hipster beard and a larcenous attitude. Before long, he runs into an old friend, Sartana, who tells Trinity that he can return to Trinidad in style with his share of one last holdup, the railroad payroll.

While Santana has a knack for offending people, Trinity makes friends easily, particularly after he repeatedly gives away their stolen loot. Along the way, they run into El Tigre, a bandit who looks like Ringo Starr. Sartana's gimmick is that he is remarkably gymnastic. Trinity spends a lot of time in his happy place. After an hour and forty-one minutes of this, I was definitely thinking about my happy place, as well.

This movie was originally shot in Techniscope at 2.33:1. Judging by the amount of cutoff in the opening credits, it was scanned at 1.85:1 at some time in the past. This causes some problems at times when conversations drift off the screen.

Dialogue
"That'll be two hundred and ten dollars."
"That's a pretty extravagent price. All I've got is a hundred eighty dollars."
"Ah, no. That won't be enough. Ahhh, am I mistaken or do you have a mule?"
"Yeah, Jonathan!"
"Jonathan. Let's make it a hundred and eighty dollars plus little Jonathan. He ain't a horse, but your ass is worth something, I guess."

Story

The intention is certainly low comedy and the violence is Three Stooges, rather than Sergio Leone. The results are incoherent and uncontaminated by continuity.

Music

The music is inoffensive, which is more than can be said about many other parts of the movie.

Acting

Ralph Zucker is listed in the credits as having performed dialogue direction and lip synchronization. Whatever he was paid was a crime. For some reason, Harry Baird, who was born in British Guiana and raised in Canada and England, is dubbed by someone with an Austrian accent. There are times when he sounds a bit like Conan the Barbadian (sorry).

Man from Nowhere (1966)

Giuliano Gemma
Fernando Sancho
Corinne Marchand

Inventory

• Exploding canteens
• Pink long johns
• A musical watch
• An on-going card game with no respect for the laws of probability
• One dead prostitute
• A drunk with a nose for money
• A Buntline Special
• Mixed martial arts

Summary
The movie begins with when Gordo Watch stages a breakout from a prison that appears to be guarded by the Foreign Legion, so that he can restaff his gang. One of the prisoners is an American named Arizona Colt. (Really. I don't make this stuff up.) Gordo is the kind of psychotic gang leader who demands real brand loyalty from his men, so Colt declines to join the merry band. As may be expected, Gordo takes the rejection to heart.

When Gordo decides to rob the bank in Blackstone Hill, we learn that Colt is pretty much equally inept as a bounty hunter, card cheat, and lover. Later, to no one's surprise, Gordo takes himself out of the running for boss of the year.

This movie has a lot of trouble deciding what it wants to be. There are sterotypical comic minor characters, but they are mixed in with Peckinpah levels of violence. There isn't really much of a plot and while Arizona Colt is clearly supposed to be a real western hero, he comes across as an oaf and a buffoon.

For some reason, a great deal of effort was made to keep track of how many bullets everyone shot and there are many scenes of characters reloading.

Last, and certainly not least, the opening credits appear to have been done by the people who did the llama credits for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Dialogue
"A couple of drinks."
"Two here." (starts to pour whiskey)
"Ah, no. Instead of that, some milk please."
"This is a bar, boy. This ain't no dairy."
"Oh. I thought it smelled like it."

Story

The movie started so badly that I worried about being able to watch the whole thing, but it got consistently better. The end was an amazing cat and mouse play in a darkened coffin-maker's barn.

Music

Okay, the opening and closing songs are pretty cheesy, but the incidental music through the movie is very well done.

Acting

Fernando Sancho wants to be Eli Wallach and Corinne Marchand desperately wants to be Claudia Cardinale. As best I can tell, Giuliano Gemma wants to be an actor. They go 0 for 3.

It Can Be Done, Amigo (1972)

Bud Spencer
Jack Palance

Inventory

• A dirt-eating lunatic
• A sheriff who serves as preacher (or vice versa)
• Dance hall girls
• One saloon brawl
• One bank brawl
• One housewarming brawl
• A deed to a miserable dump

Summary
A drifter named Hiram Coburn finds a dying man who hands Coburn an envelope and asks him to take his nephew to Westland, the next town. Coburn is pursued by Sonny Bronston, a pimp and gunfighter, who is chasing him with the intention of making Sonny's sister an honorable woman. And then, immediately after the wedding, he plans to convert her into an honorable widow. To the dismay of everyone, Westland proves to be a little different than expected, particularly when Coburn puts his glasses on.

True Grit it ain't.

The DVD appears to have been mastered from a grindhouse print that had been cross-processed and then staked out in the sun to die. The result is a remarkable mixture of high-contrast black and white with hand-painted skin tones that range from tritium green to tangerine orange. The only description that comes to mind is Randolph Scott on acid.

Palance spends the whole movie puffing on a cigarette holder. Keeping it in his mouth requires him to clench his teeth so tightly that he apparently had to redub all of his own lines. How Palance didn't die from lung cancer after this film is one of medical science's great mysteries.

On a personal note, Bud Spencer bears a remarkable resemblance to the author of this review, minus a few white hairs.

Dialogue
"Shall I put my hands up or is this okay?"
"It don't matter. It's an informal execution."

Story

This is not the usual rehash of the same tired themes. Even when you think you've got it pegged, there are a few twists to be had.

Music

The only bit about the music that is at all interesting is that the title song is sung by a childrens' choir.

Acting

Spencer does a very nice job, bearing in mind that we are talking about a spaghetti western here, but Palance really mailed this performance in.

They Call Him Cemetery (1971)

[Meta-note: In this review, the scoring system is revised and defined. As a reminder, just as there are six bullets in a fully loaded revolver, there are a potential of six bulls-eyes that can be scored in each area of the grading.]

Gianni Garko
William Berger

Inventory

• A silver camp cup
• A dead-eye granny
• Four guys skinny dipping for no apparent reason
• A bullet-sucking baby
• A pair of knife throwing sidekicks
• Two saloon brawls
• A spinning coin

Summary
Two young dudes return home after growing up in Boston. When they stand up to the collector for a local protection racket, they bring all sorts of unpleasantness down on themselves and the rest of the locals. A gunfighter who goes by the name "Ace of Hearts" rides in on a white horse and teaches them how to defend themselves, at least until an old friend of his named "Duke" rides into town.

The title of this movie changes sides as often as do the characters. On the box, it's They Call Him Cemetery, while the DVD menu has it as They Call Him Graveyard (in the movie, they actually call him "Cemetery"). IMDB lists it as A Bullet for a Stranger. The Italian title is Gli fumavano le Colt... lo chiamavano Camposanto which translates to something like The Smoking Colt Called the Cemetery. Frankly, none of these really capture the movie. I'd go with Brothers of the Gun, which works on a couple of levels.

The movie steals Lee Marvin's closing line from The Professionals. What makes the theft even more embarrassing is that they use it as a throwaway line.

Dialogue
"On your feet, you son of a dirty whore."
"Ah, did you know her?"

Story

Please note that from this point on, I'm going to grade the "Story" and not the "Plot". Let's face it, most of these movies don't really have a plot. The question is whether the story is interesting and well told.
Music

In a spaghetti western, the music is a character. Ennio Morricone set this standard and we'll live and die by it. There are three primary pieces of music that will receive special attention: the opening, which usually becomes the theme, repeated throughout the movie; the incidental music, which sets the tone of a particular theme; and the closing credit music, which you have to listen to, if you hope to get the acting credits right.
Acting

The "Acting" score will tend to focus upon the movie's leads. The depth of the cast is pretty thin in many of these movies and it's hard to fault them for that. Considering that many of the roles are dubbed, blaming the actors seems pretty cruel. On the other hand, if necessary, the quality of the dubbing will be noted, either because it falls below the usually dismal expectations or... never mind, there is no alternative. It's either as bad as you expect or worse.

Hey, Look at That!

The 2016 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards have been given out. Head over to check out all of the animals that don't grace the covers of National Geographic.

Johnny Yuma (1966)

Cast

• Mark Damon
• Rosalba Neri

Inventory

• Card cheating
• A saloon brawl
• Two bathtubs
• A stereotypical comic sidekick
• An urchin who never forgets a favor
• A gratuitous swap of a gun belt that leads to confusion
• A branding iron
• A wall safe hidden behind the Stargate ring

Summary

Rosalba Neri plays a scheming wife who sends her husband to an early grave. This should allow her to inherit the ranch, except for the inconvenience of a nephew to whom everything has been bequeathed. Mark Damon is Johnny Yuma, a gunslinger with a George Hamilton tan, a Southern California accent, and a collection of shirts in primary colors. In between him and his fortune is his aunt's slimy brother and a gunfighter who honest enough to stay bought, sort of.

Mark Damon, who had a long career as an actor, had a much longer career as a producer, so he must have learned something along the way. We'll assume that this movie fell into the category of learning from a bad example.

Update

Mark Damon is a lot more impressive than this film would ever lead you to believe. I had done a quick glance at his IMDB page, but I hadn't checked out his producing credits until I discovered that he is the producer for The Ledge. He has been producer or executive producer of the following movies (among many others):  Monster, Bat*21, The Lost Boys, Flight of the Navigator, Short Circuit, 9½ Weeks, Clan of the Cave Bear, The Neverending Story, and Das Boot. While I won't claim that these were all great art, there are some big budget movies in this mix.

Dialogue

"Sorry, but one needs to be careful about who dies, you know. Seems to me you're new around these parts. You just can't imagine how many false cadavers we have around here. We buried at least six Jesse James within a year."

Plot

This movie was directed without any of those fancy Hollywood special effects, including, unfortunately, a screenplay. If a thousand monkeys were to pound on a thousand keyboards for a thousand years, this would have been the result of the first twenty minutes.

Music

The title song marries third-rate surf rock, bad singing, and lyrics like, "Johnny Yuma don't go, Johnny Yuma stay here. What do you think that you'll find beyond the mountains?" The rest of the music is thankfully unmemorable.

Acting

Grand Duel (1974)

Cast

• Lee Van Cleef
• Peter O'Brien (Alberto Dentice)
• Jess Hahn

Inventory

• A town run by a band of smarmy brothers, including an effete smallpox scarred sadist
• Revenge for murdered fathers
• Bounty hunters
• A dynamited stage coach
• A belt-fed machine gun massacre of peasants
• A hidden lode of silver
• A brothel
• A one-eyed bartender

Summary

A sufficiently twisty plot is interrupted by a few quick action sequences. Continuity is a bit weak, and there are a few loose threads left at the end. Okay, there are a couple of genuine hawsers that are left hanging.

Alberto Dentice plays Philip Wermeer, who is an escaped murdered. Lee Van Cleef is Marshall Clayton, who is hunting him (or is he?). Dentice must not have had much in the way of English skills, because this is his only credit on IMDB, despite his good looks and passable acting. Van Cleef plays his usual role as the man with the mysterious past. One other notable is the lovely Dominique Darel, who's short life included a role in Andy Warhol's Dracula.

Dialogue

"Dear, you could have everything. A beautiful life, a family. What does it take to make you say yes to me?"
"Easy. Just ten dollars, like everyone else."

Plot

Music

Acting

Spaghetti Western Reviews

In order to keep me blogging about something, I'm going to post reviews of spaghetti westerns.

Yes, I have a weakness for these, and I recently acquired Mill Creek Entertainment's collection of forty-four pasta specials. Don't expect brilliant reviews, as I've never done this before, but I'll try to keep them brief and entertaining. There may be spoilers, but I'm not particularly worried about that; for one, these movies are three to five decades old, and for another, they're horse operas, not Citizen Kane.

In addition to the key actors, I'll include a brief summary, a sample of the dialogue, and I'll grade the movie on plot, acting, and the music. Grades are on a scale of one to six bullets.