Kid Vengeance (1977)

Cast

• Lee Van Cleef
• Jim Brown
• John Marley
• Glynnis O'Connor

Inventory

• A snake
• A scorpion
• Two toes
• Four utterly inept brothers
• Two hundred pounds of gold
• A lot of dynamite

Summary

Okay, almost before the credits even begin, we know that this will be a winner. It's a Golan-Globus production, and for those of us of a certain age, the words Golan-Globus at the start of a movie let us know that 1) the script was unlikely to have cost more than $10,000 to buy off of whatever desperate screenwriter happened to walk into the office that day, and 2) for the most part, there was no reason to worry about excessive production values getting in the way of a trashy action flick. Now, admittedly the cousins would, in their later years, get into arty films that had cinematic merit, but this movie holds a special pride of place, as it is the FIRST Golan-Globus movie, which makes it the sui generis of an entire art form.

If that were not enough, this is a matzoh western, having been filmed in Israel, of all places. The concept of a mid-eastern western is rather metaphysical, in a number of ways.

We're not disappointed, because after a bucolic family scene, we move to town, where we meet Lee Van Cleef as an aging hippy. Jim Brown soon shows up as a prospector who struck it rich in the hills. Needless to say, this attracts the attention of the wrong kind of folk.

Van Cleef and his band soon shows up at the camp site of the bucolic family, where they engage in some old fashioned rape, pillage, and murder. This is all witnessed by the young son. When one of the bandits stays behind to loot the dead, the boy beats him to death with a shovel.

As the boy's sister is accidentally taken by the bandits while she hides in the wagon, the boy begins to wreak his revenge in a creative, if unlikely, commando operation. His actions are significantly aided by the general incompetence of the bandits, who seem destined for duty as the bad guys in a future Delta Force or Death Wish movie.

If nothing else, this movie does examine the idea that even bandits return home after a hard day of work to a quiet little bedroom community.

The title on the film is Vendetta. Kid Vengeance does have that grindhouse tone to it, though.

Apropos of nothing, it's amazing how little two hundred pounds of gold weighs.

Dialogue

"Don't step on the duck!"

Story

With a name like Kid Vengeance what do you expect? It's a revenge movie. There are a few twists thrown in, as well as some genuinely funny lines, but it is not the kind of movie where you're going to sit around with your friends and and debate what the filmmaker really meant.

Music

Decent music, by an Italian, of course. They saved money by using as little as possible of it.

Acting

What's remarkable is how much Lee Van Cleef looks like a balding, bearded Dennis Hopper. James Brown was one of the greatest football players of all time. He ran like the wind. From what I've read, he's intelligent and a gentleman, but in the name of all that is sacred, he couldn't act to save his life. Something clearly went wrong with Glynnis O'Connor's lines, because she's very badly dubbed.