Keoma (1976)

Cast

• Franco Nero
• William Berger
• Olga Karlatos
• Orso Maria Guerrini
• Gabriella Giacobbe
• Antonio Marsina
• Joshua Sinclair
• Woody Strode

Inventory

• A banging door
• Two wagon loads of plague victims
• A smoke-filled saloon, noticeably devoid of smokers
• A banjo with three strings
• Pissing on a man's boot
• A hair-raising experience
• A crucifixion
• Birth and death
• Four bullets

Summary

We begin in a battle-blasted town, in which one grizzled crone is picking through the debris. She hides when our hero rides into town, but confronts him when she recognizes him. From the bitter, bile-laden conversation it is apparent that the two know each other from way back. How far back becomes clear when he looks around at the chaos and says, "I thought you could change destiny."

In a surprisingly nice cut, she turns and the camera follows her gaze to an Indian encampment, where the bodies are piled high and the tee-pees are all aflame. "I changed destiny when I decided that you alone would survive that useless massacre." A little boy is seen running though the encampment, shouting, "Mommy! Mommy!" We see an attractive young Indian woman lying dead on the ground, just as a gentlemen wearing fancy duds rides into the camp and looks around, apparently in dismay. The camera then pans back to the crone, in the battered town.

We meet the evil henchmen as they haul a load of plague victims off to a mine. As the wagon pauses for some unnecessary conversation between the henchmen, one of the plagued turns to a beautiful woman and tells her not to touch him, so that she doesn't catch the disease and pass it on to their unborn child. He then tries to provide her an opportunity to escape by taking off himself, which leads to everyone else in the cart breaking for the hills as well, except for the woman. Of course, all are shot dead in their tracks. One of the henchmen decides that it's too much trouble to bring one victim to the mine and is about to put a bullet in her when he suddenly discovers a knife sticking out of his arm, thrown by Keoma from a hilltop a good fifty yards away. After trading a load of buckshot for a henchman's horse, he takes the woman to the local town.

Here we discover that everything went bad when the henchmen arrived, along with someone named Caldwell, who bought the mine and whatever parts of the town that he wanted. Strangely, the plague broke out at about that time. About this time, Keoma sees a banjo-picking black man, played by the always wonderful Woody Strode, who we quickly learn was George, a mentor to the young Keoma, although now that he has been emancipated, he's moved on from being noble and talented to being a drunk.

We briefly meet Caldwell, but before we can get anything out of him, a series a random flashbacks, mixed with present=day conversation, cues us in on the fact that the dude who showed up at the Indian camp was the father of the young Keamo. We also learn that three of Caldwell's men are Keoma's half-brothers and that their mutual father was the fastest gun in the West

While Keoma is having a pleasant chat with his father, the henchmen show up at the saloon and drag off the pregnant woman. As Keoma goes to rescue her from the mine, he meets the crone (who has been wandering around for the whole movie, dragging a cart) and she tells him that it's no use; he cannot save her.

As crones go, she's not particularly prescient, as Keoma does rescue the woman and, at the same time, confronts his half-brothers. Between this scene and the flashbacks, it's pretty clear that holiday dinners in this family are filled with awkward moments. After Keamo publicly thrashes his brothers, Caldwell berates them and says that he'll do things his way, which means taking his whole band of henchmen into town to roust the place looking for Keoma and the pregnant woman.

After the town doctor and George bring back medicine to save the townspeople, Caldwell gathers his gang to take care of the problem once and for all. At this point, it's worth observing that despite the fairly consistent attrition, his gang manages to grow larger every time they ride into town. Clearly, the man has Hedley Lamarr doing his recruiting for him.

The result is a tremendous shootout that includes some genuinely excellent stunt work, particularly on horseback. It also features Woody Strode with a bow, which, if you have to ask, you ain't never gonna know.

Since the three brothers fell out with Caldwell, they're counting on him and Keoma killing each other, so that they can step in as strongmen. When Keoma foils their scheme by surviving, the inevitable ending involves the four brothers working out a lot of pent-up aggression. Again, I'll note that crone really gets around.

Amazingly, a sequel, Keoma Rises, has been made and is scheduled for release in 2017. Franco Nero will once more play Keoma and  Enzo Castellari will direct again. Presumably, they have found another crone.

The actor who plays the youngest brother, Joshua Sinclair, is a medical doctor, specializing in rare tropical diseases. He's worked in India and Africa. He also has two Ph.Ds in Theology and has received commendations from the United Nations for his work against Apartheid. To provide an income, he's also been a highly successful author, actor, and director. In his spare time, he's a professor of Filmmaking and Biblical Anthropology at the London School of Economics and New York University. Go figure.

Dialogue

"He can't die. And you why? Because he's free and a man who is free never dies."

Story

Okay, the plot is pretty much the same one that has been used for half the westerns between Randolph Scott and Silverado. I'm pretty sure that it can be traced back a couple of millennia further, as well. So what? It's the execution that counts and this movie manages to throw in enough plot to fill a whole season of most television programs. It even manages to include a bit of supernatural creepiness with the crone.

Frankly, I was a bit surprised at how well the whole thing held together. The only thing holding it back from the legendary sixth bulls-eye is a certain lack of tension. Once the plot gets moving, there's a certain inevitability about it.

Music

Imagine Kate Bush channeling Grace Slick. Now imagine her singing lyrics that basically are an outline of the plot (just in case you weren't following along). She sings the opening theme and the first half of the movie. In the second half, she's joined by Tommy Chong, also reading from a summary of the script, except in a different key and about three-quarters of a note flat. He alternates solos and duets with her until she handles the closing credits on her own.

I've heard some really, really bad music in these movies, but this is truly spectacular.

Acting

With the exception of Franco Nero, the acting is actually pretty good. Most of the leads appear to speak English and to have delivered their own lines. In Nero's case, that was probably a mistake. He doesn't sound remotely like his father or brothers. In fact, he doesn't sound like anyone else in the movie.

Although it doesn't actually qualify as acting, it is necessary to point out that Keoma is the hairiest Native American since the first men walked across the Bering Straits. Serious, this dude makes Grizzly Adams look like he'd been bikini waxed.