The Mountie (2011): The Gritty Remake of Dudley Do-Right We've All BeenWaiting For

Synopsis: Wade Grayling (Andrew Walker) is a disgraced Mountie. A former opium addict who shot an innocent while 'chasing the dragon', he is sent to the Yukon Territory for a surveying mission as punishment. While there, he stumbles across a burgeoning trade in the harvest of poppies being run by Lithianian immigrants and tries to single handedly bring law to the frontier. 

Review: I have to admit that I watched this Western (And, yes, it is a Western, America doesn't get dibs) merely because of the novelty of the Mountie main character.  As the only other depictions I had to go off of were Brenden Fraiser in Dudley Do-Right and his cartoon predecessor, it's not like I had such a wonderful example of the lawmen who supposedly "always get their man."  To a degree, The Mountie changes this perception, amd  with a few minor tweaks. It could have been quite the wonderful film. 

Unfortunatly. Andrew Walker channels Clint Eastwood almost all the way through the film, and wile I'm sure it is impressive that a Canadian Mountie in the past can do a vocal impression of a future American star, it took something away from what could have been a very unique character. Some moments, namely anything with the villainous Lithuanians, were quite good giving a flavor and character that was both historically accurate and compelling. The weakest moments came from the standard love storyline sandwiched into an already crowded plot. Running under ninety minutes, The Mountie (a.k.a. The Way of the West or The Lawman) is a welcome diversion that doesn't quite get it's man, but it does come close. 

Final Note: There was no syrup or pouting in this movie.So, if it wasn't for The Mountie, I wouldn't know it was Canada. 

Rating: 6.5/10

Ride the High Country (1962) Peckinpah Takes the High Road

Synopsis: Aging ex-lawman Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) is hired to transport a shipment of gold across dangerous territory, and he enlists old friend Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott) and his apprentice Ron Starr (Heck Longtree) to help. Little does he know that Gil and Ron are plotting to steal the gold from the start.

Review: Ride the High Country was a movie of firsts and lasts. It was the first film of Sam Peckinpah’s to gain acclaim (making some dub him the “new John Ford”) and many say his first classic film (I haven't seen The Deadly Companions (1961) so I can’t say.) It was also the last film of Western star Randolph Scott who retired after saying it was his best work. Joel McCray also intended High Country to be his last film as well, but he was lured back to make four more pictures with his career finally culminating in 1976’s Mustang Country. Both do strong work, and the supporting cast is also well rounded, the youthful love story doesn’t seem intrusive, and small roles from actors such as a Warren Oates make the film.

While the film making shows little of the visual grit that Peckinpah would bring to the genre, the style is highly in the mode of Ford, the thematic grit is already apparent. The themes of honor and loyalty among men, death, and justice all appear here as themes that the director would continue to explore throughout his career. The climatic shoot out (No spoilers there, this is a Western, you were expecting a climatic game of Faro, maybe?) does house some of the kind of action notes expected of Sam later in his career. In the most stunning and historically accurate moment, Scott charges the bad guys, guns blazing, passing though a cloud of black powder smoke as he rides forward, an elegant and perfect moment.

Final Note: Charlton Heston, who starred in Peckinpah’s Major Dundee, attempted to get a remake of Ride the High Country off the ground in the 1980s. His hand picked co-star, Clint Eastwood.

Rating: 8.5

Ten Wanted Men (1955): The Eleventh Guy is So Relieved

Synopsis: Saloon owner Wick Campbell (Richard Boone) is fed up with John Stewart (Randolph Scott) trying to bring law and order to their Western town. When Campbell’s ward Maria (Donna Martell), now the object of his sexual obsession, seeks refuge with Stewart’s handsome nephew, Campbell hires ten bloodthirsty gunman to wage war on the Stewarts and their allies.

Review: After watching Ride the High Country, I realized I had never seen any of the Westerns of Randolph Scott or Joel McCrae. I decided to dip my toe into Scott’s catalog with this title. Ten Wanted Men was an enjoyable film that kept the action moving at a good pace for its ninety minute runtime, but, if it weren't for Boone’s lecherous performance and a few other touches, I didn't feel like this one was anything that special. Scott wasn't that charismatic, and the script was easily plotted with little surprise in store for the viewer.

Lee Van Cleef and Dennis Weaver both show up in small roles, and Denver Pyle is supposedly in there if you can find him (I couldn’t). The high points really come up whenever Boone is being a creep or his chief henchman, played by Leo Gordon, is giving him a hard time for being unlucky with the ladies. Gordon also provides an interesting touch as his gunman sports gladiator style wristbands with his Western garb, a touch I had not seen done before.

Final Note: Jocelyn Brando, who plays Scott’s love interest, is the older sister of Marlon Brando, and was five years his senior. She passed away one year after her younger brother.

Rating: 5.5/10

The Virginian (1946) McCrae is for Western Lovers.

Synopsis: When new schoolteacher Molly Wood (Barbara Britton) arrives in the small Western town of Medicine Bow, she meets two friends and cowhands who both have romantic notions about her, the charming Steve (Sonny Tufts) and the mysterious Virginian (Joel McCrea). However, there is a cattle war on and Steve starts to take up with the conniving Trampus (Brian Donlevy) who the Virginian believes is behind the spate of rustling. As Molly begins to fall for the Virginian, she is confronted with the realities of law and order on the range.

Review: The Virginian, based on a 1902 book by Owen Lister hailed as the first Western novel, is one of the most remade properties in all of film history. Starting in 1914 with a version by Cecil B. Demille, it has been followed by versions in 1929 (starring Gary Cooper), in 2000 (with Bill Pullman), and even 2014 (with country star Trace Atkins). I was interested in the 1946 film because of my recent viewing of Ride the High Country which starred McCrae and fellow Western legend Randolph Scott. Having no context for McCrae, I wanted to go back and see what stock his classic material came from.

My first impressions of McCrae and The Virginian were that it was going to be a standard horse opera with overtones of romantic comedy. I was quite surprised when the tale descended into betrayal, the brutality of Western justice, and revenge. While there was a constant romantic thread throughout between McCrae and Britton’s school teacher, The Virginian took on a much harder edge, and McCrae was able to convey both the lighter moments and the dramatic twists with relative ease. He had a charm and affability that was quite dynamic when opposed to the mustache twirling evil of Brian Donlevy’s evil rancher.

There were also quite an impressive number of cattle driving scenes, and in one moment, a rustled band of cattle is diverted downstream to cover their tracks. While it is certainly clever on the villain’s part, what impressed me was the footage of dozens of cows treading water down a fairly fast rushing river, a scene today that would only be accomplished through use of computer trickery for fear of animal rights groups. I’m not saying I disagree, but it is an impressive sight. It was an enjoyable movie, but in the end, it left little impression apart from McCrae’s capability.

Final Note: Director Stuart Gilmore would leave directing behind and spent most of his career as am editor working of films such as The Andromeda Strain, Toys in the Attic, and Sweet Charity.

Rating: 6.5/10

Why (WESTERNS) Matter by Todd Cauley of The Gentlemen's Blog to Midnite Cinema

First off, I would like to wish a very happy fifth anniversary to the LBL, and raise a glass to Master Kelley for his dedication, his talent, and his exquisite taste in choosing guest writers (tee hee hee).  Salute!

Great cinema is a dialogue between the viewer and the viewed (indeed, this relationship exists in all creative media).  Genre cinema uses its specific trappings as a sort of shorthand in this dialogue (think of it like the difference between having to drive somewhere on the highway and having to drive somewhere but knowing a shortcut).  If this dialogue is about life, and love, and death, as great storytelling typically is, then a Genre must have malleability.  This is why we get what we offhandedly refer to as “generic” trappings.  Thus, we have the Final Girl of the Horror genre, the Dystopian Future of the Science Fiction genre, and the Big Duel of the Western genre.  The trappings are (mostly) genre-specific, and it’s their aesthetic appeal to a particular audience that makes them effective.  They are already amenable to thinking about bigger ideas, because they have been (or are being) entertained.

So, then, why the Western?

Exit Humanity (2011) Stage Left, Even

I think many of us can agree that the zombie is getting a bit played out on movie screens these days. Second only to vampires, these mindless shamblers seem to pop up incessantly both on the big screen and, even more frequently, the direct to video market. So when I was looking for a zombie themed movie to talk about today, I waded through a lot of silly dreck. As if fighting vampires wasn’t enough, a knockoff company has our 16th president going up against the undead in a low budget release, another film features stoners using zombie brains to fertilize pot, and still another pits bloodsuckers against vampires to fight for the fate of mankind (which I don’t see working out either way that battle goes.) Despite the fact that the name of this film gave me a chance to make a Snagglepuss joke in my title, there’s little to nothing funny about the 2011 release Exit Humanity. Instead it is a sobering zombie film which tackles real issues, contains actual moments of suspense, made a period setting seem natural, and, get this, did it all on a low, low budget. While Exit Humanity might sound like all hope is lost, instead the film gave me hope of light at the end of the zombie tunnel.

Big Money Rustlas (2010) F***king Westerns, How Do They Work?

Historically I love a Western, but also historically (and yes historians have written about it because it is so vast), I can't stand Insane Clown Posse. You might ask why that is, and there are so many good reasons. First and foremost, as a fan of rap and hip hop in general, I have to say that their music is horrid. Lacking any real skills on the mic, they make up for it with so called "shocking" lyrics full of violence, misogyny, and general stupidity. I should point out that these are the guys who wondered in their 2010 song ”Miracles" how magnets worked, but couldn't muster up the wits to find out. Then there's the fact that these are grown men in their 40s wearing black and white clown makeup without a sense of irony. I know lots of people have clown issues, but the only Psycho Clown that will get me creeped out is Shivers the Clown. So I will never be convinced that Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J are hard mofos. Instead, I will assume they they are opportunistic entrepreneurs who somehow stumbled on a crazy rapping clown angle and made that work for them, and not just for a while, ICP have been doing their thing since 1989.

Blood Trail (1997): Bloody Trails to You, 'Til We Meet Again

The history of America's expansion into the West is a tale that can't be told without a certain amount of blood. The sands of the West ran red with the life force of both native and settlers, and the sanguine soaked history has lead to the Western genre of films being one of the most violent. That's what always makes me think the Western would really be interesting with some Horror infused into it. Somewhere between the jangle of spurs, there should be room for zombies. slashers, ghosts, and maybe even a vampire or two. Today's feature, an under-appreciated indie film coming out of Texas, is perhaps the best example of the two genre's gettin' hitched. Combining a slasher sensibility with a  supernatural story and a cast that looks (and acts) like the supporting cast of Tombstone, Barry Tubb's Blood Trail blazes a new path for Six Gun terror, and it even brought along a pair of Texas singer-songwriter legends for good measure. So, saddle up, folks, as National Blood Donation takes up Horace Greeley's sage advice and heads toward the setting sun and into the Weird, Weird West.

Vincent Price in More Dead Than Alive (1969)

This month would have been the 100th birthday of Vincent Price, and over the past three years there’s been a number or Price movies covered on the Lair both by myself and in Fran Goria’s feature For the Love of Price. Throughout his lengthy career, Price starred in all kind of films playing everything from the romantic lead to the dastardly villain. One role I always appreciate him in is that of the eccentric supporting character, and that is exactly the part he fills in today’s film, More Dead than Alive. With a title like that, and the fact that it stars Vincent Price, it would be easy to assume this film would be an entry into the zombie subgenre, but that couldn't be further from the truth. This 1969 film, released between Price’s Poe adaptations Witchfinder General and The Oblong Box, is one of only a few Westerns in which Vincent appeared. Much like his offbeat Sam Fuller Western, The Baron of Arizona, More Dead than Alive is a tale of the Wild West that doesn't neatly fit into the normal, standard genre format.

Clint Walker (TV’s Cheyenne) stars as Cain or more specifically “Killer” Cain. Amassing twelve notches on his gun by the time he was eighteen, Cain spent the next eighteen years in jail paying for his crimes. He became a model prisoner, and by the time he was released, the warden believed him to be fully rehabilitated. Unfortunately, there’s little opportunity for an infamous ex-con to get a job in the West, and he soon falls into the only job he knows, shooting. This time however, he’s not a gun for hire. Instead, he does trick shots in Dan Ruffalo’s Shooting Show. Still haunted by his past everywhere he travels, Cain can’t be with the woman he loves (Forbidden Planet’s Anne Francis), is hounded by his Shooting Show co-star Billy Valance (Paul Hampton), and constantly has to look over his shoulder knowing that the past is due to catch up with him when he least expects it.

More Dead than Alive starts off with a song that I can only infer is supposed to make the viewer equate the biblically named Cain’s struggle with that of Jesus. Try as I might to figure out how to balance out the story of a 12 time killer with a chill carpenter who did killer magic tricks, I came up empty handed. That’s not to say that More Dead than Alive doesn't have a lot of ambitious things going on under the hood. The redemptive tale is told not in a white hat/black hat kind of way, and Cain never seems flippant about his murderous past. In place if clear but heroes and villains, the film is chock full of people who have real reactions and emotions no matter if we’re talking deep regret (Cain), self centered avarice (Price’s Buffalo), or pained, misguided envy (Hampton’s young gunslinger Billy). The film itself looks like a standard studio Western of the late ’60s (save for some really spot on, modern looking editing looking throughout by John F. Scheyer), but the symbolic ideas it contains from the pen of Escape 2000 and Futureworld scribe George Schenck far outweigh it’s simple presentation.

I’m going to talk a bit in a moment about all the leads, but of course the reason we’re here today is because of the presence of Vincent Price. While the whole film is solid, whenever Price shows up as the huckster Dan Ruffelo, he adds a special larger than life flavor to the character. No matter is he is doing his carnival barker bit, scheming over how to make money, or telling the sniveling Billy Valance to keep in line, Price does what he does best. He makes the most of every single second of screen time and plays the part to the hilt. This is one of the million reasons that I love Mr. Price. If you looked at his role on paper, Ruffalo might seem like a thankless part that did little more than connect a few of arcs in the story. As Price plays him, Ruffalo becomes a pivotal person in Cain’s life. He is the catalyst to everything that comes from our repentant hero.

While Price steals away nearly all his scenes, it’s quite a struggle when he’s playing opposite star Clint Walker. Walker, who made his name as a TV cowboy, is an impressive figure standing at a barrel chested six foot six inches tall, and while he strikes a commanding presence, he also has the chops to carry the film o his broad shoulders. Emotional resonance is something that I doubt Mr. Walker thought too much about, his hardened, stoic performance as Cain is perfectly suited for a character filled with repressed guilt. Ann Francis appears as the love of Cain’s life, but she doesn’t show up in more than twenty minutes of the film’s total hour forty running time. Their romance is quite sweet, but I found her character, a single woman living on the frontier as a painter, to be the least genuine and interesting. While everyone from Cain to Billy to Ruffalo had turmoil and issues, Francis’ Monica Alton was the most well adjusted among them. The least adjusted on the other hand would be Paul Hampton’s Billy Valance. While I never thought Hampton was so young to be underage as the film implies, he definitely mined an immaturity of character that made him a despicable foil for Cain.

More Dead than Alive contains some big ideas, some inspired performances, and the one and only Vincent Price, but what it doesn’t contain is much happening. When Westerns get mixed up with philosophy in movies like Fulci’s Four of the Apocalypse, Eastwood’s Pale Rider, or Jarmusch’s Dead Man, there’s a delicate balance that needs to be struck between waxing poetic and whacking bad guys. More Dead than Alive falls on the short side of the action spectrum. With only a handful of shootings, no sex, and very little violence, I’m still a bit puzzled as to how the film garnered an ‘R’ rating, but never the less; this is where the flick really falls apart. If it were not of the actors making their characters so watchable and interesting, I’m not sure I would have made it through the film. The only other thing holding More Dead than Alive back is the ending. I don’t want to say much more, but it contradicted so much of what I had just sat watching for almost two hours.

That brings up to the end of our first new Price review for the month. Look out of a few more, and don’t forget to look back into the archives for many, many more.

Bugg Rating

Thanksgiving with Alejandro: El Topo (1970)

Hello and welcome back to the second course of Thanksgiving with Alejandro. Today we will be feasting on his second film, El Topo. Now last week I had a spot of trouble getting through the artsy and vaguely pretentious film Fando y Lis, but this week I had no such trouble. I had long heard of El Topo’s reputation as one of the seminal midnight movies, but as so many things go, I figured it wouldn’t live up to everything I had heard about it. I was dead wrong. I spent two hours being enthralled visually, having a few laughs, and yes, still scratching my head a bit. It is kind of a wonder that El Topo ever even made it to a cult circuit. Had not Ben Barenholtz booked the film at midnight in his theater The Elgan, John Lennon wouldn’t have seen it there, and Beatles manager Alan Klein wouldn’t have ever distributed the film across the country. With only a few minor things happening differently, I might not even be talking about Alejandro today. The fact that El Topo did reach its audience, well, if that’s not something to give thanks for, I don’t know what is.

The film begins with the gunfighter El Topo (Alejandro Jowderowky) and his son (Brontis Jowderowky) traveling across a desert where they find a whole town brutally massacred by the corneal and his band of outlaws. After tracking down the perpetrators, El Topo leaves his son in the care of a band of monks and convinced by Mara (Maria Lorinzio), the coronal’s former slave girl, He sets out on a mission to defeat the four greatest gunfighters and become the best. He accomplishes his task only to be betrayed by Mara and a mysterious woman in black (Paula Romo). A group of deformed people living underground who nurse him back to health takes in the wounded gunslinger. When he awakes, he forsakes his old life promising to deliver his benefactors to the surface even if it means degrading himself before the cultish townsfolk that live above.

Getting right to the heart of the matter, there is a very easy reason that El Topo worked for me better than Fando y Lis, despite all the arty, symbolic scripting and visuals, El Topo does have a narrative thread. Taking cues from both classic Westerns and Spaghetti Westerns, Sam Peckinpah’s ultraviolet shooters, Fellini’s art house, and   El Topo is the freakiest of the “acid” Westerns (a sub-genre that also contains movies like Four of the Apocalypse and Zachariah), but one portion of the film which is either overlooked or dismissed is the humor. There is both biting satire (generally of religious or conservative groups) as well as some downright absurdity. To me it brought to mind everything from Chaplin’s sly political comments to Monty Python’s zaniness (the Pythons were the favorite of another Beatle, George Harrison). As often as I was shocked, disturbed, enthralled, and confused, I found myself smiling and laughing at the film’s sharp humor.

The film is rife with symbolism, and it leaves itself open to a wide array of interpretations. However, I think that El Topo could suffer greatly from overanalyzing. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar or as Roger Ebert so expertly summed up, “If you have to ask what something symbolizes, it doesn't.” Jowderowky definitely had something to say about religion, politics, and once again gender politics, but I think it is way too easy to get caught up in overhanging the minutia and miss out on the larger themes in the film. It would also leave precious little time to enjoy how stunning El Topo looks. Rafael Corkidi, who also shot the similarly beautiful Fando y Lis, worked with Jowderowky to create a world both inspired by the Western genre and still part of the art world. Similarly, the soundtrack by Alejandro and Nacho Mendez contained a definite nod to Morricone and traditional “Western” music with a twist thrown in. I also could not think that El Topo’s flute playing as being similar to the Harmonica’s eponymous instrument in Once Upon a Time in the West.

As if penning the script, directing the film, and writing the music wasn’t enough, Alejandro does a fabulous job in the lead role of El Topo with my only gripe being the sudden and jarring change in appearance of the character. Perhaps I was focusing too much on some other portion of the film, but it did leave me momentarily confused. Maria Lorinzio and one time actress Paula Romo both deliver great performances that were more expansive than women in Jowderowky’s first film were though their roles suffer from his unsavory characterization of women. The real stars of the film were the people who had only a few lines. From the armless man with a legless man strapped to his back to the scoundrel Corneal to the hordes of townsfolk, El Topo is packed to the gills with fantastic small character performances. Each of the gunfighters he meets (Martinez, Gurrola, and Fosado) also provide excellent performances in some of the strangest and most symbolically interesting moments in the film.

Overall, I didn’t just end up liking El Topo. It has quickly become a film I intend to watch many times in the future. Balancing the artistic flourishes with a conventional narrative and, let’s face it, gunfights, makes the film move along at an entertaining clip. At the end of El Topo, unlike many other art house films, I didn’t feel stupid because the film was as much Sergio Corbucci as Stan Brakhage. Well, that about wraps it up for the second (and slightly delayed) entry into Thanksgiving with Alejandro. I will be back in just two short days with my next review, the 1973 film The Holy Mountain.

Bugg Rating 

Who the F@&k is Vernon Zimmerman?: Hex (1973)

If you only ever see one post World War I, supernatural, Western biker horror film that features Gary Busey getting his face eaten off by an owl, then you should definitely make it Hex (1973) [a.k.a The Shrieking and Charms]. Welcome to the penultimate installment of ‘Who the F@&k is Vernon Zimmerman?’ In the last couple of weeks I took a look at Zimmerman’s meta slasher Fade to Black and one of his writing gigs Bobbi Jo and the Outlaw starring a young Lynda Carter. Today I have another one of his screenplays, one he wrote in conjunction with the film’s director Leo Garen who would go on to write Band of the Hand (1986), Doran Cannon the writer of Otto Priminger’s 1968 film Skidoo (famously mentioned in Devil’s Rejects for featuring Graucho Marx as God), and first time writer Stephen Katz. The four cooks in the kitchen probably explains the uneven tone and madcap scenes that show up in Hex, but I can just about guarantee that it is unlike any other film out there.

The film opens on two sisters, the demure, flighty blonde Acacia (Hilary Thompson) and the raven haired, stone faced Oriole (Cristina Raines), as they make their lives in the barren west of South Dakota. Their quiet lives are disrupted when a group of bikers on World War I era bikes ride into their lives. The bikers lead by Whizzer (Keith Carradine) are on the run from an angry mob they left in the last town and on their way to California. The sisters reluctantly allow the fugitives into their farm where they have dinner and smoke the sister’s sacred wild herbs. That night one of the bikers, Giblets (Gary Busey), tries to rape Acacia, and things go downhill from there. Soon anyone who crosses the sisters comes to a grisly end, and no one knows to what extent Oriole might take her dark rituals to protect her sister.

From that synopsis, Hex may sound like a rather dark affair, and in a way, it is. At the core of the film is a Gothic style horror tale, but it is surrounded by wacky motorcycle antics and trippy scenes of drug use. Now I’m only going to defend Hex to a point. While it might be entirely different from anything that I’ve ever seen, it doesn’t always act like a cohesive unit. It never got boring, but the fact that I couldn’t predict at all what might happen one scene to the next didn’t leave me on the edge of my seat. Instead I was more pushed back in the cushions wondering what was going on in the minds of Zimmerman, Garen, and the other writers when they came up with Hex. So while I was plenty entertained, I wished the film could have a more consistently dark tone throughout.

What first attracted me to this film was the cast, and that was before I saw Gary Busey whacked by an owl. The chance to see if Busey always acted like Busey (he did) was the first thing to catch my eye, but looking deeper and seeing Keith Carradine and Scott Glenn were involved as well sealed the deal. Carradine brings to the screen all the charm that he would later bring to films like Nashville, and comes across as an interesting character though you just want to slap him each time he stays at the farm after one of his friends dies. Glenn is less of a force with a limited amount of scenes in the film, but still puts in a solid performance. Aside from the appearance of these three stars, Hex also contains appearances by Dan Haggerty (Grizzly Adams), Doria Cook (The Parallax View, The Swarm), and Robert Walker Jr. (Easy Rider, Beware!The Blob), The real stars are the two sisters, and both Thompson and Raines give their roles interesting facets. Raines has the choice role as the stony mystic wielding dark magic, but she needed to bring her performance up from the level of mere monotone delivery to really sell her evil streak.

This was the only film that Leo Garen would direct, and I would have actually liked to see what he might have done with a second feature. Hex had plenty of promise, but there was only so much that the fine group of actors could do with such a scattered, uneven film. What’s interesting to see for me was Zimmerman being involved in a film that sort of combined moments of both Fade to Black and Bobbie Jo. I’ve long thought that the Western setting is ripe for horror tales, and the desolate Dakota Territory is a perfect setting. The problem is that Hex just can’t be happy being merely a horror film. It definitely is a curiosity that fans of cult films will probably enjoy watching, but it’s not one that you need to run out and try to find. Yet if you ever have anyone tell you that they’ve seen every kind of film there is, then Hex is a great one to bring out and blow their mind.

Bugg Rating 

There's no trailer available, but instead I'm leaving a video of Gary on VH1's Celebrity Paranormal Project doing what he does best, saying some crazy ass shit.

Keoma (1976): Life, Death, and Freedom in Castellari’s West

To the casual movie nerd, the name Enzo Castellari will bring up his film Inglorious Bastards and the accompanying Tarantino “remake”. To Italian film buffs, his name will bring up post-apocalyptic films like 1990: Bronx Warriors or Euro-crime films such as The Big Racket and Street Law. What I don’t see talked about nearly enough are his Westerns. In the beginning of his career he made several entries into the Spaghetti Western genre including Any Gun Can Play and Kill Them All and Come Back Alone. In the late ‘70’s, he returned to the genre with a pair of films starring Franco Nero, Cipolla Colt (1976) and Keoma. Made at the end of the Italian Western craze, Keoma was an experimental film for Castellari, and he has stated that it is his favorite.

When Keoma (Franco Nero) returns home from fighting the Civil War, he finds that a diabolical rancher named Caldwell (Donald O’Brian) has taken over the town. A plague has also hit the area, and Caldwell will not even allow the town doctor to get supplies to help the people. Instead, the rancher’s gunmen round up anyone suspected of having the disease and place them in a camp to die. Keoma comes across the gunman hauling a pregnant woman (Olga Karlatos) to the camp and rescues her from their clutches. This pits the half-Indian gunfighter against Caldwell and his whole gang including his three half brothers. With help from his father (William Berger) and a banjo playing farmhand (Woody Strode), Keoma will try to protect the pregnant woman and free the town while the specter of death stays close at hand.

The inspiration for Keoma is clearly Ingmar Bergman’s classic film The Seventh Seal though Castellari’s film takes great liberty with the storyline. Keoma replaces the errant knight who travels across plague ravaged countryside, and instead of a game of chess with death, the gunfighter is followed by an old woman who personifies the end of life. The script had several writers working on it including actor/writer George Eastman who turned in the original version of the script. Castellari wasn’t completely pleased with Eastman’s version, and along with writers Nico Ducci and Mino Roli, Castellari re-wrote the script each night for the next days filming. Remarkably, Keoma doesn’t feel piecemeal at all with a fully realized vision and theme. The film is a mediation on the preciousness of life, the inevitability of death, and the gift of freedom.

All of the characters are trying to be free in one way or another. Woody Strode’s George is now a free man thanks to the end of the Civil War, but he has become a drunk saying that he no longer had anything to look forward to. Keoma’s three brothers are seeking freedom from the shadow of their father who was a legendary gunman. The town doctor wants to care for his patients and save them from the deadly plague but doesn‘t have the freedom to do so. The pregnant woman, Lisa, wants to be free to bring her child into this world. Keoma himself is free from everything except the lingering presence of death, but he seeks to free the town from Caldwell. Not for his own personal gain or for glory, but rather because it is the right thing to do. None of this is expressly stated in the film, but it comes though in the performances and script without the need for opaque symbolism or murky exposition. Incidentally, the name Keoma means “far away” in Cherokee though it has been misinterpreted as meaning freedom.

Mentioning the performances brings me around to talking about one of my favorite actors, Franco Nero. Nero is no stranger to the genre having starred in Django and several other Westerns, but with his long hair and grizzled beard, he cuts a very different figure than I have seen him portray in the past. Nero, who also lent his voice to the English dubbing, gives a perfect performance that is the rock that the film is built upon. Woody Strode, who many may know from Once Upon a Time in the West, also turns in a solid performance that is heart wrenching. All three of the actors who played Keoma’s half brothers, Joshua Sinclair, Antonio Marsina, and Orso Maria Guerrini, make for good foils to the liberal thinking of their sibling, but Guerrini whose curly hair and mustache made him look like the Italian version of a young Donald Southerland. The lovely Olga Karlatos, who later appeared in Fulci’s Zombi 2 and Murder Rock, has little screen time as the pregnant widow in distress, but she does good work in a minor role.

When people criticize the film it is often because of the narrative soundtrack written by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis. Acting as a Greek chorus between the scenes, the songs do give some exposition of the inner feelings of the characters and move the plot along. Many viewers may find it distracting and perhaps laughable, but for me, it worked. It may not be the best score the De Angelis brothers worked on, but they took a chance that paid off to this viewer. One thing that I haven’t seen anyone downplay is the use of slow motion in the film. Clearly inspired by similar scenes in Sam Peckinpah’s films, Castellari ups the ante with a myriad of slow motion gun battles that really sell the violence in Keoma without going over the top. The director and cinematographer Aiace Parolin also captured some great John Ford-esque panoramic shots that transformed the hills of Italy into the American West.

I wasn’t expecting much when I decided to watch Keoma, but not only was I pleasantly surprised the film now sits on my shortlist of best Spaghetti Westerns of all time. From the meaningful storyline to the pulse pounding action sequences, Keoma delivers on all fronts. Some have called Enzo Castellari the greatest of the Italian action film directors, but he is surely capable of more than post-apocalyptic punks and loose cannon cops. If Keoma is any indication of the Westerns that he directed, you can be assured that this won’t be the last time you’ll see one on the Lair. So if you are a fan of tough guys with six shooters and willing to look a little deeper than the surface action, then Keoma is a film that you should definitely see.

Bugg Rating

Quick Draw: Find a Place to Die (1968)

Heya, folks. In an effort to review some films that I want to watch but might not deserve/ need the full treatment, I’m introducing a new category on the Lair, Quick Draw. These pocket reviews will pop up here and there when I have time between feature films. I hope you enjoy them and check out some of the films I talk about in brief. In honor of the title of this segment, I thought I should start with a Western so I chose 1968’s Joe... cercati un posto per morire! or as it is known in English Find a Place to Die.

The plot is pretty simplistic. A geologist and his wife Lisa (Pascale Petit) strike it rich at a gold mine, but they are attacked by bandits who want to steal their bounty. The geologist fends them off with dynamite but causes a rockslide that pins him under some rubble. He sends Lisa off to the nearest town to find help where she encounters the washed up military man Joe Collins (Jeffery Hunter). With the promise of a thousand dollars, Lisa convinces him to come to her husband’s aid. Joe assembles a group including a gun runner, a suspiciously dangerous priest, and a big bruiser to come along. Time is working against them as well as the deadly bandit Chato (Mario Dardanelli) who would love to get his hands on the gold as the group takes off through the desert to save the trapped man.

Find a Place to Die has a bevy of interesting characters, but as they are trapped in a mundane story, there is little for them to do. From early on in the film, you can practically predict all the twists and turns that are to come, but the film does stay entertaining throughout thanks to the inspired performances. Star Jeffery Hunter was best known for co-starring with John Wayne in The Searchers and from being the first Captain of the Enterprise in Star Trek's pilot The Cage. He was very charismatic as Joe and made for a solid Western hero, but his career never really reached the heights it should have due to his addiction to alcohol. Only a year later Hunter would pass away due to a fall he took while recovering from a stroke.

Director Giulano Carimeo definitely was not doing his best work here (that would probably be his single entry into the giallo genre The Case of the Bloody Iris), but the film is solid enough to be entertaining. I wouldn’t go as far as to recommend it to anyone just getting into Spaghetti Westerns. Find a Place to Die is more of a film for the hardcore fan or completists, but those folks will find something to like here even though it surely doesn’t reach the heights of the genre’s classics. Plus what other movie would you find a gun toting priest, a hooker who sings the title song, and an unsettling close relationship between a big bruiser and his feminine acting pal? Like I said, Find a Place to Die has interesting characters, but it can’t summon up much for them to do.

Bugg Rating

The Burrowers (2008): How the West Was Killed

Anyone who has been a long time reader of The Lair could probably tell you that I’m a big fan of Westerns and Horror films, but my one look at a combination of the two genres, 1996’s Fort Doom, was a barely above average outing. So when I heard tell of another hybrid, 2008’s The Burrowers, I knew I had to check it out. It’s only taken me a year since its DVD release to get around to it. Partially, I was hesitant to see another melding of the two genres, but it was also my quick read through of the synopsis that sounded like 3:10 to Yuma crossed with Tremors that gave me pause. Today it finally made its way to the top of my Netflix queue, and so with some degree of trepidation, I sat down to check it out.

The film opens on the plains of the Dakota Territories in 1879. In the night, a group of settlers are abducted from their home, and even though the evidence doesn’t seem to point to an attack from one of the native tribes of Indians, the posse that is formed to track down their abductors can come up with no other explanation. The posse, including an Irishman named Coffey (Karl Geary), a freed slave named Walnut (Sean Patrick Thomas), Indian fighter John Clay (Clancy Brown), and U.S. Cavalryman Henry Victor (Doug Hutchison), set out to discover the family’s fate. Along the way, their numbers continue to dwindle as more of them are lost into the night. Through an Indian maiden that they capture, they finally learn of a species called the burrowers that inhabits this area. They capture their victims, drug them, and bury them alive only to come back and devour their victims as the body decomposes. Coffey learns that the only tribe that knows how to combat the menace is the Utes, but the means to the beasts’ destruction may not be any kinder than the terror they already cause.

While on the surface The Burrowers may seem like a "monster in the dark" film wrapped up in the dusty dressings of a Western film, the themes it displays are much deeper than a casual glance might belie. The creatures have begun attacking humans because the buffalos that were their natural prey have been cleared from the plains by the settlers, and though the film never beats you over the head with it, the revenge of nature against the denigration of the ecology is definitely important to the film. The Burrowers also takes some time to speak on the brutality of the U.S. Cavalry during western expansion. The leader of the troops, Henry Victor, will take no other explanation for the deaths other than blaming the Native Americans. He is shown torturing and killing the Indians without any thought or remorse at all, and more than once in the film the characters could have saved themselves if they had only taken time to listen to the natives instead of shooting at them. It’s also very interesting that the main characters of the film become the Irishman Coffey and the freed slave Walnut. At this time in history, they were probably the most marginalized groups outside of the natives, and throughout The Burrowers proves itself a tale of the outsiders and the unseen.

All the acting is very strong in the film, and I could not criticize any single performance too harshly. One or two of the younger actors are not all that great, but they have little screen time overall. Karl Geary really impressed me as Coffey. I haven’t seen Geary since I looked at the movie Najda a year or so ago when I was writing an article on various Renfields on film for BthroughZ. I had a hard time getting a fix on him in that film, but that wasn’t the case with The Burrowers. Geary is the grounding character throughout the film, but it is very interesting how the director narrows his focus to him after so much of the film being an ensemble piece. In the earlier portions of the film, if I had to guess, I would have thought that Clancy Brown’s John Clay would end up being the star of the main arc. Brown is solid as usual, and I could have used even more of him in the film. Doug Hutchinson, who plays the despicable military man Henry James, was unrecognizable from his X-Files episodes where he played Eugene Tooms, but that didn’t make him any less of a complete creep. The last performance I have to mention is Walnut as played by Sean Patrick Thomas. Thomas has been a long time face on the genre scene due to his performances in films like Halloween: Resurrection and Dracula: 2000, but I barely recall him from those films. That won’t be a problem with The Burrowers as he turns in a sensitive compelling portrait of a freed slave trying to make his way in the world.

Director J.T. Petty, whose previous credits include 2001’s Soft for Digging, S&Man (2006), and Blood Red Earth (2008), culled the film The Burrowers from a seven-part mini-series of the same title released on the internet in 2007. Many of the same cast members that were involved in the serialized version of the story signed on again for the film version, and this is where it gains much of its strength. The actors knew the characters, the director knew the material, and all that was left was to execute it on a bigger scale. The cinematography by Phil Parmet, who carried the same title on both Rob Zombie’s Halloween and The Devil’s Rejects, combines the traditional look of the Western film and its wide-open spaces with the claustrophobia of those same settings when night sets in. It gives the film a sense of mystery that is greatly needed as the audience stays steadily ahead of the characters throughout the film. Wisely, Petty keeps the creatures under wraps for a good portion of the film revealing them little by little which adds to the suspense and allows for some shocking moments late in the film.

I’ve always felt like the Western genre was ripe for a combination with horror, and it makes me very happy to see that someone else finally agreed with me. The Burrowers really hit all the marks I was looking for, defied cliché, and remained pacey and interesting throughout. If you’re like me and like your Westerns a little weird, your horror intense and a bit gross, and your films exciting from start to finish, then The Burrowers is one that you want to keep on your radar. Just don’t watch it before you go camping. I just can’t see that working out for you.

Bugg Rating

You Don't Know Shat! - White Comanche (1968)

Hello folks, and welcome to the 2nd annual edition of You Don’t Know Shat, a month long celebration of William Shatner to coincide with the legendary actor’s birthday. Mr. Shatner will be turning 79 this year, and with a career that spans 191 screen credits and nearly sixty years, there’s no shortage of material to check out. Last year, I looked at some of my favorite films from Shatner, the arachnid attacks epic Kingdom of the Spiders, the paintball doc Spplatt Attack, Pray for The Wildcats where he rumbles with Andy Griffith, and my favorite Trek film The Undiscovered Country. This year I’m tuning my attention to films that I’ve never seen before, and each one should prove to be a fascinating trip into his lengthy career.

For the first installment, I chose the 1968 Spanish Western White Comanche [Comanche blanco] also known as Rio Hondo or Hour of Vengance. Shatner was on hiatus between the second and third seasons of Star Trek when he traveled to Spain to join Joseph Cotton in making this picture. Pulling double duty, he stars as both Johnny Moon and his brother Notah, a ruthless Comanche leader. Notah, under the influence of peyote, believes that he is the savior of his tribe sent to lead them in a final conflict with the white man. The first step is leading an army against the sleepy western town of Rio Hondo, a town already divided by rival gangs of gunrunners. Inevitably the brothers must face off, and Johnny Moon alone must stand against his brother.

When Shatner went to Spain to film White Comanche, it must have seemed like a pretty good idea. After all, Clint Eastwood’s star was on the rise because of his Westerns with Sergio Leone. Unfortunately for Shatner, Spanish director Jose Briz Mendez only had eight film credits to his name, and none of them had made any mark outside of Spain. (Mendez would only have one other film dubbed into English, the 1968 action film Devil’s Angel.) The film was made on an extremely limited budget, most of which probably went to hire Shatner and Cotton, and the low production values are clearly evident on the screen. Don’t expect sweeping shots or even basic coverage, and certainly don’t expect a masterfully acted or directed film. What you should expect is a campy good time that far exceeded my expectations though not as a Western but rather an unintentionally comic masterpiece.

Shatner doesn’t take his performance as far over the top as you might expect. He’s actually quite charismatic in that early Kirk kind of way as Johnny Moon. Now when he’s playing Notah, it was time to paint his face, doff his shirt, and get down to the business of hamming it up. I have to say that Notah, even though he’s the leader of the rebel band of Indians, doesn’t bother to grow his hair out or even look dirty like the rest of his crew. I guess it would have been a worse choice to plop a wig on Shatner’s dome, and it would have ruined the mistaken identity sub-plot when Johnny Moon rides into Rio Hondo. The final fight between Shatner and Shatner is something that has to be seen to be believed, and even after seeing it, I’m not sure I have recovered from the awesomeness.

As far as the other performers go, Joseph Cotton picked up quite a few checks by appearing in foreign made films, and this is definitely one of them. Cotton strikes a very lean classic look as Rio Hondo’s resident Sheriff (and got top billing for his efforts) and provides the kind of solid performance that one would expect from a veteran actor. Also making an appearance is Italian actress Rosanna Yanni as the requisite love interest for Johnny Moon. Yanni, who starred in Paul Naschy’s films The Mark of the Wolfman and Dracula’s Great Love, has little to do in the film but looks beautiful doing it. The strange thing about her character is how quickly she goes from being raped by Notah to falling into the arms of his twin brother. Either this girl has some serious issues or no one bothered to think that through.

Speaking of serious issues, the script was written by Frank Gruber and Robert Holt (along with uncredited Spanish writer Manuel Gomez Rivera and director Mendez, and it has the haphazard feeling of a film with too many hands on it. Plotlines are drawn in and dropped at a whim, and the sub-plot about the rival gangs in Rio Hondo seems like no more than filler. While Shatner’s action sequences showcase the best of his Star Trek fighting skills, the massive shootouts in the film are clashes between gunman who the viewer probably won’t care about or even know what their motivation was. While the script has problems with convoluted plot and inane dialog, what really brings this film down is the sets to these filler shootouts that never go anywhere.

Jose Briz Mendez had his shot at the US with White Comanche, and it is easy to see why it didn’t go over for him. Even though Shatner’s star was on the rise, even his fame couldn’t pull this film out of the mire. His presence buoyed film considerably, and it was interesting to see Shatner take on the role while he was taking a break from Kirk. It’s not the best film, but I have to agree with the Razzie’s film guide that named White Comanche one of the most enjoyable bad movies to watch. If you like Euro-westerns from the period or, like me, the acting stylings of William Shatner, then this is a film that you should check out. Just realize that you’re not going to see one of the classics of the genre, but you are going to see William Shatner throw down against William Shatner.

Bugg Rating