Overlooked Films: DJANGO (1966)

In keeping with my Italian frame of mind (did I mention I'm 25% Italian?), here's a great Spaghetti Western. This is the original  Django film, and still the best I've seen.

Overlooked Films: LIght the Fuse ... Sartana is Coming! (1970)

Hey, I don’t know much about Spaghetti westerns, but I know what I like, and I DO like this Sartana character. This particular entry in the series wasn’t too bad, either, but left me thinking there are probably better ones.

Light the Fuse … Sartana is Coming! Opens with three scumbags in badges getting their jollies by pistolwhipping - and then killing - the town judge. In rides a man in black, who they mistake for a preacher. And it’s a rather big mistake. He blasts all three and totes their bodies away on a horse. Why? It’s his subtle way of gaining entry - as a prisoner - to a prison where a sometime friend is being held. This sometime friend, you see, is suspected of having made off with half a million in gold, and the loot is still missing.

The rest of the film is about Sartana and a flock of less-admirable villains hunting for the gold. As Sartana, Gianni Garko looks like a cross between Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. And he’s fond of James Bond (or James West) tricks like a blowgun hidden in the heel of his shoe, or a pipe organ that doubles as a cannon/machine gun.

The movie’s plot is overly complicated, and - aside from Sartana - there are at least four factions hunting the gold. Two of those factions have large crews of gunmen, so Mr. S uses the time-honored tactic of pitting them against each other, while he sits by to pick off the survivors.

On the plus side, there are plenty of good shootouts and an astronomical body count. There’s even a brief homage to The Three Stooges: At a poker table, one player says, “I see you. I see you.” Another gives him Moe’s trademark two-finger poke in the eyes and says, “You won’t anymore.”

Near as I can tell, Garko was the first actor to assume the Sartana role, and returned at least three times, this being the last. The series was popular enough to spawn a dozen or so ripoff sequels. Garko also made one flick as Django, and appeared in a whole lot of other mostly-Italian productions. Just for variety, he also once had a guest shot on Space: 1999.

More Forgotten Flicks at Sweet Freedom.

Overlooked Films: A Few Dollars for Django (1966)

Until last week, the only Django movie I’d seen was the original with Franco Nero. This one, known variously in the U.S. as Some Dollars for Django, Django: A Bullet for You and A Few Dollars for Django, is nowhere near as good. But the original set the bar so high that lesser films like this can still provide plenty of entertainment.

And that’s what it did - entertain me. And it wasted no time getting started. In the first seen our hero rides into a two-bit town wearing a Man With No Name hat and serape. When a gang of villains challenges him, he promptly kills them all. Then he tosses what appears to be a stick of dynamite into the tavern, so the head villain will come out an get shot. That done, he picks up the stick of “dynamite,” which is only a candle, and lights his cigarette. This guy has style.

Luckily, the opening scene’s dead guys were only a small part of the gang that robbed the Miners Association, so the Association big wigs send our hero, a bounty killer named Regan (he’s never called Django) to Montana to kill the rest of them. And eventually, of course, he does.

In the process, he rides into the middle of a typical ranchers vs. farmers range war, where he impersonates a sheriff and gets cozy with the fresh-from-back-East daughter of a gunfighter-turned-farmer. Yeah, there’s a little bit of a plot here, but don’t worry. It never gets in the way of the killing.

Regan’s identity is eventually exposed by his “calling card,” his habit of shooting bad guys smack in the center of the forehead.

The dubbing, as is usually the case with these flicks, is sometimes good and sometimes horrible. The guy dubbing Regan (Anthony Steffan) sounds like he’s doing a bad Stewart Whitman impression. And the guy doing his Gabby Hayes-like deputy cackles like a lunatic.

The film’s chief drawback is it’s lack of grit. The town and all it’s inhabitants, good and bad, look clean and wholesome enough for an episode of Bonanza. Everybody’s clothes look brand new. Even the nastiest villains look like they’ve just shaved and brushed their teeth.

Near as I can tell, Steffen (a Brazilian by birth) went on to appear in at least three more films with Django in the title, and one each in the Ringo and Sabata franchises, along with many other miscellaneous oaters.

I wouldn’t mind seeing them, but I’m sure hoping they have more grit.

More Overlooked Flicks at Sweet Freedom.