A COFFIN FULL OF DOLLARS

Last week Encore Westerns aired an excellent print of this spaghetti western under the aka of A BARREL FULL OF DOLLARS. Jack Betts looked great and was billed on this print as Jack Betts (normally he used the aka of Hunt Powers)....but was basically in a supporting role. Even though Klaus Kinski was top-billed Jeff Cameron and Dennis Colt got most of the screen time along with Gordon Mitchell who seemed to be channeling Arthur Hunnicutt. Movie moved fast...lottsa riding and lottsa shooting and diving through the air and rolling on the ground by Cameron. Seemed each of the extras were trying to outdo each other when shot.....by twisting and turning several times while falling through the air and flailing wildly on the ground...and seeing who could roll down the hill the most times before coming to a rest. As Klaus and one of his henchmen try to escape with wads of paper money, the henchman says, "we've got enough dollars here to fill a coffin." He barely gets the words out before Kinski gut shoots him. There is a cuppla embarrassing...and sometimes unintentional funny, pieces of dialogue between Cameron and Sam the former slave. "How did they catch you, Sam." "They surprised me." Simone Blondell, who had very little to do, looked very good in her brief role. ALL IN ALL ENJOYABLE. Leone he ain't Deems he be. Something to look for: Look at the horses' feet in the opening scene when they are coming down the hill. One of the horses seems to have a problem with its right hind leg......kinda does a double step like the leg or foot is injured.

THE TENTH VICTIM

Forty-seven years after seeing it in it's initial theatrical release I finally got to revisit this futuristic action flick directed by Elio Petri on Blu-ray dvd. Bit disappointing but not that much as it still holds up today.....Petgri keeps the action moving. Stars Marcello Mastroianni and Ursala Andress, with Elsa Martinelli in a supporting role, were at the top of their careers when they made this movie. Funny how time erases things....I seemed to remember it being more violent. Maybe the lack of blood and bullet holes lessened the impact at this 2nd viewing. Spaghetti vet George Wang appears in the beginning of the movie and two spaghetti scribes Ennio Flaiano & Giorgio Salvioni (ALIVE OR PREFERABLY DEAD aka SUNDANCE CASSIDY AND BUTCH THE KID) co-wrote the script.Co-star Martinelli also appeared in a spaghetti (THE BELLE STAR STORY.) This movie is ripe for a remake.

JOHN CARTER

I just watched JOHN CARTER on Blu-ray and enjoyed it very much. The now ex-Disney people who handled the...er..should I say who mishandled the release and advertisements for this film deserved to be fired. Mistake #1 was to take Mars out of the title and mistake #2 was not placing Edgar Rice Burroughs' in front of the title. The movie was epic in scope and the tale was not preposterous like a lot of the other so-called epics that have been floating around lately. Special effects were very good and believable. Taylor Kitsch was very good as were the other leads, especially Lynn Collins. I just hate it so much when a good movie tanks and some of those other pieces of drek make millions.

THE SCARLETT WORM

Just watched TSW. Not a bad film and considering the budget.....it turned out, and looks much better, than I had expected. Acting was good overall...Dan van Husen and Brett (here using his spaghetti western monicker Montgomery Ford) Halsey were very good and and "Introducing Raymond Isenberg as Raymond Isenberg" was exceptional in his film debut. (The film needed more of this mild mannered man.) The lead played by Aaron Stielstra was credible. I thought the direction, the cinematography, the sound, the editing and the effects were very good and much better than recent other oaters, such as THE GUNDOWN, which had bigger budgets.....but less creativity(?). Everyone connected to this movie needs to be congratulated. However, one thing really bugs me to no end. This movie has the worst title of any "western" I can think of...THE SCARLET WORM! Don't tell me that this creative bunch couldn't come up with a more meaningful and better title? All in all, one of the best of the recent crop of very low budget westerns and definitely worth a look-see. I'd like to see these guys get together again with a bit larger budget and see what they would come up with.

Great new book out on Spaghetti Western participants

From James Prickette's web site: www.elcondorswest.com/book.html


Copyright © 2012 James Prickette


Spaghetti Westerns is a term tagged to the Italian film genre by fans across the world. This phenomenon era came into existence between mid 1960s to the 1970s. This new film era seemed to welcome all comers of actors. Many from in and around Europe, but also Americans came from across the big pond to join the action. Their participation would lend a more authentic feel to the films, relating to the American Old West. This revitalized genre, now coupled with colorful wide-screen action was sometimes sprinkled with maniacal violence that brought realism into a fantasy setting never seen by aficionados before.

Author James Prickette brings back the cynical morality tales of the said genre in Actors of the Spaghetti Westerns.

As a dedicated film researcher and collector, Prickette craftily compiles twenty-two of the popular actors of the Spaghetti Westerns era and charts the careers of the likes of Clint Eastwood, Klaus Kinski and Lee Van Cleef . It also scrutinizes the most popular offerings of the genre, like the Dollars trilogy to the obscure ones such as Sabata. Actors of the Spaghetti Westerns is certainly a unique and indispensable reference book delving deeper into the rowdy bunch of cult classics that invaded cinema and the world.

This is a must for all fans of the sw genre. Once you start reading it you won't put it down.

American Cinematheque goes gunning for Sergio Leone

The director's famed 'spaghetti westerns' will be on display in the retrospective 'Once Upon a Time.'


By Sari Heifetz-Stricke, Special to the Los Angeles Times
February 17, 2012

The best way to find a good guy in the westerns of directorSergio Leone is to look for a worse guy. The Italian director's penchant for blurring of the lines between heroes and villains stood in stark contrast with the clear distinctions found in traditional Hollywood westerns and helped modernize and revitalize the genre, two facts readily apparent "Once Upon a Time: The Films of Sergio Leone" at the American Cinematheque beginning Friday.

Born in Rome in 1929, Leone was the son of a film director and a silent film actress. After a brief stint in law school, the young Sergio promptly joined the family business in 1948, working as an assistant to the legendary Italian directorVittorio de Sica on his neorealist classic "Bicycle Thieves" (1948). Leone went on to work on several "sword-and-sandal" epics including "Ben-Hur," but his big break came in 1959 on the set of "The Last Days of Pompeii" when the film's director became ill on the first day of shooting and Leone took over and began developing a style that became so recognizable in his western films.

Leone adapted Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai film "Yojimbo" into "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), moving the story from medieval Japan to the American Southwest and replacing Kurosawa's wandering samurai with a nameless, gun-slinging drifter. The film helped launch the career of one of Hollywood's most enduring western icons, Clint Eastwood.

As a mysterious outlaw who came to be known as "The Man With No Name," Eastwood embodied the director's combination of extreme violence and ambiguous morality while allowing for brief moments of compassion for innocents amid a quick-handed bloodbath. Eastwood returned as a bounty hunter in Leone's sequel "For a Few Dollars More"(1965) and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966), and attendees to the upcoming retrospective will have another chance to see the classic trilogy in its full widescreen glory.

"The American Cinematheque presented its first Sergio Leone retrospective in 2003," said the Cinematheque's series programmer, Gwen Deglise. "Every few years we bring back the films of one of the great, larger-than-life personalities of cinema."

Leone's films and other low-budget westerns shot in Europe by the Italian film industry were quickly coined "spaghetti westerns," a term initially meant to deride the low-budget sub-genre, but the name was quickly embraced by fans. These films were noted for their harsh and unsentimental depiction of the American West, demythologizing the genre's old-fashioned depictions of morality and its characterization of brutal gun violence in the name of justice as redemptive.

The retrospective also features Leone's revenge tale "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968), which cast perennial good-guy Henry Fonda against type as a sadistic killer attempting to evade retribution at the hand of a young Charles Bronson. Also being shown is the director's lesser-known "Duck, You Sucker" (1971), which was also known by the title "Fistful of Dynamite" and stars Rod Steiger andJames Coburn as a pair of outlaws who are pulled into the Mexican Revolution.

In addition to their ironic and even nihilistic posture, Leone's films were known for their innovative cinematic techniques, including dramatic wide-angle shots and extreme close-ups, the use of slow motion paired with violence and the important role of music in the hands of Leone's longtime collaborator, composer Ennio Morricone. Morricone's unmistakable scores departed from the elaborate orchestral compositions of conventional Hollywood westerns, adding sound effects, human voices and electric guitar to punctuate the films' dark humor and operatic violence.

In terms of rising to prominence in the wake of working with Leone, Deglise placed the composer on equal footing with Eastwood. "[Morricone is] one of the most original, eclectically fluid soundtrack composers of the second half of the 20th century," she said.

Leone's flamboyant style and charismatic criminals leave a long legacy in their wake, and dozens of filmmakers have cited his films as an influence, including Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, John Carpenter, Robert Rodriguez and George Lucas.

"Each time [the Cinematheque presents a retrospective], a new, young audience discovers the iconic cinema of Sergio Leone," Deglise said. "This experience is made for the big screen."

'Once Upon a Time: The Films of Sergio Leone' at American Cinematheque

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, and Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica

When: Fri. and Sat., Thu. and Feb. 24

Fri., 7:30 p.m., Aero: "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964) and "For a Few Dollars More" (1965)

Sat., 7:30 p.m., Aero: "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966)

Feb. 23, 7:30 p.m., Egyptian: "Duck, You Sucker" (1971)

Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m., Egyptian: "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968)

Price: $7 to $11

Info: (323) 466-FILM; americancinematheque.com

calendar@latimes.com
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ROUL WALSH: THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF HOLLYWOOD'S LEGENDARY DIRECTOR

Finished this very entertaining and informative book on one of Hollywood's greatest directors by Marilyn Ann Moss. Book straightens out a lot of facts from fiction as Raoul was known to embellish, re-write and edit parts of his life.
He had some spaghetti western connections. He directed THE SHERIFF OF FRACTURED JAW which was one of the first westerns filmed in Spain and he directed Rik Battaglia and other sw participants such as Rosalba Neri, Folco Lolli, Sergio Fantoni, Renato Baldini and Gabriele Tinte in ESTHER AND THE KING in Rome. The great Mario Bava was Director of Photography on this film and Walsh really liked him and they got along quite well. Walsh also directed most of the battle scenes for Robert Wise's HELEN OF TROY.

Not only did Walsh direct a lot of classic films... westerns and many non-westerns (WHITE HEAT, for one, with James Cagney) but he also discovered and re-named Marion Michael Morrison...John Wayne and had him star in THE BIG TRAIL. Moss uncovered some evidence that John Ford was so pissed at Wayne working for Walsh that he had him black-balled into "C" western territory for years. Ford was vicious at Wayne many times during this period and for what-ever reasons Wayne put up with it. Walsh also put Kirk Douglas into his first western....ALONG THE GREAT DIVIDE.
Walsh over the years liked to remake his own films and the best example of this is he remade the classic Humphrey Bogart/ HIGH SIERRA as the great western COLORADO TERRITORY with Joel McCrea.

Walsh had a good relationship with Jack Warner and often, because he needed the cash (he had a weakness for horses and also was always behind in alimony) would take over troubled productions without credit, and he didn't mind doing this as long as he was well compensated. He completely took over and totally directed one film and, yet, let the novice director keep his credit. HE was a nice guy....very rare for Hollywood. He loved directing action scenes and often was called in by Jack Warner to direct them for many films. He had a unique directing style. Once he called "action" he would turn around and not watch the scene....only listening to it. If he liked the way it sounded and the camera man would say everyone hit their marks he would yell "print." Some say he developed a very keen sense of hearing to compensate for the lost of one eye. The loss of the eye cost him the lead in the first sound western as well as the directing job of IN OLD ARIZONA.

Iconic character actor L.Q. Jones is oft quoted in the book. L.Q. whose real name is Justice McQueen adopted the name of the character he played in Walsh's BATTLE CRY.....L.Q. Jones.

Good read. Walsh went from directing silent films to directing "talkies" well into the 60's when he was 77.