Spaghetti Westerns (10 page)

French star Trintignant is perfect as the mute avenger, Silence, wrapped up against the cruel winter and armed with a rapid-firing Mauser machine-pistol, with detachable shoulder stock – a flashy variation of Django’s machinegun. Pistilli is equally effective as the jumpy, thumbless justice of the peace, a nasty racist who was responsible for Silence’s silence. Vonetta McGee’s touching portrayal adds depth to the hopeless love affair that develops during Silence’s convalescence. But it is Kinski, as the villainous bounty hunter Loco, who walks away with the movie. His shrouded face looks like a horror-movie grotesque, as he seeks out his prey, stalking in a winter wonderland. It is his best Western performance and one of the finest of his career, his more critically acclaimed work for Werner Herzog included. He guns down starving outlaws with barely concealed relish and then packs their bodies in ice to be transported on the roof of the stagecoach. By chance, Loco (called Tigrero or ‘The Tiger’ in the Italian version) and Silence begin the film sharing a stagecoach ride to Snow Hill and, though the conversation is a little one-sided, it sets the central antagonism up perfectly, as the coach winds its way through the beautiful snowscape (filmed at Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy).

The violent action sequences are amongst the best Corbucci staged. But the horror of the flashback (where Silence as a boy has his throat slit) and the moment when Pollicut has his thumb shot off contrast well with the unusual explicitness of Silence and Pauline’s love for one another, the most impressive depiction of love in a Corbucci Western. The director’s powerful imagery – including blood dripping on the snow from corpses’ wounds, the rag-clothed scythe-carrying outlaws (who haunt the hills and feast on dead horses), a man drowned in a frozen lake (plunging through the ice to his death) and Silence’s long, silent scream when his hands are scorched on open coals – propels this film from the relative cheapness of Corbucci’s previous efforts,
Django
and
Navajo
Joe
, and into Leone’s league. And the nihilistic finale lives long in the memory – a moment when a man has to do what a man has to do, over and above love, the odds and all reasonable logic.

Though not especially influential within the genre as a whole (a few other films picked up on the snowbound locale), it is the most influential Spaghetti (outside of the
Dollars
films) with regard to Clint Eastwood’s career back in American Westerns. Ideas, props and whole scenes appear unchanged in Hang
’
Em High
(1967),
Joe Kidd
(1972) and
Unforgiven
(1992), films that were often praised for their originality. Such is Corbucci’s hidden legacy.

Silence was golden at the European box office, but, like
Django
, the film wasn’t released in Britain or the US – the ending was too pessimistic for their audiences’ sensibilities. That is
The Big
Silence
’s power – a kick in the teeth, when other directors gave their fans a reassuring lift. But which technique is most effective? Snow contest.

In Clifton City, orphan Scott Mary is victimised by the townspeople. When ageing outlaw Frank Talby rides into town, Scott sees the opportunity to break free from their oppression and teams up with the gunman, who educates him as a shootist. Talby, recently released from jail, meets with his old partner Wild Jack, who owes him the takings from their last robbery in Abilene. Jack says he doesn’t have the loot as he was double-crossed by his associates, who were all respectable men from Clifton – the judge, the saloon-keeper, the banker and an army officer. Now they have the cash. Talby kills Jack and returns with Scott to Clifton to exact his revenge. They blackmail the various dignitaries and set themselves up as rich, influential men. But as Talby goes power-crazy, Scott comes into conflict with his only friend in town, Murph an ex-sheriff with a score to settle with Talby. Eventually Scott faces Talby, after Talby has killed Murph in cold blood. In a showdown, Scott defeats Talby and his cronies using the lessons that Talby once taught him.

A formula Van Cleef vehicle with all the necessary ingredients – Van Cleef rides into town, gets double-crossed, gets nasty and gets his revenge, with the added twist that he gets killed for his trouble. While Clint Eastwood returned to the States to pursue a career in his native land, Van Cleef became the number-one star of Spaghetti Westerns on the continent. For his fifth he was yet again involved in a film that drew heavily on the plot and characters of
For a Few
Dollars More
(his Italian debut in 1965). Van Cleef reprised his role of an ageing gunman hooked up with a younger sidekick (this time Giuliano Gemma), except that now their relationship was that of master gunman and protégé. As in
Death Rides a Horse
(1967), Van Cleef and his partner find themselves against a bunch of outlaws now deemed honest citizens as a result of their crimes, but, in a slight plot twist, Van Cleef sets about blackmailing them into submission. Unfortunately, as each man outlives his usefulness, Van Cleef kills him, until he is the town tyrant, forcing a confrontation with his young partner.

Gemma’s characterisation of Scott, the orphan (reduced in the film’s opening to collecting barrels of shit from the local businesses, in a primitive form of effluent recycling), adds a new dimension to the action. He is ostensibly a good guy who, under Talby’s guidance, becomes a lethal hired gun. Throughout the film, Talby teaches Scott a series of lessons (the ‘rules of the game’), before turning him loose against the town he hates. By the end, Scott’s conscience tells him to side with his elderly guardian Murph – an honourable man. This conflict between good and evil is the centre of the film.

Day of Anger
was directed by Valerii, who began as assistant to Leone on the first two
Dollars
films. He then directed an excellent bounty hunter Western,
For the Taste of Killing
(1966), which reused sets and ideas from Leone’s
For a Few Dollars More
– a trend that continued with
Day of Anger
. The score by Riz Ortolani is a jangly, jazzy workout that bears little resemblance to Morricone’s scores, while the performances (especially Gemma and Al Mulock from
The
Good
,
the Bad and the Ugly
) are pretty convincing.

If possible, see the uncut 110-minute version (issued on DVD by Wild East Productions), as the video releases (as
Days of Wrath
and
Gunlaw
) are missing 20 minutes of footage, including much violence and character development. This abridged version looks like an excuse for Van Cleef to mow down the population of a town, while the full version tells you why.

A bitter range war between the Rogers and Caine clans culminates in the Rogers’ lynching Ben Caine for stealing gold from them. Seeking revenge, Ben’s wife Maria hires left-handed gun Manuel to kill her husband’s murderers when Ben’s brothers, Thomas and Eli, won’t help. Manuel infiltrates the Rogers ranch and kidnaps Pa Rogers’ daughter Diana, taking her to his ghost town hideaway. Maria bargains with the Rogers and forces them to give Ben a proper funeral in town, with the Rogers as chief mourners, but, in the meantime, the Caine brothers have savagely assaulted Diana. The Rogers capture Thomas and Eli and try to convince them to return Diana, but Manuel won’t budge: he shoots Thomas, then Eli is executed by the Rogers in town. Manuel returns Diana to the Rogers’ ranch, but it’s too late. The Rogers have killed Maria and wait at the ghost town for Manuel. In a shootout, Manuel kills Pa Rogers and his three sons, but Diana arrives and takes revenge on Manuel, gunning down the now unarmed man in the street.

Cemetery Without Crosses
(also called
A Rope
,
a Colt
) is, like
The
Big Silence
, a French-Italian co-production, this time directed by and starring Robert Hossein, who is excellent in the role of Manuel. An indolent, cool professional, who lives in the ruined saloon of a long-abandoned ghost town, Manuel dons one black glove before each gunfight to fire his pistol, like Jack Palance in
Shane
(1953). Michele Mercier, as widow Maria, equals Vonetta McGee in
Silence
, another woman who is forced to hire a gunman to avenge her husband – here Maria is in love with Manuel and the two plan to leave together before the tragic dénouement. The film was shot from January to March 1968, on location in the sierras and deserts of Almeria, so familiar from Leone’s Westerns – ‘The land where the rope and the colt are king’, as the title song has it. The film’s dusty costuming and authentic wooden interior sets look to have influenced Leone’s
Once
Upon a Time in the West
, shot in Almeria shortly after. A strong cast includes stuntman Benito Stefanelli as Maria’s husband Ben, Serge Marquand as villainous Larry Rogers (he was equally good in Ferroni’s
Wanted
and Corbucci’s
The Specialists
[1969]), Lee Burton as Thomas Caine, Michel Lemoine as his brother Eli, Pierre Collet as an ineffectual sheriff, and a host of Leone and Corbucci supporting players in small roles: Stefanelli, Lorenzo Robledo and Luigi Ciavarro went on to appear in
Once Upon a Time
.

Cemetery Without Crosses
also benefits from a great score by Hossein’s brother André and a groovy theme song, ‘A Rope and a Colt’ (complete with ‘doo-wah, doo-wah’ backing singers), voiced by Scott Walker of Walker Brothers fame. The .45 single of this was backed by Hossein’s ‘Concerto Pour Guitar’ (heavily influenced by the ‘Adagio’ from Rodrigo’s ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’). The film’s scenario (co-written by future horror-film director Dario Argento) is meticulously plotted, the terse script not wasting a word, as Manuel puts his plan into operation and sets about destroying the Rogers clan from within. In this respect, the film is almost an existential Spaghetti Western, the melancholy, emotional atmosphere riven with a grim inevitability, as it creeps towards its bleak conclusion – an atmosphere it shares with the best of sixties French cinema, especially
Le Samouraï
(1967).

For many years
Cemetery Without Crosses
has been a difficult-to-find gem, often ignored, but its availability in English on DVD now cements its importance as a major Western. It ends with a dedication from Hossein to his friend Sergio Leone, and the film stands as one of the finest, most powerful, examples of the genre. This cemetery may have no crosses, but has a lot more to offer besides.

In the desolate American South-west, Frank, a gunman in the pay of crippled railroad tycoon Morton, massacres the McBain family in a bid to secure the land they own, which will enable Morton’s railway to continue towards the Pacific. But, soon afterwards, McBain’s new bride Jill arrives from New Orleans and tries to discover who killed her husband. The crime is blamed on an outlaw named Cheyenne, who pleads his innocence. Meanwhile, a mysterious harmonica-playing gunman appears on the scene and protects Jill from further attempts on her life by Frank’s ruffians. Recurring flashbacks reveal that Harmonica has a vendetta to settle with Frank. Eventually Jill is captured by Frank and is forced to auction her land, but Harmonica intervenes and buys the land, using Cheyenne’s bounty as payment. Morton, realising that Frank is starting to usurp his position, buys off Frank’s men and turns them against their boss. Frank survives and, discovering Morton dying as a result of an attack by Cheyenne’s men, goes gunning for Harmonica. As the rail gangs arrive at Jill’s ranch, Frank faces Harmonica and discovers that, years before, he killed Harmonica’s brother. The avenger kills Frank and rides away with Cheyenne’s body (the latter having been mortally wounded in the encounter with Morton’s men), leaving Jill to look after the railroad workers at the ranch that will soon become a station.

The Good
,
the Bad and the Ugly
is Leone’s most popular, action-packed Spaghetti Western, but
Once Upon a Time in the West
is the critics’ choice. With this film, Leone broke away from the
Dollars
films and attempted to make an authentically epic Western. Instead of reinventing the West as action cinema, Leone appropriated and adapted key moments from the genre and recycled them into the last word on the death of the West. It was a method that his contemporaries Duccio Tessari (with his
Ringo
films) and Sergio Sollima (with his political Westerns) had already used, but such nuances in their work had been largely overlooked. These directors deployed various Hollywood clichés (the drunken sheriff, the crooked railroad tycoon, the Eastern dude, the square-jawed good guy, his swooning girl) and blended them into something new, with great box-office success. Leone and Sergio Donati took a similar approach. The original story was written by Leone and two young men soon to be famous directors – Bernardo Bertolucci (
The
Conformist
[1970] and
Last Tango in Paris
[1972]) and Dario Argento (
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
[1970] and
Suspiria
[1977]). But their convoluted screenplay was pruned by Sergio Donati, who had already had much success with Sollima’s thought-provoking Spaghettis
The Big Gundown
and
Face to Face
. Leone’s film became a tribute to the Western itself, with the plot, the incidents and the characters taken wholesale from the landmarks of the genre. The plot of the railroad trying to get land to build on was as old as the hills, the revenge motif of ‘you killed my brother’ was equally hackneyed and the characters were similarly familiar.