Yankee

Yankee

Genre: Spaghetti Western

Director: Tinto Brass

Year: 1966

A man referred to only as "Yankee" rides into a dying, desolate town in frontier New Mexico which is completely controlled by a man called the "Grande Concho." Almost immediately, a battle for dominance ensues.

This, like many other Spaghetti Westerns released in 1966, owes a great deal to Sergio Leone's first two spaghetti's, A Fistful Of Dollars & For A Few Dollars More. From its simple plot to its anti-hero, Yankee never strays far from what was then a successful formula.

Here the notorious Italian director Tinto Brass delivered his one & only Spaghetti Western which unfortunately is a very much floored attempt. As far as direction goes Tinto's use of visuals are pretty impressive with his quick flashy edits, unusual camera angles & close ups. He certainly showed he had the eye to present a visually enjoyable western.

Despite Tinto's noble attempt, where Yankee fails most is its cast. French actor Philippe Leroy plays the part of our anti-hero. His character, which is clearly in the style of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name simply doesn't work. Leroy is unfortunately miscast & lacks the charisma needed to pull off this type of character, he's also not helped by the clunky dialogue he has to unconvincingly deliver throughout. 

The rest of the cast is also very forgettable except for Adolfo Celi, best known to the world as the villain, Largo, from the mid 60s Bond flick, Thunderball. Celi is also recognisable to fans of Italian cult cinema from films such as Danger: Diabolik & The Italian Connection. Here he plays the films villain, Grande Concho, a man who has taken over a small town in New Mexico & is obsessed with fire. Yankee kills a bunch of Concho's bandits & abducts his girl to which Concho responds by setting the town on alight & murdering the sheriff, telling the townspeople that they will die one by one unless they deliver yankee to him. It's the films best performance & Celi handles this larger than life, hellbent bandit with a huge ego to boot, perfectly.

The film plays out in a mildly entertaining way but unfortunately remains largely forgettable. Nothing stands out here from the other bucket load of early Leone inspired westerns. Tinto Brass disowned the film due to outside interference from the producers so you have to wonder how much of the films mediocrity came from the producers wanting another Dollars inspired picture. For that reason It is a real shame that Brass never made another western as I feel with his creative visual flair, a decent script, and a strong cast he'd of been more than capable of delivering a great Spaghetti. Unfortunately, this remains his one and only attempt at the genre & is one which is probably better best forgotten. 

Rating: ★★½

Hatchet for the Honeymoon

Hatchet for the Honeymoon

Genre: Giallo, Horror, Thriller, Psychological Horror

Original title: Il rosso segno della follia

AKA: Blood Brides / Red Wedding Night / The Red Mark of Madnes

Director: Mario Bava

Year: 1970

A bridal design shop owner kills various young brides-to-be in an attempt to unlock a repressed childhood trauma that's causing him to commit murder.

I was underwhelmed with this Mario Bava picture. For a giallo it's different as there is no real Who-Done-It, instead we spend the film with the character of John (an unconvincing Stephen Forsyth) as we see him struggle with his own sanity more and more as the film progresses, killing off women along the way. This kind of thing has been done brilliantly in films such as Psycho, Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer & Maniac, where the writers choose present us with more of a character study, whilst still offering kills, thrills & spills along the way. Here though, the plot is more geared toward what has caused John to behave this way & is delivered in a drawn out manor which is never as interesting as it should be. 

Mario Bava is an outstanding visual director, the kind that can make a bog standard scene feel alive, unfortunately my major problem with many of his pictures is that I've rarely found him to be a great story-teller. That element of his work always seems to be secondary behind the visuals & this kind of plot suffers in a big way because of it. 

The film does have it's moments though, there's a fantastic scene where John has just killed a women on the top of the stairs & two suspicious investigators come in & start questioning him about some screaming they've heard. Blood begins to slowly drip down the dead womens arm, through her fingers, then slowly drops down the stairs making a gentle splashing sound, this happening closely to where the police are questioning John. The tension built here is really fantastic. That added with a really fantastic score by Sante Maria Romitelli that is used to great effect in the film from the beautiful piece on the opening credits to the briliant loud electric guitar when John's character makes a turn for the worse, it's almost reminiscent of Harmonica's theme in Once Upon A Time In The West how it hits you out of nowhere.

Overall, quite an average Bava picture that I'd only recommend to Gialli obsessives or Bava completests.

Rating: ★★½

Sweden: Heaven and Hell

Sweden: Heaven and Hell

Genre: Mondo Film

Original title: Svezia, inferno e paradiso

Director: Luigi Scattini

Year: 1968

Sweden... where the facts of life are stranger than fiction!

Sweden: Heaven and Hell is a pseudo-documentary that focuses mostly on sexuality in sweden. I was expecting some kind of ultra sleazy documentary that veered into almost soft-core porn territory but apart from a bit of nudity scattered throughout this Mondo film never decides to go in that direction. 

The documentary begins with a credit screen that states that "All the scenes of the film were filmed live, and inspired and referred to real life. All references to facts and people are NOT coincidences". So there we have it, crystal clear proof that everything we are about to see is the gospel truth, and of course not staged! 

So heres what I learnt from the documentary..,,

- Swedish students spent their weekends on boats taking drugs and sleeping with multiple partners

- Biker gangs run the out streets of Stockholm gang-raping women they find wondering nearby 

- Swedish women love black men for "how primitive and straight to the point they are"

-  In Sweden, all-female R&B bands perform in clubs, with their breasts out

- Parking attendants are all beautiful blonde women

- On a daily basis, teenagers that try to rob cars are caught by the cars owners and beaten, resulting in the car owner being arrested for assault. 

- Westerns & James Bond films are prohibited whilst sex films are allowed as they "spread the message of love which will mean there can be no war"

- Swedish people love to go deep sea diving!

- Swedish swingers clubs look like bingo halls

- Alcoholics are refused in alcohol stores so drink shoe polish and sniff petrol instead

- Drink drivers who are caught are sentenced to three months in the countryside where they will cut wood and drink milk

It's narrated by Edmund Purdom who actually appeared in a few Italian genre films back in the day. As well as showing us the more sensational aspects of Swedish life he comments on issues such as the concept of day care & the fact that "75% of Swedish women have jobs" as if it is some kind of alien concept.

The films highlight is the score by Piero Umiliani, who composed scores for films such as 5 Dolls for an August Moon, Massacre Time & Orgasmo. It's a mixture of lounge music & your typical late 60s psychedelic rock that helps to keep some of the duller scenes (such as a lengthy crack-house scene) from becoming tiresome. 

Sweden: Heaven & Hell is the sort of film which I guess could be considered offensive with its portrayal of Swedish culture. Yet looking back on it 40+ years later you can't help but watch it with a smile on your face & wonder if people really did view Sweden as this kind of sex crazed, drug taking, deep sea diving(!) country. Also, I wonder how many people visited the country shortly after seeing the film only to return home in utter disappointment? The fact that films like this even existed fascinates me & its bizarre nature led me to view this more as a comedy. Whilst this was clearly unintentional on behalf of the film-makers, a film like this sums up what I consider a cult movie to be. What was supposed to once shock and astound you now plays as a film which will have you burst out in laughter on plenty of occasions. 

Rating: ★★★

Zombie

Zombie

Genre: Zombie, Horror

Original title: Zombi 2

AKA: Zombie Flesh Eaters

Director: Lucio Fulci

Year: 1979

Strangers looking for a woman's father arrive at a tropical island where a doctor desperately searches for the cause and cure of a recent epidemic of the undead.

Zombie, known as Zombi 2 in Italy isn't a sequel to anything. When George Romero's classic Dawn Of The Dead was released in Italy simply as Zombi, the Italians decided they'd name a new film that was being produced, Zombi 2, this to fool people into believing it was a sequel to Romero's smash hit. With this in mind it would be easy to assume that this is some kind of cheap nasty knock off but thankfully this is the complete opposite.

Directed by one of Italian Horror's most bankable names, Lucio Fulci begins this film in New York City where an abandoned sail boat is found floating by police after it nearly collides with other passing boats. They climb on to investigate only to find a Zombie on board who uses them for lunch. It is a fantastic intro with some expertly shot cinematography from Sergio Salvati who shot so many of Fulci's best known horror pictures.

A reporter & a women who is looking for her father travel to the tropical island where the boat had came from to investigate what exactly is going on & the film begins to unfold. On their way there we get the infamous underwater zombie vs shark scene where a women goes for a dive only to find a shark coming after her, she hides down in the seabed only to be grabbed by a Zombie! As she escapes the Zombie arrises and attacks the shark. It's bizarre as hell, yet somehow strangely effective with its well delivered make-up effects from Giannetto De Rossi & then the eerie score which dominates the picture by Fabio Frizzi. It really is one of horrors great scores.

When we reach the island the picture really does benefit from its slow pace, instead of hitting you over the head with thrills & kills it hangs about & sucks you into the films atmospheric tendencies which stem largely from the islands abandonment. Around the half way mark we get one of the most talked about kill scenes in the history of horror movies, THAT eyeball scene. It is beautifully staged with a slow build up & a brutal conclusion which will creep the shit out of anybody who has a problem with eyeball trauma. From here on in you know that the film won't be pulling any punches.

Eventually the inevitable happens & the dead all rise from their burial grounds & the film climaxes with the remaining humans of the island trying to escape whilst being outnumbered by the walking dead. It is a thrilling & action packed final 15 minutes with Zombies being blown to pieces & burnt alive. The films final scene of a huge pack of Zombies walking across the Brooklyn bridge as the credits roll is such a fantastic finish to a really atmospheric ride from start to finish.

For me personally, the zombies in this picture are the best looking & most intimidating zombies that I've ever seen, yes even more-so than Romero's breed of zombie. Whilst Night Of The Living Dead & Dawn Of The Dead remain my two favourite Zombie pictures this quite wonderful effort from Lucio Fulci I'd rate only slightly behind the pair. Considering how many Zombie films there has been made over the year this is quite some achievement. Zombie remains one of Fulci's greatest moments and one as far as Italian horror goes, this is top tier material.

Rating: ★★★★

Giannetto De Rossi's wonderful make-up effects, one of the films many highlights

The great Silence

The Great Silence

Genre: Spaghetti Western

Original title: Il grande silenzio

Director: Sergio Corbucci

Year: 1968

A mute gunslinger faces off against a gang of bounty hunters in the great blizzard of 1899, and a grim, tense struggle unfolds.

In 1968 Sergio Corbucci, best known for the cult classic Django, gave us an unforgettable western that was like no other.  It stars the well respected French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant as the character of Silence. Silence is an appropriate name given that his character cannot speak after having his throat savagely cut as a child, this coming moments after witnessing his parents being murdered at their home. Silence seeks revenge but abides to the rules of the west by never shooting unless somebody draws first, this also prevents him from being arrested. Klaus Kinksi delivers his most iconic performance in a Spaghetti as Loco the bounty hunter. He is ruthless in his pursuit for financial gain & has no problem with shooting a defenseless person to collect the bounty on their head. Elsewhere you have Frank Wolff as the sheriff, Luigi Pistilli & Vonetta McGee. 

The cast are all wonderful but it's the setting that Corbucci decides to use as a backdrop that is the real star of this picture. Having already used an unusual and visually striking backdrop for Django (with the filthy muddy sets), Corbucci sets The Great Silence in the blizzard of 1899 meaning that the entire set & surroundings are covered in snow. This creates the doomed setting for these characters to live in. Even the superb Ennio Morricone score composed by Bruno Nicolai remains restrained when in comparison to most of Morricone's other Spaghetti's. Instead of a score that runs throughout, most of the film is soundtracked only by the sound of the harsh wind as the snow becomes as big of a part of the film as any of the characters.  The characters constantly struggle against their harsh surroundings with guns that have frozen up & they even resort to eating a horse to stay alive. Also any bloodshed inevitably falls onto the snow which for some reason the combination of the two creates such a brutally striking visual.

"They call him silence because wherever he goes, the silence of death follows"

The film is less political than some of Corbucci's other westerns, though there were some obvious themes that appear to be against capitalism, against what is seen as 'good' in the name of the law & even boasts an interracial relationship which I can't imagine had been done in a Western prior to this. As for the cinematography, Corbucci's usual close ups and use of shaky cam are all present but it's the unpleasant stench of inevitable doom that The Great Silence is soaked in that really makes this film so special.

There are some unforgettable scenes spread throughout. Of course there is the classic trait of the genre seeing our hero show off his accurate gun skills & my personal favourite where Kinksi's character is being transported after being arrested by the sheriff. Kinksi asks to stop to go to the toilet, squats over & the second the sheriff turns his back he pulls out a gun from under the snow that he'd planted their previously. 

The film builds up and we expect a showdown with Silence vs Loco. It is made clear throughout that Silence will not draw first, Loco also abides to these rules though it appears to be more through pride than to honour the "rules" of the west as he has no problem murdering defenseless people throughout the film.

However what really sets The Great Silence apart from other westerns is its unforgettable ending. If you've never seen the film I'd highly recommend that you stop reading now.

The film builds up to its climax with Silence being terribly injured with the majority films sympathetic being held at gunpoint by Loco & the other bounty hunters. Its made clear that they will all be executed unless Silence comes & faces Loco so of course our badly wounded hero enters the scene & we expect him, against all the odds, to save the day. However the doom & gloom of the surroundings throughout the film does not ever let up & we are treated to an unexpected & devastating ending where Silence is shot to death by the bounty hunters followed by a massacre of every single one of the films sympathetic characters. It is the kind of ending that will make your draw hit the ground & the type that will remain with you long after the picture has finished. 

The Great Silence saw Sergio Corbucci deliver not only his own masterpiece, but one of the great Spaghetti Westerns of all-time & one of the all-time great pieces of Italian cinema history. It remains about as essential as they come.

Rating: ★★★★½

Klaus Kinksi, unforgettable as Loco