BY TIM GREAVES
My
favourite Spaghetti Western theme song – and I stress theme song, not theme music
– is Roberto Fia’s splendidly triumphant rendition of composer Luis Bacalov’s ‘Django’.
The only one that comes close to challenging it for my affection is ‘Angel Face’,
the opening credits ballad from A Pistol for Ringo (o.t. Una pistola per Ringo),
Graf Maurizio’s silky vocal marrying up with Ennio Morricone’s passionate
melody to forge a little scoop of sorrow-tinged nectar. And although I confess
that my knowledge of Italian westerns is criminally deficient, of the titles I
have actually seen I’d unhesitatingly cite A Pistol for Ringo among my
favourites.
Released
in 1965, the film was directed by Duccio Tessari, an uncredited co-writer on
the previous year’s uber-classic A Fistful of Dollars. Part of the appeal of
Tessari’s film is that the story takes place on the run up to Christmas,
although being as sun-baked southern Spain is doubling for the Wild West it’s
an exceptionally balmy one. Nevertheless, the inclusion of tinsel-decked trees,
Christmas dinner and even a carol or two embroider the proceedings with a
festive ambience conspicuously rare – perhaps even unique (I reiterate that my
knowledge is lacking) – in Spaghetti Western terrain.
It’s
a couple of days before Christmas in the town of Quemado and ruthless Mexican
bandit Sancho (Fernando Sancho) and his gang have plundered the bank of its entire
cash reserve. Their escape route to the border cut off by pursuing lawmen, the
bandits hole up at the hacienda of Major Clyde (Antonio Hasas) where they take everyone
hostage, including Clyde’s daughter Ruby (Hally Hammond), who also happens to
be the fiancée of the Sheriff (George Martin). Under siege, Sancho threatens to
kill two hostages a day until the law agrees to back off and let them ride away
unhindered. Desperate for help, the Sheriff turns to scar-cheeked gunslinger
Angel Face (Montgomery Wood) – Ringo to his friends – who’s currently locked up
in the town jail on a quadruple murder charge. He makes Ringo a proposal: infiltrate
the gang, eliminate them and rescue the hostages and he’ll be rewarded with 30%
of the retrieved cash and exonerated of his crimes.
Duccio
Tessari co-scripted A Pistol for Ringo, his fifth feature film, with Alfonso
Balcázar. Casting Montgomery Wood in his debut starring role was a
masterstroke; Wood is actually the nom de guerre of former stuntman Giuliano
Gemma – all the better for performing his own gags, which include crashing
through a ceiling to land upright on a grand piano and leaping from a galloping
steed. Gemma has a scorching intensity about him and he gifts the self-serving
Ringo with an affable personality and a cunning, cocksure attitude in the face
of adversity. He also prefers milk to hard liquor and has a habit of dishing
out pearls of wisdom at felicitous moments (“Never cry for a dead person – it’s
pointless.â€). He’s introduced playing hopscotch with some children, breaks off
to take down a quartet of gunmen with the matter-of-factness of swatting flies,
finishes up the game and strolls casually away. This is a guy who, with three
bad guys still to be disposed of, realises he only has one bullet left in his
gun and yet somehow still manages to pull it off. You’d really not want to be
looking down the business end of Ringo’s six-shooter, but just the same he’s a
very likeable anti-hero figure.
Fernando
Sancho meanwhile makes for a nicely greasy villain, coincidentally also named
Sancho. He shares some great scenes with Gemma, the best of which finds Sancho
threatening to put a bullet through the bound Ringo’s head, only to find
himself compelled to relent time and again as our unflustered hero convinces
him he’s a valuable asset best kept alive – and what’s more his help is going
to cost Sancho an ever-escalating cut of the booty! There’s even some gentle
humour thrown in during a gathering ‘round the piano to sing carols, with
Sancho awkwardly mumbling his way through “Silent Nightâ€.
Hally
Hammond is actually Lorella De Luca, director Tessari’s wife, and she
brings a measure of prim sex appeal to the show, although beyond playing
vulnerable she isn’t given too much to do – at least not until the finale when
she finally gets her hands on a shotgun. Meanwhile Nieves Navarro (wife of the
film’s co-producer Luciano Ercoli) fills the role of sultry bad girl rather
deliciously; despite the fact she’s one of the intruders in wealthy landowner
Antonio Hasas’s home, he has an amorous eye on her – and who can blame him? Amiable
Manuel Muñiz is in situ primarily for light relief.
Speaking
of light relief, in my limited experience of Italian westerns they generally
tend to be more brutal than their American counterparts, but A Pistol for Ringo
is a bloodless, pretty frivolous affair, more mischievous in tone than one
might expect from the sub-genre. That tone is established in the first few
seconds as two unsmiling gunslingers stride towards each other and then, as
opposed to drawing their weapons as anticipated, wish each other a Merry
Christmas. To be fair the story itself is no great shakes, I can’t defend it, but
regardless of any shortcomings this is very respectable fare that gallops along
at a lively pace and – as do the best of them – leaves you wanting more.
More
is precisely what Tessari delivered when he unleashed his second Ringo feature –
The Return of Ringo (o.t. Il ritorno di Ringo) – later the same year. Gone,
however, was most of the light-heartedness of the first film, in its place a
story whose skeleton shamelessly borrows from Homer’s “The Odyssey†and
consequently leads the audience into the somewhat darker world of shattering loss
and just retribution.
Once
again the product of a collaborative script – by Tessari, Balcázar and Fernando
Di Leo – this isn’t actually a sequel, not even I’d suggest (as it is often
referenced) a prequel, for the character Ringo is purely nominal; played once more
by Giuliano Gemma (again credited as Montgomery Wood), this time our hero is called
Montgomery Brown – it’s barely mentioned that he’s also known as Ringo – the only
thing that he shares with his predecessor beyond a name being the scar across
his cheek. It’s not just Wood who’s back for a second spin either; all the
principal cast members from Pistol return to portray a completely new set of
characters.
Having
been away from home for some years fighting in the war, Union soldier Captain
Montgomery Brown (Wood) returns to find the townsfolk living in fear of
tyrannical Mexican bully boys the Fuentes brothers, Paco (George Martin) and
Esteban (Fernando Sancho), who moved in and took control following a gold strike.
Anyone who dared stand up to them, including our man’s father, has been
murdered. Furthermore, the Fuentes have forcibly taken occupation of Brown’s home,
and his wife Hally (Hally Hammond) – believing her husband dead – is now
betrothed to Paco. His life in tatters, Brown disguises himself as a Mexican
drifter and manages to secure labour with the Fuentes, tending the plants at
his former homestead. He tries to maintain a low profile, but he’s one day devastated
to discover that Hally has a daughter; unaware that she was pregnant when he
went off to war, he now realises he’s father to the little girl. And so he
begins to quietly plot his revenge, biding his time until he can strike and
reclaim all that is rightfully his.
Benefiting
immeasurably – as indeed did Pistol before it – from Francisco Marin’s fabulous
cinematography, which drinks in the blistering, sun-drenched locations and spits
them out at audiences in all their widescreen glory, The Return of Ringo kicks
off with another rousing Graf Maurizio/Ennio Morricone alliance. It’s a powerful,
much more traditional number which, although not as euphonious as Pistol’s
opener, does its job well enough.
Gemma
is back on excellent form, again doing all his own stunts, which this time
include being dragged through the dirt at speed on the end a lasso hitched to
the rear of a horse and shimmying up a rope single-handed (his other having
been disabled during a painful encounter with a knife). As opposed to the
anti-hero of Pistol, he’s 100% the hero this time and proves to be an even greater
commanding presence. Brown is more dour a character than was Angel Face (not
that he has much to smile about given his circumstances) and Gemma assigns
himself a nifty facial tic that kicks in whenever he’s struggling to restrain
his rage – which is an understandably frequent occurrence. Fernando Sancho is
again the villain of the piece, less shabby a character than the one he played
in Pistol, but just as despicable beneath those fine clothes. That said, he’s
somewhat overshadowed in the bad guy department by George Martin (who plays nasty
with much more gusto than he played virtuous in the earlier film). Hammond is
once again the impuissant, easily manipulated heroine, Nieves Navarro is the
tarot-reading saloon harlot, and Antonio Hasas is town Sheriff, too cowardly to
deal with the Fuentes and content to seek solace for his impotence in the
bottom of a bottle.
There’s
little disputing that Return is more accomplished a production all round than Pistol,
its story of a higher calibre and arguably showcasing stronger performances
across the board. The setting is much more atmospheric too, the town being an unforgiving,
inhospitable dive; its air contaminated with debris whipped up by relentless
siroccos, it’s a hay fever sufferer’s worst nightmare. Yet for all these
superior facets, of the duo it’s Pistol that I favour, if only by a whisker.
So
saying, neither film is generally regarded with the same reverence as, for
example, some of Sergio Leone’s classics – and rightly so. But that doesn’t for
one moment diminish their value in the Spaghetti Western arena as fine old
chunks of entertainment. I noted at the outset that I’m not as familiar with
the sub-genre as I wish I was – and I’d never claim otherwise – but I’ve seen
enough examples to be able to distinguish between forgettable fluff and the genuinely
worthwhile, and Duccio Tessari’s Ringo films unquestionably fall into the
latter category.
Arrow
Video has introduced them to the UK Blu-ray market with both titles and a
holster-full of extras occupying a single disc. The films themselves have been
treated to 2k restorations from their original negatives and both display a
moderate amount of grain, with the occasional trace of light vertical
scratching discernible on the first; none of this amounts to anything overtly
distracting though. While ardent cineastes will opt for the original Italian
language soundtrack (which offers up newly translated English subtitles), for
the benefit of those with an aversion to dropping their eyes down to read the
dialogue there’s an English language dub option available. The supplemental
features include commentaries from Spaghetti Western zealots C. Courtney Joyner
and Henry Park. Following a 38-minute retrospective by Tony Rayns, there’s a
pair of archival featurettes (from 2008 and 2009) comprising interviews with
actors Giuliano Gemma – you’ve got to take a shine to any man who includes
James Stewart and Gary Cooper among his childhood heroes – and Lorella De Luca,
as well as camera operator Sergio D’Offizi (clocking up a combined 48-minute
run-time). Also welcome are vintage trailers – American and German for Pistol,
American and Italian for Return – and a gallery of press stills, poster art and
an extensive assembly of European lobby cards. A limited edition collectible
booklet and reversible sleeve render this already irresistible release that
little more essential.
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