WE CONTINUE OUR SERIES OF REPORTS FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT JOHN
EXSHAW'S DIARY FROM THE RECENTLY CONCLUDED VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM
FESTIVAL.
JoaquÃn
Luis Romero Marchent was the earliest European director, prior to Sergio
Leone, to consistently explore the
Western form. After two films in the mid-1950s featuring the Zorro-esque El
Coyote and two in the early Sixties featuring the Fox of Old California himself
(Zorro the Avenger and The Shadow of Zorro), Romero Marchent made
his proper Western début in 1963 with The Magnificent Three, followed by
Gunfight at High Noon, starring Richard Harrison, Robert Hundar, Gloria
Milland, and Fernando Sancho. The latter three actors also starred in Seven
Guns from Texas (1964), shown here today, and introduced by the hulking
Hundar (real name, Claudio Undari) himself. Whether or not Romero Marchent,
still going strong at 86, was invited, I’ve been unable to discover . . .
Bob
Carey (Paul Piaget), having been released from prison after killing a man in a
(fair) fight, discovers that his former fiancée, MarÃa (Gloria Milland, real
name, Maria Fié) is now married to a successful rancher named Clifford (Jesús
Puente), and that he himself is being hunted by the dead man’s brothers, who
have vowed to avenge him. Clifford learns that MarÃa is suffering from a brain
tumour; on being told that her only chance lies in seeing a specialist in El
Paso, Clifford decides against telling MarÃa and begins making plans for the
long and hazardous journey through Indian territory. With the Redskins
currently on the warpath, the Army cannot spare men for an escort, and so
Clifford is forced to hire adventurers for the journey. These include Carey,
Ringo, a flamboyant character known as “Gambler†(Fernando Sancho), a couple of
bad hats led by Raf Baldassarre, a comic-relief Chinese cook (Gregory Wu) and
the wagon driver, played by Paco Sanz. With tensions simmering within the
party, and dangers threatening without, the group embark on their race against
time . . .
Last
year, when I was interviewing Aldo Sanbrell, I was surprised to learn that,
generally speaking, he preferred the Westerns he had made with Romero Marchent
to those made with Italian directors, Sergio Leone included. Admittedly (For
a Few Dollars More apart), Leone had never made the best use of Aldo,
employing him more as a good-luck talisman than as an featured character star,
but considering that Sanbrell had also appeared in films for Corbucci, Sollima,
and Tessari, it seemed an extraordinary endorsement of his fellow countryman.
But, watching Seven Guns from Texas, I began to see why Aldo felt that way.
A very traditional Western, with a solid plot and clearly defined characters in
even the smaller roles, it is just the sort of well-crafted movie that would
appeal to an actor brought up on the Westerns of Randolph Scott and Joel
McCrea, and who consequently preferred the American approach – “Americans, in
Westerns, give you much more reality. . . . Romero Marchent, he makes something
like the American films – so simple . . . But it was real. He doesn’t go into
the fantasy, let’s say, of Leone . . . â€
In
addition to being told with a skill and conviction which should satisfy most
traditionalists, Seven Guns from Texas looks impressive – the fort has a
built-to-last quality that would put many higher-budget Hollywood Westerns to
shame, and the costumes and photography are of a comparably high standard.
Piaget is rather stiff and colourless as Carey, but then traditional Western
heroes often are. Hundar, who would become a distinctive presence in the
Italian Western, is fine as Ringo, and Baldassarre is suitably snaky as the
villain who holds the party to ransom over a water hole near the film’s end..
Puente gives a sympathetic performance in what is a fairly thankless role, and
Sanz, who seems to be turning up in everything in the last few days, demonstrates
his versatility behind a bushy beard which would have been the envy of George
‘Gabby’ Hayes. While Romero Marchent includes a number of obvious allusions to
‘Stagecoach’ in his film, they are in no way intrusive; indeed, the basic story
of a race against time in the face of terminal illness was apparently an
extrapolation of the director’s family’s own, ultimately futile, efforts to
find a cure for his mother’s lung cancer. The Spanish print reportedly closes
with the death of MarÃa, but the ending in the Italian version was “softenedâ€
to allow the possibility that she may survive.
***********
One
of the great canards thrown at the Italian film industry during its
international heyday was that it provided a haven for washed-up stars whose
“real†careers back in Hollywood had gone south of the border. As with so much
written in those times (such as the notion that Anglo pseudonyms were adopted
to fool English-speaking audiences into thinking they were watching a “realâ€
Hollywood film), this was arrant nonsense. Not only did the Italian film
industry create new stars of global significance (Steve Reeves, Clint Eastwood,
Franco Nero, Tomás Milian, to name only the most obvious), but it also gave older
“name†actors opportunities they would never have had at home.
Rather
than sneering about “has-been stars making cheap B-movies in Italyâ€, film
historians need to ask themselves what those actors might have done had they
stayed in Hollywood. Take Guy Madison, for example: he went to Italy in 1960,
two years after the cancellation of his long-running TV series, The
Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, and spent a decade starring in every
popular genre of the day: pepla, swashbucklers, Westerns, spy films, superhero
yarns, and war movies. He was able to play both heroes and villains, from Wyatt
Earp to turbaned Oriental exotics, in films which, if they were cheap, were
only so in comparison with bigger-budgeted Hollywood movies (and which, thanks
to the behind-the-camera skill and inventiveness of such as Mario Bava,
frequently looked much better than their similarly-budgeted American
counterparts). Now, ask what Madison might have done had he stayed in
Hollywood: a few more guest spots in Wagon Train and other TV series?
Cameos in the occasional movie? Or straight down the ladder to grade-Z horror
flicks for the drive-in market? Nor is Madison an isolated case: what did the
future in Hollywood hold for a middle-aged ex-Tarzan like Lex Barker? Certainly
not the chance to work with Fellini and become a massive star in Continental
Westerns. And then there’s Gordon Scott, and . . . well, you get the idea.
Neither
Van Heflin nor Gilbert Roland, two “name†stars finding good work hard to come
by in 1960s’ Hollywood, can have had any reason to regret their participation
in Giorgio Capitani’s The Ruthless Four (1968), a superior Western in
every respect, and one which gave Heflin, in his only Italian outing, the last
good role of his distinguished career. He plays Sam Cooper, a gold prospector
who finally strikes it rich only to find himself faced with an immediate murder
attempt by his hitherto loyal partner. After being held up and robbed on his
way back to town, Cooper, realising that he needs someone he can trust to help
extract the gold, wires money to Manolo Sánchez, a young man whom Sam had
helped raise before succumbing once more to wanderlust and gold fever. Manolo
(played by George Hilton) duly arrives, and Sam, in the course of their drunken
reunion, gradually reveals his reason for summoning him. Close on Manolo’s
heels, however, comes the sinister figure of “the Blond†(Klaus Kinski), who
soon reasserts his authority, based on their homosexual relationship, over the
affable but weak Manolo. With “the Blond†insinuating himself into the group,
Sam turns to a one-time friend, Mason (Roland), for support. Mason, who still
believes that Cooper turned him in after their escape from a prison camp
several years previously, agrees to accompany Cooper in return for a fifty-fifty
split. The quartet set off, foiling an ambush instigated by the town’s
storekeeper before beginning the long trek to Cooper’s mine . . .
Capitani,
whose only Western this was, originated the story which was then developed by
co-writer Fernando Di Leo, who had worked uncredited on the first two Dollars
films and would later become well-known for his crime movies of the 1970s. The
characters in The Ruthless Four have a psychological depth and
complexity comparable to any American counterpart of similar scope and
ambition, and indeed the film (a few stylistic flourishes apart) is largely
indistinguishable from a traditional Hollywood Western. The most memorable
stylistic flourish involves Capitani’s introduction of the Blond, who arrives
in town during a thunderstorm, wearing a battered trilby and a rubber slicker.
Going into the saloon, the Blond asks for milk and is not amused by the
barman’s smart-ass reply. As he grabs the barman’s wrist, Capitani cuts to a
Leonesque close-up of Kinski’s eyes, then, when he turns away, there is an
anachronistic jazz intro on the soundtrack, an obvious reference, along with
his costume, to Kinski’s many roles in Edgar Wallace krimis, in which
the actor often played sinister weirdos slinking around in smoke-filled jazz
clubs. Another nice touch is the depiction of Lancaster, the treacherous
storekeeper, as an obese knitting fanatic. Capitani also makes interesting use
of Carlo Simi’s El Paso set; whereas, in Sugar Colt, Franco Giraldi
obviously didn’t give a damn who recognised it, Capitani seems to go out of his
way to disguise its appearance, choosing unusual camera set-ups and avoiding
long-shots – perhaps an indication of how well-known the set had become a mere
two years after For a Few Dollars More (The Ruthless Four was
shot in 1967.)
Van
Heflin, who, with his bulging eyes and homely features, was surely one of the
more improbable Hollywood stars – a character actor propelled by his talent
into leading roles – gives a wonderfully rich and well-judged performance as
Cooper, certainly on a par with his work in Shane and 3:10 to Yuma.
Roland, a more limited actor, perhaps, but one whose unique brand of style and
steely machismo made him a welcome figure in many Fifties’ Westerns, is at his
best in The Ruthless Four, as a man twisted by suspicion (and crippled
by bouts of malaria) who regains his sense of decency at the end. In one
delightful touch (presumably improvised), Roland, to distract the storekeeper’s
bushwhackers, executes a seemingly impromptu two-step dance, which immediately
recalls the actor’s many roles as Latin lovers in his early career.
Hilton,
the Uruguayan-born star of many Spaghetti Westerns (often as fairly laid-back
types, with the occasional avenger or villain thrown in) is excellent as the
spineless Manolo, with Capitani cleverly exploiting the essential softness in
the actor’s screen persona. It seems well worth pointing out that, had Hilton
been a star of Hollywood Westerns at the time, the chances of him being
offered, or allowed to play, a role like Manolo Sánchez would have been less
than zero. (“Big Jake, starring John Wayne, with George Hilton as The
Catamite Kid� Unlikely, to say the least.) Indeed, another of the most
commendable aspects of the Italian film industry in this period was the freedom
enjoyed by actors in their choice of roles: they could make a Mario Bava horror
film one week and a Fellini the next, and if an actor decided to become
associated with a particular genre, it seems it was a matter of choice, not
box-office imperative or typecasting.
Klaus
Kinski, it need hardly be said, is extremely effective as the Blond – less
flamboyant than in many of his Western roles, which were often little more than
glorified cameos, but none the less impressive for that. And he gets to stick
around for a lot longer than usual, a good thing in itself.
Giorgio
Capitani and George Hilton were both present for the screening, which attracted
a full house in one of the smaller cinemas allocated to the retrospective.
Capitani went on to become a highly-respected director of sophisticated
comedies, most of which received little distribution outside Italy, but The
Ruthless Four is considered by many to be his best film, and is well worth
tracking down.