Arrived back on the Lido to catch a showing of Alex Cox’s new film, ‘Searchers 2.0’, which is not part of the Spaghetti Western retrospective, but with a title like that, and knowing of Cox’s love of Italian Westerns, I figured it was something a gringo like me should see. On the way, I ran into Enzo Castellari and his son, Andrea, who, like his old man, gives the impression he probably wrestles bears before breakfast just for the hell of it. When I told them where I was going, Enzo said he’d love to see the movie and that he’d hoped to meet Cox at the festival.
At the cinema, I introduced myself to Cox as an admirer of his ‘Moviedrome’ series, which used to run on the BBC in the days when British TV stations treated films as more than disposable time-fillers. Indeed, it was Cox who presented what was, in effect, the British première of ‘Django’, which had been banned outright on its original release, as well as giving many of us our first exposure to the delirium that is Giulio Questi’s ‘Django, Kill!’. Cox and I arranged to talk later, and he and Enzo got on famously.
‘Searchers 2.0’ is a “micro-budget†road movie, shot with a digital camera which Cox made sound little more sophisticated than something you’d buy in a pharmacy, and is executive-produced by Roger Corman, who also has a cameo in the film.
Right after the main title, there appears on screen the legend, “Benito Stefanelli… morto!â€, which surprised and amused Enzo, and let me know I’d made the right decision to check this out. (In the unlikely event that there is actually anyone out there who doesn’t know who Benito Stefanelli was, I should perhaps explain that he was Sergio Leone’s head stuntman, and also appeared in most of his films.)
The story concerns two former child actors, Mel (Del Zamora) and Fred (Ed Pansullo), who learn that a film in which they appeared, ‘Buffalo Bill vs. Doc Holliday’, is to be given an open-air screening in Monument Valley. The film’s scriptwriter, Fritz Frobisher, extracted performances from the kids with the aid of a riding crop, and Mel and Fred resolve to drive from L.A. to confront him. Problem is, they’ve no wheels, so Mel persuades his daughter, Delilah (Jaclyn Jonet), to take them, on the pretext that he’s treating her to a long-overdue vacation.
On the way, Mel and Fred bicker and squabble about everything from movies to the war in Iraq, much to Delilah’s bemusement. On one occasion, having agreed that Al Pacino is the greatest actor of all time, closely followed by Brando and De Niro, they can’t agree on who should come next – Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood (and you'll agree it's a tricky one, though I'd go with Bronson myself. And not in fourth place either)." On another, Delilah mishears Budd Boetticher’s name, resulting in a pun so outrageous I’ll be hearing it in my head for the rest of my life. Thanks a lot, Alex.
When Mel and Fred finally track down the demonic Frobisher, there is a three-way shoot-out in Monument Valley. But instead of bullets, the combatants have to name, in turn, the surviving stuntmen who worked for Leone. Here Cox has made a spectacular howler, one that he’ll be living down for years in Spaghetti Western circles – not only was Mario Brega, Leone’s favourite heavy heavy, not a stuntmen, he is also, alas, no longer with us. Cox good-naturedly endured a lot of ribbing about this after the movie. ‘Searchers 2.0’ is an engagingly off-the-wall little movie which will never make a cent, but that’s not necessarily the point, is it?
Cox and I sat down, in theory to do an interview, but we were soon just talking serious Spaghetti, and any formal structure went right out the window. We continued yakking on the way over to the stand run by ‘Nocturno’, - the outstanding film magazine co-edited by Manlio Gomarasca, and Italy’s nearest equivalent to ‘Cinema Retro’ – where we were soon delving through the back issues and DVDs like the proverbial kids in a candy store. Then , before we knew it, it was time to hit the trail for the first of a Giulano Gemma double-bill.
In his later years, Sergio Leone was fond of making magisterial statements about all Western heroes ultimately deriving from Homer, and in ‘The Return of Ringo’ (1965), director Duccio Tessari makes the connection explicit in rendering ‘The Odyssey’ as a Western. Gemma plays Capt. Montgomery Brown, a Union officer who returns home after the Civil War to find his wife and property appropriated by the Fuentes brothers, Paco and Esteban. Entering the town in the guise of a peón, Brown is aided in his plans by an eccentric florist (played by “Pajaritoâ€, who’s as annoying in the Italian as he is in the English-language version), and a slinky saloon girl,enticingly played by Nieves Navarro.
Gemma, who was the first Italian-born star of Spaghetti Westerns, was present to introduce both films, and was enthusiastically received. His screen persona, derived from a combination of boyish good looks, easy charm, and athleticism, meant he was generally cast as relatively clean-cut types (certainly by Spaghetti Western standards), but he was perhaps capable of more challenging roles, as suggested by the scene in which Brown learns of his wife’s supposed betrayal.
Tessari enjoys a reputation as one of the founding fathers of the Italian Western, largely due to the huge success of the two Ringo films (his participation as an uncredited screenwriter on ‘Fistful of Dollars’ was presumably not widely known until much later), but on the evidence of the films themselves, it seems clear he was a second division director – capable of some interesting camerawork, certainly, but not an innovator like the three Sergios.
In ‘The Return of Ringo’, Tessari occasionally displays some nice touches: a panning shot of Gemma from behind stained glass, his complex camera movements during the party sequence, but on the whole, his direction is little more than professional. Fernando Sancho, for instance, in fine oily form as Esteban Fuentes and one of the most important characters in the story, deserves a better end than being blown up behind a flower pot in long shot. Furthermore, the art direction of the film is very poor. Brown’s house, in and around which much of the action takes place, looks exactly like what it probably was – one of the producer’s villas on the Appian Way, and it’s impossible to imagine any of the topflight directors, never mind a designer like Carlo Simi, settling for such a bogus look. The costumes, too, are far too pristine, with none of the lived-in quality on which Leone or the others would have insisted. Further proof that Tessari’s reputation may require re-evaluation can be found in his subsequent Westerns, which are neither ambitious nor particularly interesting.
Giorgio Ferroni’s ‘One Silver Dollar’ (1965, and also known as ‘Blood for a Silver Dollar’) again finds Gemma playing a returning Civil War officer, Gary O’Hara, who persuades his wife that it is time to start a new life elsewhere. Taking only the title item with him, O’Hara travels ahead to Yellowstone, where he is manipulated into challenging an alleged outlaw, Black Eye, who, rather improbably, turns out to be O’Hara’s brother. In the ensuing confusion, O’Hara is shot and Black Eye gunned down by the town’s bad hats. Believed dead, O’Hara has, in fact, been saved by the silver dollar in his shirt pocket. Once he has recovered, he infiltrates the gang, before walking down the villain at the (also improbable) end.
‘One Silver Dollar’ is an entertaining Western which, like many of Gemma’s star vehicles has more in common with the American Western than the Italian. The plot is lively, with a good twist near the end, and there are some unusual locations, as well as a pleasing amount of action.
The last film of the day, beginning at 2:00 a.m., was Lucio Fulci’s ‘Four Gunmen of the Apocalypse’ (1975, and shown here as ‘The Four of the Apocalypse…’, which was introduced by star Fabio Testi, and director of photography and long-time Fulci collaborator, Sergio Salvati. Hailed, by those who like their gore by the bucketful, as one of the great horror directors, Fulci is usually revealed by his other films to have been a jack of all trades, if a master of one. ‘The Four of the Apocalypse…’ proves no exception to this rule. Often cited as “the most violent Spaghetti Western ever madeâ€, it could more accurately be described as one of the worst Spaghetti Westerns ever made, and a relentless exercise in incoherence and tedium.
Supposedly based on the writings of Bret Harte, an unlikely source for an Italian Western if ever there was one, the film concerns a tinhorn gambler called Stubby Preston (Testi), a pregnant prostitute called Emanuelle ‘Bunny’ O’Neill (Lynne Frederick), a drunkard called Clem (Michael J.Pollard), and a lunatic called Bud (Harry Baird). Following their unexpected release from jail, this unpromising quartet set out across the desert. Along the way, they encounter a psychopathic half-breed called Chaco, played with his usual intensity by Tomás Milian, whose last Spaghetti Western this was. Chaco feeds them peyote, rapes Bunny, and leaves them to die. Unfortunately, they don’t. Following the death of Clem (particularly maudlin), Bud – who in his spare time likes running round graveyards in the nude, talking to the dead – manages to procure them some meat. Later on, Stubby discovers that they’ve been chowing down on a slice of Clem’s left buttock. Well, this is a Fulci movie, so what do you expect? Stubby and Bunny struggle on, until she dies in childbirth in a snowbound town. Stubby departs and is fortuitously reunited with both his shaving kit and Chaco, killing the latter and riding off into the sunset with former. The End. And not a moment too soon.
Overlooking the difficulty of taking characters called “Stubby†and “Bunny†seriously, ‘The Four of the Apocalypse…†plays less like a Western and more like a very bad Seventies’ road movie. This is underlined by the fact that Milian’s character was apparently based on Charles Manson, though even if it wasn’t, the supposedly “lyrical†scenes where Stubby and Bunny spout a lot of risible dialogue about the meaning of life would let you know that this is supposed to be one of those “voyage of self-discovery†movies. Although the much-ballyhooed violence is quite extreme – Chaco flaying Lorenzo Robledo’s sheriff before shoving his star pin into his chest – there is remarkably little of it, and even less action.
And then there are the songs, one of which I could swear contained the line, “Stubby, my friend, this is the end.†But by this time I’d lost the will to live, so it may just have been wishful thinking on my part. If you’re looking for apocalypse now, or in future, in a Spaghetti Western, check out ‘Keoma’ instead.
Note: There may be a bit of a lag in posting John Exshaw's concluding reports from Venice. This is due to the fact that web site editor Lee Pfeiffer is enroute to Beijing and will be editing John's columns from there for the next ten days. We appreciate your patience and the great response we've been getting to John's first-hand reports from Venice.