Saturday, April 03, 2010

Still More Westerns

I've continued to work my way through the collection of Westerns I bought, 11 of them since Monday's post, so I wanted to talk about them for a bit. I'm not going to discuss all of them because there were some I missed portions of, and others that served mostly as background noise to something else I was doing.

This Man Can't Die (or I lunghi giorni dell'odio) - The title alone grabbed my interest, though it wasn't referring to quite what I thought it would be. Guy Madison (who I kept thinking bore a resemblance to Hugh Laurie) plays Martin Benson, a man working undercover for the Army to break up a gunrunning operation. After his latest mission, he plans to return home for a bit, but the last mission blew his cover, so he's pursued by some remaining gunrunners, while others attack his family's (his parents and siblings, not wife and kids) homestead.

The "man who can't die", near as I can tell, refers to what appears to be the one member of the gunrunners who didn't make it away after the attack on the homestead. The older of Martin's two younger brothers finds the fellow, wounded, and vows to keep him alive so he can lead him to the ringleader and get revenge. The movie itself is alright, though it's a little too convenient that the leader of the gunrunners is already a prominent character in the Benson's lives, and the rape of one of Martin's sisters seemed unnecessary. We get it, these gunrunners are evil, the revenge attack on a family that had nothing to do with the bust demonstrated that sufficiently. I liked the version I'd worked up in my head to go along with the title more, though.

Cry Blood Apache - What I find funny about this is Joel McCrea gets top billing, but is only in the framing sequences at the beginning and end of the movie. His son, Jody, plays the same character (Pitcalin), only as a younger man, through the flashback which makes up 95% of the movie. Pitcalin was part of a group traveling through the West who were hanging out at an Apache encampment, when one of the fellows discovers the Apache have gold. At which point their drunken and reckless revelry turns violent and they kill everyone there save one woman, who they expect to lead them to the source of the gold. The woman's brother was out hunting, and when he returns, begins tracking the group. Once he catches up, it starts to resemble a horror movie, as he picks them off one at a time, killing them in pretty ruthless ways. The difference is, these guys are scumbags, so I felt less compassion for them than the typical idiotic teen Jason Voorhees slaughters. OK, I felt a little bad for Two Card Charlie, who was bound, then had a bag with a rattlesnake in it placed over his head, because death by rattlesnake is not something I wish to experience. I think we're supposed to root for Pitcalin because he didn't participate in the crap the others did, but he also didn't do much to stop them, so I was indifferent as to whether he survived or not.

Hellbenders (or I crudeli) - A small family of Confederates aren't ready to give up on the Civil War. To that end, they attack a Union convoy, kill everyone, and take the shipment of gold, which they stash in a coffin supposedly containing the body of a Confederate captain the widow has requested be buried in the family plot. The "widow" is some woman they hired, who proved unreliable, requiring them to find another "widow" (Norma Bengell) who's unreliable in a different manner. Once again, the group of killers has one member that isn't like the others really. It worked better for me in this film than Cry Blood Apache, but I would attribute that to my being out of the room when the slaughter of the Union troops occurred. If I had seen that, rather than heard other characters talk about it, the fact he was a part of it probably would have soured me on him more.

It Can Be Done Amigo (Si puo fare. . . amigo) - Hiram Coburn (played by Bud Spencer) is a man who just wants to get away. Sonny Bronston (Jack Palance, whoo!) is after him, because Coburn is supposed to marry Sonny's sister, Mary. Given her tendency to nag incessantly, Sonny may be more eager for this marriage than Mary, since it would relieve him of the responsibility for caring for her. While fleeing, Coburn comes across a dying elderly man, who asks him to transport his nephew Chip to a town where there's a parcel of land that while make Chip rich. He promises Coburn there are railroads going east and west, which will enable Coburn to flee, so he accepts. The town is a dump. Gangs rob the bank nearly constantly, a corrupt preacher who is also the sheriff (and also a corrupt sheriff), a seemingly crazy man who buys buckets of dirt from people, and then eats it, and the property is in lousy shape. Coburn can't quite bring himself to leave Chip here alone, even once Sonny catches up.

I started out just half-watching this movie, but I wound up loving it. Palance is speaking through gritted teeth almost the entire flick, usually with a cigar in there, but he has a bit of a cruel sense of humor, coupled with a sort of malicious glee. I think he might pursue Coburn even without a sister wanting to marry the guy, because it's fun to harass him. Bud Spencer plays Coburn as a guy who just wants to get away. He's a huge fellow, and while he doesn't carry a gun, he does have a pair of spectacles. When those come out, people are fixing to get punched. There a several wild brawls in this movie, escalating in size throughout the movie. Chip is a little annoying, but he can be endearingly clever and straightforward. I'm not sure what happened at the end.

Chino (Valdez, il mezzosangue) - I had no idea so many of these were Italian. Charles Bronson plays Chino, so this movie also has several brawls and some shooting, if those are things you're interested in. We're introduced to Chino through Jamie, a young man looking to start working at another ranch, but who stops to rest at Chino's horse ranch, which Chino runs by himself. Predictably, the kid decides he'd rather stay and help Chino, and so he does. Chino's having problems with Maral, a rival horse rancher with more men, money, and resources, who tries to make life difficult for Chino in the hopes he can buy Chino's land.

The ending was not what I expected. Chino doesn't win by having some huge shootout with Maral and his men where he kills them all and triumphs because he's a better shot, and as a result wins the hand of Maral's sister, because he's awesome. He does have a shootout, but he ultimately wins by living his way, by refusing to play Maral's games. It was a nice twist.

Kid Vengeance - All you really need to know is this movie stars Lee van Cleef and Jim Brown. That should be enough to make you want to see it. There are four groups in this movie. There's McClain (Lee van Cleef) and his gang, who run amok, killing and robbing. There are the Thurstons, a family of four living in the wilderness, the parents killed by McClain's gang, the daughter captured (unwittingly, at first, as these are not the smartest bandits around), the son vowing to use all the wilderness tricks his dad taught him to get revenge (hence, Kid Vengeance). There's Jim Brown as Issac, a prospector living alone in the hills who finally struck gold, and was shown kindness by the Thurstons as he passed by. Then there's a quartet of morons who are out to take Issac's gold from him, but only succeed in making McClain aware of it.

It's interesting that Tom, the boy, is the most extreme of the group. He goes to town on the gang. Scorpion in the boot, rattlesnake in the saddlebag, drop a lasso around a rider's neck, the hang him, arrows through the chest, he stones one fellow. When he and Issac team-up, Issac is concerned with rescuing Tom's sister first, and getting back his gold second, but he's not worried about revenge. It's not important. Even McClain is starting to wonder if they should go back across the border and retire, leading to derision from his lady friend. Tom's father told him once that it was OK to kill a rabbit he planned to eat, because he was going to make use of it, and if he hadn't killed it, a hawk or coyote would. But to just kill something and leave it, that was killing, and wrong. Tom thinks of that during all this, but I'm not sure it stops him much. He continues with his vengeance, so maybe he's telling himself the killing is serving a purpose, and if he didn't do it, someone else (a sheriff, cavalry, rival gang) would do it. Or maybe he decided it didn't apply.

My Outlaw Brother - I figured starring Mickey Rooney, this would be terribly cheesy, but it was OK. Plus it has Robert Stack (aka Rex Kramer from Airplane!, aka the host of Unsolved Mysteries!) as Mickey's evil, but wealthy and successful brother. I think there were too many cracks about how Mickey only seemed to date girls bigger than him, especially since they play it as if all these girls are HUGE. Like, 195 pounds, gasp! I'm thinking, "One, that would make them bigger than me, and I'm not small. Two, they don't need to be that big to be larger than Mickey Rooney."

Desperate Mission - This is one of the movies that sold me on buying this. Not because I've seen it before (I haven't), but I was excited to see a Western starring Ricardo Montalban. I had this picture of everyone else in the movie being dirty and gruff, and here's Montalban, clean, classy, mostly using words to win people over, but quick with a gun when it's needed. That's actually pretty close to what happened, except Montalban (as Joaquin Murieta) is trying his best not to be that guy. His wife was killed by bandits, his home destroyed, and he's trying to be a cold man, concerned only with survival. A bit like Ennis' Punisher, only Murieta has a harder time burying the decent man he is. It keeps peeking through, and the group he's working with start to wonder about him. Some of them trust him more because of it, others doubt him more, and it comes to a head over a valuable religious piece. As I said, Montalban is pretty much what I hoped for: articulate, clever, using his wits and charm more often than a gun, seemingly out of place in the situation he's in.

The Hanged Man - Internet Movie Database confirms what I suspected: This was made for TV, probably with an eye towards a series spinning off from it. Steve Forrest is James Devlin, a gunfighter awaiting execution. The first 20 minutes of the movie are the preparation for that: Devlin saying goodbye to his girl, refusing the priest's opportunity for absolution, and finally, being hung in front of a large, occasionally cheering crowd. Well, there's one drunk guy wearing all furs asking Devlin what kind of dance he'll do for them at the end of the rope. I'm always bothered by the large crowds they show viewing hangings. They that hard up for things to do? Especially because it always seems to be midday, which should be hot, I'd want to be in the shade, sleeping.

Anyway, somehow Devlin survives his hanging. He's already been pronounced legally dead, so the sheriff says there's nothing they can do. He's free to go live his life, but what to do? Devlin asks the priest what Lazarus did, but the priest tells him he must find his own path, which doesn't seem to comfort Devlin much. He leaves town, and comes across a woman and her son on their ranch trying to hold out against a land baron. He ends up helping them to stay where they are, by the age-old method of killing everyone troubling them.

There are a couple of bits I like. Devlin tries to scare off Lew Halleck (the land baron and silver smelting plant owner) by playing on his being back from the dead. When Halleck insists Devlin is just flesh and blood, Devlin responds 'You're flesh and blood,' picks up a bottle of wine, and pours the red wine over Halleck's head, then leaves quietly. No matter how much people insist they aren't impressed by his still being alive, they are afraid, at least a little. At the end of the film, after Devlin's moved on, and man rides into town looking for him, claiming he and Devlin have unfinished business, then rides into the wilderness after him. The credits roll on Devlin riding quickly through rocky hills, repeatedly looking back over his shoulder. That's the sequence that convinced me this was made-for-TV, but it's still effective. Devlin needs/wants to do something different with his second chance, but he may not be afforded the opportunity.

Whew, that was a lot of movies.

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