They Call Me Trinity (1970)

aka My Name is Trinity

Original title: Lo chiamavano Trinità...

Hygienically challenged professional drifter (with a horse), and probably fastest gun alive, Trinity (Terence Hill), by chance comes upon the town where his half brother Bambino (Bud Spencer) is working as a sheriff. Or rather, where Bambino has gone under cover as sheriff, for in truth he’s only a mildly successful horse thief with a grumpy disposition, and has taken the place of the town’s actual new sheriff whom he - half accidentally - shot.

Mostly, Bambino is trying to lay low, and the town’s nice and quiet enough for that, or it was before a group of pacifist Mormons (yeah, I know) lead by Tobias (Dan Sturkie) arrived, settling as farmers in a place horse magnate and practical owner of the town, Major Harriman (Farley Granger), wants for his horses. Up until now, the Major’s men haven’t done much beyond punching out a Mormon now and then, but the situation won’t stay this way forever.

Particularly not once Trinity takes a look at two pretty Mormonesses and decides he really should be helping their people out against the Major and his men, dragging the unwilling Bambino in with him.

It’s always dangerous visiting childhood favourites, particularly when you’ve already made the experience that Terence Hill and Bud Spencer movies don’t hold up when you’re not a kid anymore, even when you’re as childish a grown-up as I am doing my best to be at all times, so realizing Enzo Barboni’s They Call Me Trinity was actually a rather nice Spaghetti Western comedy turned out to be a very pleasant surprise for me. Which might have a lot to do with the fact this was actually the first comedic outing by Hill and Spencer after the success of the comedy dub of a much more serious earlier film – Boot Hill - featuring the two in Germany and elsewhere in Europe proved surprisingly successful, and this was the film that set the basics of the formula of the pair’s films instead of just repeating it ad nauseam.

What makes the film work beyond the often quite funny interplay between Hill and Spencer, with Spencer as always giving the grumpy straight man to Hill’s trickster, is its clear-eyed view of the elements that make up the Spaghetti Western. Unlike Tonino Valerii would later do with Hill in My Name is Nobody, Trinity doesn’t use that knowledge so much for a deconstruction of the genre as for the kind of mild comedy that clearly loves its genre too much to become a true parody yet can’t help but use the more ridiculous elements of it as the base for jokes. Quite a few of these jokes are really just slight exaggerations of the generally exaggerated things happening in Spaghetti Westerns (particularly those having to survive on actors making snake eyes at each other and one or two gimmicks), often used surprisingly subtly and with only the very mildest wink in the direction of the audience.

Despite what one is used to from later Hill and Spencer movies, there really isn’t all that much slapstick going on here, with most of the physical humour working more as a sub-set of sight gags; just with more punching on heads and shot down trousers, as if the film’s high concepts was to take the Spaghetti Western and replace most shoot-outs with light and fun brawls. An approach that certainly, given the general wiliness of Italian genre producers, doesn’t just by chance open up the genre to family audiences.

Consequently, and despite some cynical jokes, the resulting film is a rather good-natured concoction where the big bad is sent off to Nebraska after a big climactic brawl, where shot sheriffs walk around on crutches quite sprightly, and where tricksters can happily escape the threat of grown-up responsibilities while still helping out those in need if they put their mind to it. If this is supposed to be a conscious argument against the Spaghetti Western’s generally more cynical and bitter bent I’m not at all sure, though it’s certainly not impossible.

In any case, They Call Me Trinity proves how a capable director can take some very pessimistic (sometimes even cruel) genre conventions, and give them a believable twist in the direction of the good-natured, the fun, and the (dare I say it?) life-affirming, without having to turn to sappiness – at least in the realm of comedy.

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,reviews,spaghetti western,enzo barboni,terence hill,bud spencer,farley granger

The Man Called Noon (1973)

aka Un hombre llamado Noon

A man (Richard Crenna) is nearly assassinated while making what looks like preparations for a classic western showdown. He barely manages to escape with his life and – after a somewhat nightmarish chase – finds himself sharing a hobo-style train ride with the surprisingly friendly outlaw Rimes (Stephen Boyd). The man does need all the help he can get, it seems, for a grazing shot to the head has left him without memory; he only remembers that his name is Jonas, and that someone named Janish was involved in the attack on him, but apart from that he has no idea what’s going on with him whatsoever.

Rimes takes Jonas with him to the ranch of Fan Davidge (Rosanna Schiaffino), which just happens to be a place a certain Janish has turned into a safe house for his bandit gang - without Fan’s consent. Janish isn’t on the ranch right now, but various dangerous developments suggest that Jonas is actually a gunman called Noon. At the very least, he has very practical experience with meting out brutal violence, and is certainly a ruthless man.

Both traits will come in handy once various people start trying to kill Noon while he’s trying to solve the mystery of his own identity; a gold treasure is involved too.

Peter Collinson’s British-Italian-Spanish co-production (of course shot in Spain) The Man Called Noon is quite an interesting film. An adaptation of a Louis L’Amour novel, the film stands with one foot in the realm of the psychological western as made in the United States during the 50s, with the other – particular when it comes to its depiction of violence - in the world of the Spaghetti western. Collinson made quite a few fine genre films that often seem to straddle eras and sub-genres the way Noon does, never quite reaching the heights that give one posthumous cult status as a director, but generally turning out films at least worth watching.

Noon certainly is, despite being marred by a slightly overcooked finale that contains more melodramatic posturing than the rest of the film together. Outside of the finale, the film is tight, yet often growing unreal and dream-like. Particular some of the scenes of violence are filmed with stylistic methods you can often see connected with dream sequences, suggesting its action taking place in Noon’s (to leave it at that name) mind as much as in the outside world.

Even outside the action scenes, Collins tends to position his camera at peculiar angles, shooting very traditional western scenes in uncommon ways that turn the often seen into something a bit stranger. I suspect it’s an attempt to let the audience share some of Noon’s confusion, the befuddlement of someone who still knows the rituals of his job and genre by instinct, but doesn’t know what they’re actually meant for. From time to time, Collinson overdoes this a bit and things threaten to feel a bit silly, but the largest part of the film expresses a peculiar mood of alienation very much its own, with Noon stumbling through a fun house mirror world quite like a noir protagonist who isn’t at all sure anymore if he’ll want to find the truth about himself. Although, it has to be said, Noon lets its main character off quite lightly in the end.

Richard Crenna does a good job on the acting side, believably embodying Noon’s state of confusion and basic decency as well as the coldness and ruthlessness he only still remembers as reflexes. Crenna’s performance even suggests another dimension the script doesn’t really seem to be interested in: that forgetting parts of what he was is exactly what enables Noon to change and possibly find a future, his loss of memory helping him regain some buried part of his humanity (while killing a lot of people, of course).

As a fan of European genre cinema of the era, I’m also happy with the rest of the film’s cast, the well-known faces of Farley Granger, Rosanna Schiaffino, Aldo Sambrell and last but not least Patty Shepard, who gives a pretty unhinged performance as capital-e evil Peg Cullane. Why, Shepard’s so evil, she even owns an adorable black cowboy outfit she wears when she’s out doing evil!

And if that doesn’t sound like a recommendation, I don’t know what does.

Technorati-Markierungen: british movies,spanish movies,italian movies,reviews,western,peter collinson,richard crenna,stephen boyd,rosanna schiaffino,farley granger,patty shepard

In short: Death Will Have Your Eyes (1974)

aka Savage City

Original title: La moglie giovane

Poor, badly educated working class girl Luisa (Marisa Mell) comes to Rome hoping to find some opportunity for getting by. But the economy's bad, and even the paying jobs don't pay enough to not make a girl think if she shouldn't just make the final step from "just this side of prostitution" to the actual thing. Before it comes to that point, Luisa gets lucky. Random chance leads to her meeting rich and famous surgeon - who always wanted to become a poet - Armando (Farley Granger).

Armando falls in love with Luisa, or so he says. Surprisingly enough he even wants to marry her. Even though she doesn't really reciprocate the feeling, Luisa agrees to finally stop being poor. The class differences, their incompatible temperaments, Armando's impotence and the fact that there isn't much actual love between the two soon turns the marriage into an ordeal. It doesn't help the situation that Luisa isn't actually as mercenary as she pretends to be, so she falls in love with a younger, not impotent and more emotional colleague of Armando.

Even when Armando learns of the affair, he isn't willing to let Luisa go, so she decides to murder him. The whole murder thing starts off well enough. Soon, however, Luisa has a working-class blackmailer in her living room and has to juggle her bad conscience, said blackmailer, her boyfriend, and the police to survive.

Death's director Giovanni d'Eramo only seems to have written a handful of films, and directed two, with the film at hand being the last. It's a bit of a shame, really, for while Death isn't one of the more stylish melodramatic giallos, it's a film with an intelligent script directed with unassuming tightness.

D'Eramo's film is far from the showiness that makes the giallo in generally such a fun genre to watch. There's hardly any painful/awesome fashion, nor much psychedelic camera handling, though the film does play a bit loose with temporal structures, with a few flashbacks to keep the narrative less clear. Instead, d'Eramo uses the melodramatic thriller format to explore questions of class, with several working class characters trying to make it, only slowly realizing that class differences in the society are not just about the money, and everything's set-up to keep them unhappy whether they stay "in their place" or try to climb the social ladder. The bourgeois of the film (as in real life) on the other hand, seem to lack any true understanding of the meaning of being poor, nor do they in the end take much efforts to try to understand. Quite wonderfully, the film manages to pack this thematic baggage in without ruining its effect as a piece of genre cinema with it: it's all very organic, with theme and (simple) plot bolstering each other.

The film also gives Austrian actress Marisa Mell (as friends of Italian cult cinema will know a frequent appearance in these films) a well-deserved opportunity to do a bit more than just to flash her breasts (though we do meet those too, and I, for one won't complain). Turns out Mell is very good at giving an emotionally nuanced performance, and really drives home that her character isn't just a gold digger, or evil, or misunderstood, or a fool in love, or a victim of the class system, but a person; those, as you may have heard, can't generally be described that easily.

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,giallo,giovanni d'eramo,marisa mell,farley granger,in short

In short: So Sweet, So Dead (1972)

Original title: Rivelazioni di un maniaco sessuale al capo della squadra mobile

A provincial town in Italy is hit by a series of murders. All victims are women from the upper rungs of the bourgeoisie, all of them were married and all are found surrounded by photos showing them having sex with men who clearly aren't their husbands. Because he's polite and something of an overachiever, the killer scratches the men's faces off the photos, which makes the life of the investigating cop, Inspector Capuana (Farley Granger, in a subtle and complex performance mostly based on looks instead of facial impressions) that decisive bit more difficult by helping potential witnesses who have reasons of their own not to want to talk to him avoid answering unpleasant questions.

Capuana's investigation is difficult enough as it is, for the town's upper class may be great at committing adultery, but most of its members do not like to talk about their hobbies to the police, and sure are influential enough to get special treatment from the police. Given the miserable state of evidence in the cases, it'll take a long line of victims (Femi Benussi, Krista Nell, Susan Scott - it's half of Italy's giallo actresses for the price of one) until Capuana will be able to get his man. And even then, he might just learn something about his own wife (Sylva Koscina) that'll make him act in a manner morally much worse than adultery could ever be.

So Sweet, So Dead is one of the small group of movies that try to cross the Italian style "ripped from the headlines" police procedural with the giallo; unlike many other films making that attempt, Roberto Bianchi Montero's is actually successful at doing what it sets out to achieve. Many films with the same idea as So Sweet (and isn't it interesting how the film's Italian title emphasises the film's identity as a police procedural while the English language one identifies it as a giallo?) suffer from the peculiar choices their director make when deciding what element from which genre to take, often leading to movies combining the least interesting and the most annoying elements of both genres. Sadly, this has resulted in more than one movie about bored looking men sitting in drab rooms talking police procedural stuff while crawling through a plot that is confusing but equally drab.

Montero goes about his business a bit more intelligently, making the murder and sex scenes, as well as identity and motivation of the killer, stylistically and in their content part of the giallo genre, while the social commentary, the central cop character and the cynical ending are coming right from the police procedural. One could argue that Montero uses the copious scenes of nudity of a minor who is who of Italian genre actresses and the sexy, sleazy violence to make his semi-realist observations about the life of the upper classes more interesting to a rather jaded audience. The director succeeds in this project rather well, especially because he seems to be stylistically at home in both genres (which does not come as too big a surprise seeing as Montero worked in any film genre you might care to name), making the giallo parts suspenseful, their violence disquietingly enticing, and the police procedural parts' observations about the mental state of provincial Italy 1972 believable and human.

There is, alas, a real possibility that the director agrees with the killer about the adulterous women being "whores" who deserve to die, although there's an equally large possibility that position is part of the bourgeois hypocrisy he is trying to criticize. In good exploitation film tradition, you can base an argument for both positions on So Sweet, So Dead.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,giallo,crime,roberto bianchi montero,farley granger,sylva koscina,susan scott,krista nell,femi benussi,in short

In short: Something Creeping In The Dark (1971)

aka Something Is Crawling In The Dark

Original title: Qualcosa striscia nel buio

A mix of unpleasant strangers - a rich guy (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) and his wife Sylvia (Lucia Bose), physician Dr. Williams (Stelvio Rosi) and his companion (I honestly have no idea what their actual relationship's supposed to be, the film sure ain't telling) Susan (Mia Genberg), a professor with a tendency towards the occult and helpful exposition (Angelo Francesco Lavagnino), two cops (Dino Fazio and Franco Beltramme) and Spike (Farley Granger), the serial killer they just apprehended - are stranded on the same country road when various bridges break down during a storm. Fortunately, there's a house nearby, so everyone decides to just drop in there.

Joe (Gianni Medici), the house's owner, isn't too fond of suddenly having a roomful of strangers in his living room when he was planning to spend some quality time with his girlfriend (Giulia Rovai), but the cops don't take his no for an answer.

So soon enough, everyone's hanging around in Joe's living room, drinking his booze. After the Professor mentions that this house once belonged to a supposed murderess with a background in black magic, Sylvia - after having been insufferable to everyone and having had a strange vision in which she sees herself murdering Spike - decides that it's now time for a little séance. After all, Sylvia's beleaguered husband is a perfect medium.

Unexpectedly - these things never go wrong in movies, after all, that séance turns out to be not such a hot idea. The lady of the house does in fact appear and possess the hubby, but she's very displeased by having been disturbed. Once everyone's gone to bed, the dead woman (in form of an invisible force) begins to possess various members of the party, letting them act out their hidden desires. Obviously, there will be murders, and even more obviously, especially Spike will have a chance to continue with his hobby.

Mario Colucci's Something Creeping is a pleasant entry among the number of Italian variations of the old dark house sub-genre. Unlike its American and British forebears from a few decades earlier, the Italian old dark house movie does not explain away strange and seemingly supernatural occurrences with some preposterous, "natural" hokum. Quite the opposite, a film like Something Creeping relishes the possibility to use the supernatural as a catalyst to bring out its characters' nasty sides.

Not that these nasty sides are all that difficult to bring out or even just to find. Keeping with the tradition of all Italian horror movies - and again in opposition to the classical old dark house films, where all characters were annoying, but usually not utterly despicable - most of the characters here are either so repressed they seem hardly able to show normal human reactions or such utter bastards one can't help but enjoy most of what's happening to them a little too much.

What is happening to the characters mostly fits their various neuroses well enough, and while none of it is surprising, it's quite pleasant to watch the bunch of bastards squirm, the supposed authority figures just try to ignore the truth when it doesn't fit their concept of reality, and Colucci's camera having fun zooming around the rooms while the dead woman breathes heavily on the soundtrack.

Something Creeping isn't the most atmospheric Italian movie of its type, but Colucci makes good enough use of his competent cast and the little special effects his budget allow him to produce a slight, but very entertaining piece of 70s occult horror.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,mario colucci,stelvio rossi,mia genberg,farley granger,in short,horror