The Same Sands in Different Lands

Spaghetti Westerns were typically Italian productions shot in Spain standing in for the old American West. But why shouldn't one have also been set in Spain? At least one was--1967's Man, Pride and Vengeance (L'uomo, l'orgoglio, la vendetta). That's not the only atypical thing about it, though. The story centres on a torrid romance between Franco Nero and Tina Aumont--it feels much more like a film noir or psychological tragedy than a Spaghetti Western until two thirds of the way through when Klaus Kinski shows up. It's a decent enough film about poisonous love, though it works mainly on the strength of its visuals, particularly in terms of how gorgeous Nero and Aumont were.

The film's German title is Mit Django kam der Tod. I can just imagine how many Django fans were thoroughly disappointed by this film with which the only thing it has in common with Django is Franco Nero. And his lovesick, earnest Spanish officer has very little in common with the character he played in that influential 1966 film.

Handsome young Jose (Nero) meets Carmen (Aumont), a beautiful young gypsy, when she starts a fight in a barracks' workshop. Escorting her to prison, he allows her to walk ahead after she begs him not to allow her to be shamed in front of her neighbours. Of course, she gives him the slip and he's put in detention.

But it's not the last he sees of her nor the last time she takes advantage of him. But they both seem to have a fabulous time rolling in bed and it's not really clear how much of what she does is manipulation or how much is genuine affection for Jose. Or maybe it's both, as she tries to explain to him later.

When he's heartbroken over an Englishman she starts living with, she tells him, yes, she loves the Englishman now. But only for now. Why can't Jose understand that? Maybe he's sore because he had to skip town after murdering a superior officer he found in bed with her.

Then things really do start to look like a Spaghetti Western. Jose gets a really nice but totally impractical sable corduroy jacket and big turquoise scarf. And suddenly Carmen has a husband who's just been released from prison. And it's just poor Jose's luck that it happens to be Klaus Kinski.

Not that Kinski seems to be the jealous type here, just generally ruthless and sadistic. When Jose's young friend is shot during a botched robbery, he tries to carry him to safety but Kinski saves everyone the trouble and executes the lad.

There are some pretty good fight scenes though the climactic tussle between Nero and Kinski is kind of ruined by it being muddy blue day for night shots. The main story stays between Jose and Carmen, though. She remains slightly mysterious but credible and Jose is prevented from coming off as just a pathetic load because Nero is so devastatingly handsome. There was definitely something between these two. Just what it was is the kind of tormenting question that ends in graves.

The Weight of the Hat

He wears his famous black hat and black cloak but is that all it takes to be Sartana? Decidedly not, as evidenced by 1969's I am Sartana, Your Angel of Death (Sono Sartana, il vostro becchino). The sequel to If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death, this tale of Sartana hunting down his imposter is less focused than its predecessor but still a lot of fun, in no small part because of a much bigger, more amusing role for Klaus Kinski.

The opening credits feature a close-up of Sartana (Gianni Garko) doing card tricks--appropriate considering how much of the movie is about tricks, some cleverer than others. Sartana has his hands on a deck of cards more than once in the film, most effectively when he manages to surreptitiously swap the deck for a gun from the man guarding him.

Despite the straight forward premise, this film works a lot like a series of vignettes as Sartana drifts into rooms and sheriff stations, appearing suddenly to get the upper hand. As in the first film, there's something more supernatural about this Spaghetti Western hero than any other. The Man with No Name, Django, and Ringo all have mystery and faintly sadistic guile, but Sartana tends more than any other to do things that are clearly impossible. My favourite in this film being when a gunman spots Sartana's hat and cloak on a rack in a barber shop. The wouldbe killer scans the shop only to look back and see Sartana's gotten the drop on him because the hat and cloak have transformed into the man himself.

Kinski, who played a petty thug named Morgan in the first film, here plays a dangerous gunman called Hot Dead. He doesn't seem to have anything to do with the bank robbers who've framed Sartana or the plot of the film in any other way. A scene of Hot Dead in a train car lazily foiling a card sharp but promising to "lose anyway" is presented without any apparent connexion to Sartana. When the two finally meet, Hot Dead maintains his intriguing tendency to show his skill before deliberately backing down. Kinki's irrepressible natural energy makes this low energy character trait fascinating.

I am Sartana, Your Angel of Death is available on Amazon Prime.

Death Applies the Cut Up Technique

Murder is one way to please Death, I suppose. Thus the title of 1973's Death Smiles on a Murderer (La morte ha sorriso all'assassino). But there was certainly a lot in it for me to smile about, too. It's like a dream after a night binging on 19th century gothic horror; the film's plot seems composed completely of improvised alternate scenes required by sudden losses of funding and actors, requiring director Joe D'Amato (credited as Aristide Massaccesi) to toss in the concepts from several Edgar Allan Poe stories, Carmilla, and Frankenstein. None of the characters take solid hold, there's too much concept being introduced, but it's even more dreamlike for that and some anchor is provided by leading actress Ewa Aulin.

I'd only seen the beautiful Swedish star as the dopey title character of the amusing 60s satire Candy so it was fun seeing her play someone so sharp here. Someone with amnesia who might be undead who has an affair with the master of the manor where she's staying and also his wife and her own brother.

Enter Klaus Kinski who receives top billing despite having a small role. It is refreshing to see him playing a basically nice guy, aside from the fact that he's basically Victor Frankenstein.

There's an intriguing three level voyeur scene at the beginning where, as Greta's doctor, he asks her to undress, at which point he surreptitiously watches her through a mirror. He doesn't know a serving maid is watching him through the half open door. No-one knows about the butler who's revealed to have secretly been watching everything that happens in the film at the end, a revelation that comes for no apparent reason.

"I don't understand," a police inspector says at one point while examining another body. "It doesn't make any sense." That's an understatement.

A lesbian romance ends in an amalgamation of "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Black Cat"; an abruptly introduced masked ball abruptly turns into "The Masque of the Red Death"; there's a carriage accident and an omnipresent cat. A sly look from Greta now and then assures us it's all according to some devious plan from Hell. But I'm pretty sure she's making up her rambling phantasmagoria as she goes.

If you want a bleary, drunken tour of Edgar Allan Poe, you might enjoy this film. I did. It's on Amazon Prime.

Kinds of Desperation

The lost causes of youthful passion are replaced by cynical pursuits of wealth in 1971's Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead (Prega il Morto e Ammazza il Vivo). But the old scores are just waiting to resurface, the characters in this nice, sweaty Spaghetti Western quietly boiling in waters far deeper than the stolen crates of gold bars. But those are pretty important too.

Ominous strangers begin to turn up at a forlorn telegraph office; a gang of robbers and a mysterious man in Halloweenish black and orange who calls himself John Webb (Paolo Casella). The gang violently takes over the place and holds hostage the occupants of a stage coach that's forced to stop there; a prostitute and a wealthy man with his trophy wife, Eleanor (Victoria Zinny).

It's not clear if Webb is part of the gang or their enemy but he and the rest of the group have an uneasy, wary relationship. The group doesn't seem much more inclined to trust their leader when he finally shows up, a former Confederate soldier named Dan Hogan played by Klaus Kinski.

I was really frustrated the only copy of this movie I could get my hands on was the English dub. Normally I wouldn't mind so much when it comes to a Spaghetti Western, many of which were made to be dubbed, but the American who voices over for Kinski is completely wrong. A flat, run of the mill performance that's completely mismatched with Kinski's remarkable fire. Watching him, you can imagine the kinds of snarling shouts that must have come out of Kinski but it's all plastered over with a garden variety delivery. I hear the German dub is really good but I can't find it anywhere.

Fortunately, he spends a lot of time silently stalking about the room and the desert, his big goblinish eyes at turns sadistic and distracted when Eleanor offers herself to him or pleads with him. His mind is on bigger things and so is Webb's which makes the quiet regard they have for each other seem to make sense. Like Once Upon a Time in the West, the hero and villain seem to exist on a different plane from everything else which has the odd effect of uniting them even as they're deadly enemies.

Directed by Giuseppe Vari, Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead isn't as ambitious as Leone's best known films but presents an effective smaller story of a group of men and women struggling in the desert.

Twitter Sonnet #1153

A fading skate reminds you once you ran.
Beneath a minute time eclipsed to one.
Condensing loops of rubber held the man.
Descending stones of mountains held the sun.
The bending rails support a jelly train.
Translucent doors reveal the moving souls.
Pursuing trees at length began to gain.
Assorted plants amassed a million roles.
A box of painted lead misled the gold.
An autumn border faced a summer dust.
In further walks the stepping tells were told.
A knocking gale was treated like a gust.
Reluctant wigs become to-morrow's felt.
Beneath their dusty hats the killers melt.