The Man With The Gunsight Eyes Comes to Kill!
...and no, I don't mean Col. Steve Austin...

I came across a site this morning that clenched the subject of this post. I don't recall the name of it off the top of my head, but it was a search engine for cemeteries. Type in a name, find your dead relatives, favorite passed musicians, and your dearly departed Hollywood stars. It's creepy....and all too familiar to the wacky world wide web. I should mention that you could leave flowers and messages for those on record. Now, I've lost a deeply loved sister and a close grandparent in my time on Earth, and I've only visited their graves maybe once since their passing. So...I'm not sure that online "bereavement" qualifies as healthy, much less sane.

Suddenly, a fella carrying around a 20-sided die doesn't seem all that dorky...well, until he starts talking about his +3 Fighting Strength Warrior with a +2 halberd...

Anyhow. Combine that with my double-header the last time around. I decided to expand to a four-for-all...then realized that I hadn't watched the other half of my quadruple header. Not knowing when I'll get around to it, we're back down to a two-fer. (I shall return with the other half.)

All of this because I was shown where a certain favorite axtor was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, in sunny southern California.

It's (gonna be) a Lee Van Cleef spectacular!

Sabata (aka. Ehi Amico...C'è Sabata, Hai Chiuso! 1969, d. Gianfranco Parolini)

The Story: Master Gunslinger Sabata enlists the help of a loudmouth homeless veteran and a high-flying mute Indian in his quest to unravel a plot by several pillars of a Western community to buy up land that the coming railroad will be built upon.

Return of Sabata (aka. È Tornato Sabata...Hai Chiuso un'Altra Volta 1971, d. Gianfranco Parolini)

The Story: Sabata sets up shop in a town whose benefactor for town improvement may actually be its greatest robber baron.

The Review: Let's just get two things out of the way right off the bat, shall we?

For one thing, I am very aware of the existence of Adios, Sabata (aka. Indio Black, 1971 d. G. Parolini) which stars Yul Brynner and much of the same cast as the other two films. I watched it at the same time as the other two. It came in a box set together. Two important details however made me decide to leave it out: 1) Like many spaghettis, it became a Sabata movie to cash in despite the obvious difference in leading men (which went vice versa in the The Magnificent Seven franchise), and 2) which is repetetive, but Yul Brynner (though very very cool) is not Lee Van Cleef.

The second thing, is that I'm still not entirley sure what the hell is with Aldo Canti who plays the crazy acrobat character in all three films. Well, not so much with him, as he was supposedly gunned down by mobsters in the early 80's. More along the lines of: What the hell is this acrobat doing bouncing around the screen in a spaghetti western? Thing is, this wasn't a phenomena limited to spaghettis. Having seen the bizarre trailers for any of a number of different Italian genre movies, I know that I've seen this weird spring board flipping around crap in several different genres. It's almost always the same with someone dropping from a height onto a well hidden trampoline and then flipping through the air to attack, to enter a building stealthily, etc. I just don't get it. It looks weird and...well, bad...like early bad wire work in martial arts movies. But where wires eventually worked, you can tell that this craze was never going to catch on.

Ok. Ok. I'll admit that it comes across cleverly in a couple of places, but it still looks illogical...and kinda dumb. It did, however, just needed to be stated up front. If anyone reading this watched these movies based on my recommendation, and I didn't mention that. I can imagine, that within 20 minutes of putting the disk in they would be saying something along the lines of "What the hell is this?" Now it's well over time to move on.

Now, if there's one signifier about many spaghettis, it is the frequent reuse of things that worked in other films or things that were cool. Gianfranco Parolini, the director of the Sabata films, also had a hand in creating another Spaghetti fave, Sartana (played by Gianni Garko...and once by George Hilton [yick!].). He only helmed the first film, but both Sartana and Sabata are sleuthing gunslingers who have a penchant for gadgets (and so do the villains). Now, I've reviewed a couple of Sartana films in these pages, and I have to say that Giuliano Carnimeo who made the rest of the Sartana films definitely created a more realized character with more ironed out mysteries. The difference between the two series though would be that while Sartana had better developed plots, Sabata has higher production values...well, the first one for sure. The one thing neither series failed on though was casting for the iconic leads.

Lee Van Cleef was quoted once as telling his mother that nothing could've been more fortunate than his being born with beady eyes. How true. Lee's hawk-like appearance goes a long way to establish his gentleman killer character. As this set of mysteries doesn't involve any forensic pathology, one needs a man whose sharp-pointed eyes seem to peel through the other characters giving him all the information he needs. Lee had this in spades. Van Cleef also telegraphs the confident strut of a man who knows he can kill you with a glance, who can take a casino for everything it's worth, and who can woo every lady in the room without a word. The only way to explain the importance of this is to see the film because you need exactly that character to suspend your disbelief when he repeatedly demonstrates a preternatural skill to be in the right place at the right time almost every time.

Now the rest of the cast in both films is largely filled by spaghetti regulars. Of standout note in both films is Ignazio Spalla who plays the big burly and surly loudmouth sidekick (a role often inhabited by Bud Spencer, or Mario Brega). Spalla has a natural charm and on screen charisma that keeps his over-the-top blustering fun instead of tedious. We won't cover Canti again, who sort of plays the sidekick to sidekick Spalla in both films. And if you've enjoyed seeing the actors who play the villains dying in nasty ways in other films...you'll enjoy them dying nasty deaths here as well. Though it is a detraction to the second film, that no one stands out particularly well as a villain as more time is spent digging out the shady plan than dealing with him directly until well over half way into the movie.

I can't get away from the character point without mentioning one of my personal genre favorites, William Berger, who plays Banjo in the first film. Banjo's is one of those great characters who walks that fine line between being on the side of good or the side of bad and you never can quite tell which way he'll turn. Now, in a genre populated almost exclusively by antiheroes, it definitely says something if you can stand out in such a role. Berger, whom I've loved in nearly every movie I've seen him in, plays it just right though he is obviously more a character of the 1960's than of the Wild West as the cynical musician lothario with a past. Unfortunately, though there is tension thick enough to cut with a knife between Van Cleef and Berger, Banjo is never quite developed enough to be one of the greats. This ends up being a letdown to the movie as a whole as the choices and plays Banjo makes spur the plot on more and more as the story moves along.

Parolini's direction is brisk and fun, and he keeps the action rolling along at a decent clip. What seems to fail him more than anything is the story, which in both films just seems to lack the right amount of development and in some cases coherency that would make them at least solid good movies if not great ones. In most ways, though the gunslinging detective of sorts comes off as fresh, many of the other elements are boilerplate, but like I said, not tied together well enough to be a totally solid genre effort. The reason I went at some lengths to go over the cast is that they keep the film engaging more than anything else. Van Cleef's banter, Spalla's bravado, and, in the first film, Banjo's moody strut make the effort well worth watching. The frequent, and often well staged gunfights, don't hurt either.

In all, the first film is superior to the second film in many ways, but both are very watchable. I'm not sure if these would win any fans to the genre who had seen no other examples, but they are definitely in a the upper half. I would actually recommend Garko's Sartana over Sabata, but I don't want that to detract from Van Cleef. After all, the decision to write this review came from a link to Lee Van Cleef's grave. If I could, I'd go back in time just to shake hands with him. I enjoy watching him work, and these movies are a good example of his skill and charisma. Unfortunately, too many of the important elements of good film making don't quite add up enough around him.

Cheers.