(Note: I haven't gotten all erratic about writing these. Work's busy. Network problems. Blogger problems [coupled with the network, they seem to enjoy eating posts when I try to save them]. Now onward, ho with a rewrite of yesterday's post.)

Get Out Your Orange Face Paint
Dedicated to all of you who ever said: "Charlton Heston as a Mexican?!?"

Bruce Lee may have had trouble breaking into lead roles in the movies (and the selection in the States may still be slim), but at least he finally broke the tradition of having primary Asian characters played by white guys in bad make-up.

Probably, a personal favorite still has to be Ricardo Montalban as the lead Japanese character in the Marlon Brando vehicle Sayonara. Ricardo is a fine actor, but nothing could be more ridiculous than his impersonation of a Japanese accent through his own significant accent. We won't even go into the make- up job...At least Sean Connery's Japanese makeover in You Only Live Twice was kind of farcical.

As I'm writing this partially in a "boy, weren't we stupid back then" tone, I don't even want to get into the horrors of "blackface." I don't think I need to say anymore about that than's already been said. Sheesh.

Then there were the days when many of the "Indians" in a large number of Westerns were played by white guys coated in some kind of funky orange paint. Perhaps the best was when these bright orange badly wigged "savages" had bright blue eyes. Believe me I've seen it. Beyond the obvious surface offensiveness of the whole affair, these guys were also quite eyesore.

Now Native American characters only occasionally show up in spaghetti westerns. When they did they were usually played by dark-skinned Italians or Spaniards who had somewhat Native American features. At the very least, the one's I've seen were completely without the orange paint. More often than not, there were no pure blood Native American characters, but a plethora of half-breeds. Usually these half-breeds were, shall we say, prone to violence, hence perfect for the spaghettis oft revenge-centered plotlines.

As I mentioned above, if Charlton's role in Welles' Touch of Evil ever prompted you to question this strange tradition of race-swapping, then you're already primed for today's spaghetti western review. We proudly present Burt Reynolds as....

Navajo Joe (1966, d. Sergio Corbucci)

The Story: The feared bandit, Duncan, and his massive gang slaughter Indian villages and Western towns with abandon until they're hired to rob a railway train, but their plans are thwarted at nearly every turn by the stealthy and swift Navajo Joe.

The Review: If you really want to know the plot to Navajo Joe just re-read the above until you think you have it. Seriously. There's not much more to it. Well, ok, a little, but for the most part I'm not joking.

Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy the movie. I feel I should say that because I'm gonna spend most of the rest of the review trashing it.

First, it was beautifully shot. It had great outdoor locations and it made great use of them. Joe's rocky grotto home was a particularly visually interesing spot. Also, if you're a fan of spaghettis, it did have a whole lot of people being killed in a variety of clever and creative ways. For most spaghetti fans, that's always a big bonus. (Duncan's gang's enormous size insures lots of cannon fodder.) There's one more thing I love about this movie, but we'll save it until the end so I can end on a positive note.

Now on to the thrashing.

Seriously, plots do not get more linear than this. Duncan tries to do something. Joe either outright thwarts him or just kills a handful of his guys. Duncan does something else. Repeat until the big finale between Duncan and Joe. The End. I spent most of this movie waiting for something involving a twist or a turn or something to throw this movie from its rather straight-to-the-point path. Part of it is the fact that Joe never seems to really have any trouble wreaking havoc on the bandits. When he gets captured at the end, I never doubted that he'd be free, albeit a little worse for wear, and back fighting the bad guys.

With Joe's luck, you'd want him sitting next to you at your favorite Indian casino.

The only character in the movie that gets the least amount of depth is actually the half-breed bandit leader Duncan. Unfortunately, it doesn't come until nearly the end when it's a little too late to get really involved in it. For the longest time, it appears as though Joe is just out to whoop some @$, and again the revelation for why he's hunting Duncan is both too late and totally unsurprising. Perhaps the weirdest almost-subplot in the movie (you have to have a plot before you can really have a subplot) involves the seemingly arch-villain who hires Duncan's nasty squadron of cutthroats to rob the train. The mystery surrounding his identity dries up pretty quick, and then he's dispatched before he even gets a hint of real motivation for being evil.

Maybe it's just me, but cartoons and comics are about the only places where characters get to be evil just for evil's sake.

As for the acting, there's not much that can be honestly said. The English dub job on this one is pretty atrocious. It's probably a half-step away from being on the Godzilla dub-job level. No one appears to be ridiculously overacting in whatever language they may have been speaking originally. Aldo Sambrell is his usually creepy evil self as Duncan. Though seemingly half-crazed, he's not as threatening as he could be, but the guy always just looks like a bad dude. No doubt about that. As for Burt...well...

Depending on what generation you're of, you just may not really no or understand the screen presence that is Burt Reynolds. I'm not talking about even the strong performance he put in for Boogie Nights. I mean proper Burt Reynolds. I mean Deliverance-style Burt. I mean Sharky's Machine Burt. I mean smoking Smokey & The Bandit Burt. Burt's one of those guys who you just can't tell if he's a good actor or not, but he's just got this undeniable and totally enjoyable screen presence. He's Burt, and you just can't not watch him.

At the very least, Burt doesn't look particularly Native American, but at least he's got naturally dark features and a deep tan. Burt does look great in his swanky buckskin outfits. Burt, like that action heroes of old, looks like he can actually handle a gun or a night. Burt also has the athletic agility to pull of a lot of the cool stealthy sneak-attacks that Joe pulls off. Granted, Burt doesn't get much of a chance to become more than a one-dimensional character, but the Burt-ness just carries you on through somehow.

You just can't say whether it's good or not with any authority. Especially when Burt's not even dubbed by Burt.

Now one of my most common gripes in these movies is the horrible use of day-for-night photography. Navajo Joe has a lot of it. The funny thing is that the photography, in and of itself, is actually quite beautiful. The soft perpetual twilight brings about a certain mystical quality to the terrain being shot. The primary factor ruining the effect is that you know that it's supposed to be nighttime. After all, that just past sunset look of dusk just doesn't last that long.

If there is any reason to see this movie, (and I'm absolutely serious) it's the soundtrack. It is hands down one of Maestro Morricone's best. Not as well known as his other work, it is still an incredible work. The driving beat and the use of chanting and howling voices is both striking and fascinating. A few of the tracks are available on various Morricone collections, but unfortunately the complete CD is out of print (and expensive if you can find it). I gots to get me some of that.

In the end, Navajo Joe is almost certainly strictly for spaghetti enthusiasts. It doesn't have nearly the draw and power of Corbucci's stronger work like Django, or The Great Silence. The print from the Japanese DVD I saw was very crisp, and only had a few patches of scratches and spots. So once again, I had fun, but I don't know if you would.

I'm hoping that the quality of the pasta will improve once my copies of the Shaw Brothers/Spaghetti crossover The Stranger and The Gunfighter, Sergio Sollimas' The Big Gundown (the last Sollima western I needed), and straight up rare spaghetti double feature Johnny Yuma/Between God, The Devil, and a Winchester arrive in my mailbox.

We shall see my friend.

We shall see.

Cheers.