Runtime:
94 minutes
Directed
by: Gianfranco Parolini
Starring:
Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance, Sybil Danning, Richard Boone, Leif
Garrett (yes, Leif Garrett)
From:
Golan-Globus (yes, the guys behind Cannon)
So,
I haven't seen too many Spaghetti Westerns in my life; I decided to
try and fill that hole by watching this, a movie I only heard about
earlier in the year. A movie filmed in Israel and produced by the
guys who would form the tremendous 80's studio known as Cannon Films,
with that cast... it certainly sounded promising to me.
The
plot, which I am stealing from the back of a public domain collection
of Spaghetti Westerns I got today: “A retired gunslinger heads to
Juno City to seek revenge upon the man who murdered his twin brother,
the local parish priest.” Not too surprisingly, Palance was the bad
guy, and Van Cleef played the twin brothers. Also, “Juno City”...
I can't help but shudder whenever I hear the word Juno, due to that
terrible film, but that's another topic for another day.
As
for the film... it's definitely uneven. Some parts were lame. But
there were some great parts too. Palance and his band of sleazy (and
sleazy-looking) ruffians certainly did a lot to make themselves evil
bastards. For example, their love of fondling and raping women, which
you do see some of throughout. When you see Palance walk in on some
members of his gang in their saloon trying to have their way with
some ladies, he sees this and... starts cackling out loud. Yep, it's
that kind of movie.
There's also plenty of wackiness with the plan
that the gunslinger uses to get revenge, and I'll leave it at that.
Like I said, this is uneven but it's not awful either. It has the
stereotypical Spaghetti Western musical score, which is not a bad
thing. I wish it would have been awesome considering the talent
involved (Leif is not included in what I call “talent”; he was
annoying at times, to say the least); that said, it was still an
acceptable watch.
I'll
be back Wednesday night.
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