Run, Man, Run [dir. Sergio Sollima]

In Sergio Sollima's The Big Gundown, actor Tomas Milian played a character nicknamed 'Cuchillo' aka 'The Knife', who is chased by Lee Van Cleef's lawman. Cuchillo's a vulgar and shifty bastard, loud mouthed and slippery, amenable to all kinds of dirty tricks. The character was obviously a hit with audiences, because Sollima and Milian return to Cuchillo in Run, Man, Run (RMR). Here his braggadocio is a little tamped down and he is a touch more openly heroic. Cuchillo gets mixed up in an adventure pertaining to the Mexican revolution when an imprisoned poet he helps to break out of jail confides to him in a dying moment, the location of hidden gold in Texas meant to fund the rebellion.

But several other parties are interested in the gold, and perhaps for less altruistic reasons. There's former sheriff Cassidy (Donald O'Brien), a pair of French mercenaries, the Texan mayor (Gianni Rizzi, who frequently played oily villains) and his daughter, and the bandit Riza. Cuchillo's quest leads him to tight spots on several occasions: he is beaten, shot at, strung up, tied to a windmill. To survive, he must rely on his wits and his knife skills, and occasionally, the help of some unlikely allies.

While the political angle has a place in RMR, it is secondary to Cuchillo's adventure. There are even some moments of black comedy, like when Cuchillo steals food from a house and walks out the front door only to find himself facing a firing squad. Milian is a delight in the lead, conveying as much through shrugs, grins and glances as through dialog. There are some strong actors in the supporting cast. The action scenes are ambitious and fun. I know Leone is a bigger name, but I find Corbucci and Sollima's less pompous western tales more easily watchable.

A few words on the blu-ray release from Eureka:

Video-wise, the Eureka transfer is pretty fine. Detail is not always the greatest, but the colors look pretty good. In general, it resembles how I'd expect a low-budget Italian western of that period to look like. The Italian mono track I used (overdubbed, of course) sounded good. Bruno Nicolai's score has some nice moments (my favorite is a nighttime ambush where Cuchillo has to take on a gang of fellows with his knives, while an ally takes up sniper duty). The English subtitles are generally fine, although there is the occasional typo like when the rebel leader tells his henchman to "...get the keys to the 'panty' and double the men's rations". There is also an English audio track (with optional SDH subs).

Extras include a feature commentary with (who else!) Kim Newman, a 20-min video essay by Stephen Thrower, alternate English credits sequence and a lengthy trailer. The booklet has 2 essays by critic Howard Hughes, one on the film, and an exhaustive rundown of films featuring the Mexican revolution. The now OOP first run of this movie had a bonus disc with a 85-min badly truncated US cut (and its own commentary).

RMR is another fine specimen of the spaghetti western genre, and even if you didn't get the LE, the standard release has enough good stuff in it to warrant the purchase.

Erik the Conqueror [dir. Mario Bava]

I haven't seen The Vikings (Richard Fleischer) which is supposed to have been a HUGE inspiration for Mario Bava's Viking movie Erik the Conqueror aka Gli Invasori (The Invaders). I don't think Bava was too interested in an authentic representation of Viking culture, substituting fjords and rivers with some clearly studio-made exotic subterranean cave with a huge fake tree in it. There are also dances from slinky women clad in diaphanous outfits that would see them shivering in actual Viking climes. The scenes of people sailing in longboats are clearly done on a studio set without any water (I think they just move the camera on a dolly to give the illusion of motion).

The plot is about two brothers, sons of a Viking king killed in battle with the English by betrayal. They are separated as children - Erik (Giorgio Ardisson) is found by the English queen and brought up as her own son, while Eron (Cameron Mitchell) is raised by his uncle and poised to become the next Viking-king. These 2 also happen to fall in love with twin sisters, who are vestal virgins (in Viking culture?) and do the dancing in diaphanous outfits. There's a convoluted plot which involves an evil British regent who actually engineered the death of the brothers' dad and is continuously scheming to gain control of the British throne, even if it means handing over the castle keys to the Viking invaders.

This is a melodramatic adventure movie, in which a fair amount of the script feels like it was being made up or shuffled around on a daily basis. More than the brothers or their lady loves, it is François Cristophe as the British Queen and Andrea Checci as the scheming regent who make an impact. Erik the Conqueror is not one of Bava's more distinctive directorial features, but it has its moments. The action scenes, given that this would have not got even a tenth of a Hollywood studio film's budget are fairly well done, with multiple planes of fighting (although there are some obvious repeated shots of people being felled). I'm sure Bava biographer Tim Lucas' commentary, which is included on the Arrow blu-ray I watched it on, will give some revealing insights into how specific scenes were filmed and how Bava used his VFX expertise to conceive and execute scenes well above the production's meager means.

Christ Stopped at Eboli [dir. Francesco Rosi]

Italian director Francesco Rosi made one of the best first impressions on me when I saw his film Salvatore Giuliano (reviewed on this site here), a propulsive docu-drama about a rebel who was hailed as a hero when he fought for the independence of Sicily and later became controversially implicated in the massacre of a gathering of communists. Hands over the City, while not as visceral, was still a strong indictment of the collusion of corruption between big business and government. Certain aspects of the plot seemed to have inspired parts of the classic Indian satire Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. On the other hand, Rosi's later output tended to more poetic / nostalgic features like Three Brothers (reviewed here) and Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

While it does have some criticism of a government that is fascist or does not bother to understand the lives of its less-privileged citizens, 1979's Christ Stopped at Eboli (CSAE, based on an autobiographical book by painter, intellectual and political prisoner Carlo Levi) falls more in the latter camp, being the sentimental study of an older, agrarian culture with its own rhythms and social hierarchies. Although CSAE was also shown as a significantly truncated 150-min film, it was originally a 4-Episode mini-series for the state-owned Radiotélévisione Italiana, totaling about 220 min. Gian Maria Volonté, famous abroad for his violent roles in the Dollars films and other spaghetti westerns, plays the soft-spoken Levi who at the beginning is seen coming into the remote part of southern Italy where he has been exiled by Rome.

Levi is treated with courtesy by the administration (led by the bureaucratic Mayor), but his movements and activities are restricted. A long ago degree in medicine comes to purpose when the villagers insist on consulting him, despite his protests of being inexperienced, because he is more intelligent and sincere than the local quacks. This is not a series packed with twists and turns and events of massive upheaval. The bulk of CSAE is about Levi being exposed to the local life and beliefs, and evolving his philosophy of how government and reform can actually help the people.

I haven't read the source novel but Rosi's film shows a strong strain of nostalgia for the old, "pure" ways. His camera lovingly caresses the rocky hills and the rough village roads. The people of this forgotten town may be poor and simple-minded, but they are good at heart and they respond to Levi's kindness, agitating for him to officially practice medicine in the village, even under threat of being attacked by the police. The moral of the film is that if we want to benefit someone we need to first examine and understand their way of life, and support it in the best way possible rather than impose a supposedly more progressive lifestyle and thinking upon them.

Three Brothers [dir. Francesco Rosi]

Last night I watched Three Brothers (3B) by Francesco Rosi on the blu-ray from Arrow.

The previous film by Rosi I'd seen - Salvatore Giuliano - was utterly brilliant, and so this was a blind-buy. While certain elements between the two are common, most notably the shifts in narrative chronology and use of flashbacks, they are very different in nature. SG was an uncompromising and objective portrayal of a person once considered a rebel hero and later a terrorist, based on his affiliations. It was shot in a quasi-documentary gritty B&W (albeit with stylish compositions akin to film noir) - as I recall now Rosi also made the not as brilliant but still interesting political thriller Hands over the City (HotC).

3B is a more intimate and nostalgic film. At the start of the film the titular brothers are informed by their father of their mother's death and come down to attend the funeral. The eldest Rafaelle (stably married) is a judge working high-level cases where he receives death threats, middle brother Rocco (a bachelor) works for an orphanage / correction home while the youngest Nicola (separated, with a little girl) is a rebellious blue-collar worker that is willing to retaliate hard against oppressive management. Once the brothers meet at their family home in the village, the film looks at the differences in their position and personal outlook, while also chewing over how distanced they are from each other and their old-world father who has little to live for after his wife's demise. In pivotal scenes the brothers argue and counter each others' position. Rosi's social concerns show but not in the direct and angry manner seen in SG or HotC. A good part of the film has a resigned and languid atmosphere, and the rhythm of village life - the dreamy sun-kissed country vistas (DoP Pasqualino De Santis) convey a lot of that. Piero Piccioni's score is IMO overwhelming and melodramatic, with explicit spoon-feeding about the tone of a scene.

Arrow's blu-ray gives a handsome job of the film. I thought the video presentation looked very healthy. The mono audio track is good, albeit with the caveats of post-dubbing, a common practice in Italian movies, especially those having multi-national casts (in this case French actors Charles Vanel and Philippe Noiret). Haven't yet gone through the extras, but there's an hour-plus audio interview with Rosi (and my copy came with a booklet, yay).

Salvatore Giuliano [dir. Francesco Rosi]

Like with Gabriel Marquez's engrossing short novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Francesco Rosi's cinematic adaptation of Salvatore Giuliano begins with informing us of the death of the titular character, then spends the rest of its time in a non-linear exploration of the events leading to that point. But who is Giuliano really? It's not a question the film is too interested in exploring. This is no biopic, its "hero" almost a prop for all the personality he is imbued with. We hear about him from the conversations and accounts provided by the other characters. During the flashback scenes where he is alive, we never see him front and direct, only off-screen or from behind the shoulder views.

History tells us that Giuliano was a bandit conducting kidnaps and extortion from his mountain hideout in Sicily. He had the reputation of a Robin Hood, and the local polizia found heavy resistance from the poor locals in their attempts to capture / repress him. At one point he was allegedly hired by the Sicilian governing body to run a campaign to give Sicily independence from Fascist Italy. Giuliano was also supposed to have been in cahoots with the Mafia to crush the influence of communists demanding for land reforms. In the context of the latter occurred the incident that started the count for his downfall - the Portella della Ginestra massacre, in which his men allegedly fired into a crowd of hundreds of people attending a public address by the communist party.

Rosi's film covers the above ground with a surgically precise sequence of incidents and points of view. The script maintains a constant ebb and flow between the events of Giuliano's turbulent life and the immediate aftermath of his killing. In its way, the film shows us how the perception of Giuliano depended on who he was allied with at a given point of time - when he fought the Facists on the behalf of the local government and Mafia he was hailed as a hero, when he took on the communists for that same Mafia who wanted to guard their land holdings he was an infamous bandit. Even the suspicious manner of his death (was he taken in a gun duel with the army or shot by his own man) and the post-mortem efforts by various parties to squarely place the blame of the massacre on Giulano's men while severing all ties with them bring to mind the unholy nexus between people in power and people of violence to keep the masses in check. The significant use of locations and non-professional actors from Giuliano's home town of Montelepre greatly builds the immersion. It is to my view a cousin of Gillo Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers. It is not as incredibly thorough as that film in presenting a documentary-feel, but its roots in the neo-realist film movement can definitely be seen here. Gianni di Venanzo's visuals carry more flair and a strong whiff of film noir in the composition and lighting.

P.S. I also remember reading a Mario Puzo novel called The Sicilian, a potboiler that mixes up the character of Giuliano with Michael Corleone during his time of exile in Italy.

Bird with The Crystal Plumage [Dario Argento]

The Bird with The Crystal Plumage was the early breakthrough of Dario Argento and while, like some of his other films, won't stand up to any scrutiny of plot and character development it stacks up pretty darn well as a stylish and fast-paced entertainer.

The flimsy plot centers around an American novelist, Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante), who comes to Italy to get over his writer's block and inadvertently becomes the key witness to an attempt at murder by that staple of the giallo, a mysterious black-gloved killer who is into knifing and mutilating young women. Grounded by the police who confiscate his passport, Sam, as with all Argento protagonists, dives enthusiastically into investigating the trail of the killer and is actually encouraged in this by the police instead of being considered a busybody. The killer, who continues with the spree of dastardly crimes, threatens Sam to drop his nosiness or face fatal consequences. Events propel onto the climactic showdown where Sam comes face up with the killer.

While not the most deviously plotted of films, the story moves at a blazing clip and the general flow of events is a lot more coherent than in Argento's supernatural films. The script has some sparkling humor (and I don't mean the unintentional kind). For instance, here's the gist of part of a scene where Sam goes to meet the reclusive artist of a painting related to the crimes:

Sam: I've seen one of your paintings
Artist: Which one?
Sam: The one about a girl being murdered
Artist: Oh, I don't do that crap anymore. I'm into a mystical period. I only do mystical scenes.
Sam: Why?
Artist: Because...I feel mystical, that's why. And it's none of your damn business.

Technically, the movie mostly takes on a gritty real-world look (unlike Suspiria). Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, more famous for his films with Bernardo Bertolucci and Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now, displays his visual chops with some strongly atmospheric near dark shots and some audacious moves including one where the camera takes a first-person view of a man falling from a building. Another scene showing a murder in an elevator seems an obvious inspiration to a similar scene that Brian De Palma shot for Dressed to Kill. The performances by the actors are pleasingly apt and razor sharp editing keeps one's attention constantly held to the on-screen proceedings.

While gore-hounds may be a bit disappointed by the relative scarcity of the red stuff (especially for an Argento film), it is more than made up for by a taut narrative executed with admirable flamboyance.