 |
| Images courtesy of VCI Entertainment |
The Italian Spaghetti
Western or action thrillers set in the American West largely filmed in Europe
was increasingly common in the annals of gritty bilingual film productions throughout
the 1960s and on through the 1970s. Not
as common however are Italian-Spanish hybrids of the Spaghetti Western as seen in
writer-director Julio Buchs’ 1969 vigilante justice revenge thriller A
Bullet for Sandoval, a film that just so happens to feature The Wild
Bunch and Bad Day at Black Rock western heavy Ernest Borgnine and
recurring giallo (parttime Sartana) mainstay George Hilton on opposite
sides of the bullet riddled fence fiercely hungry for each other’s blood. Though off to a somewhat shaky start and an
arena of unforgiving violence that seems to move outside of the plights of both
characters, the alternatively titled Those Desperate Men Who Smell of Dirt
and Death nevertheless winds up providing a bleak and brutal
Italian-Spanish action thriller with just a hint of neo-noir nihilism about it.
Rebel Civil War confederate
soldier John Warner (George Hilton) deserts his post on the cusp of battle to
jump the Mexican border in search of his fiancée who has recently given birth
to their out of wedlock firstborn. Upon
arrival at the Sandoval hacienda, it turns out she died during childbirth with
her father Don Pedro Sandoval (Ernest Borgnine) having nothing but contempt for
John Warner and his son who casts both of them out into the unforgiving
west. Thought to be a cholera carrier,
John and his firstborn are repeatedly refused refuge until the infant perishes,
sending the fatherless widower into a blind fury who assembles his own ragtag
band of criminal renegades who proceed to terrorize Northern Mexico, perpetually
“avenging” his fiancée and son’s deaths.
Despite the increasing body count of innocent bystanders, John’s
bloodlust only grows, leading towards a tense climax where the embittered John
Warner and his sworn mortal nemesis Sandoval prepare to duel to the death.
Curious for how it
starts off in John Warner’s corner only to switch sides with Sandoval and then
move further out from both men’s plights, A Bullet for Sandoval co-written
by three screenwriters is a steadily bleak Italian-Spanish Spaghetti Western that
comes as close to being an everybody-dies downer ala Sam Peckinpah’s infamously
violent modern Western. Dropping viewers
into the morally adrift netherworld of the confederacy with acute attention to
costume period details before moving into the red-eyed enragement of John
Warner’s newfound thirst for inconsolable vengeance, the film has the virtue of
surrounding us with amoral characters which are hard to invest in but
ultimately come together in some sort of unresolved conflict.
Visually speaking
this tightly composed panoramic widescreen effort lensed by Francisco Sempere
of Cauldron of Blood shoots everything in dynamic close ups that zero in
on intense performances from the central actors and Puzzle as well as Inglourious
Basterds composer Gianni Ferro’s rusty dusty guitar and brass infused score
give the dismal proceedings a kind of rough and ragged vastness underpinned by
a low hum of doom. The ensemble cast is
generally good but the two leads locked in bullhorns played by George Hilton
and Ernest Borgnine are the main reasons for seeking this mostly overlooked Italo-Spanish
collaboration. Both intense, committed
actors who have played their fair share of heroes and villainy in the western
subgenre, seeing these two with their king cobra fangs out for each other is
something of a dark Spaghetti western delight in a story that can’t possibly
end well.
Though restored in 4K
by VCI Entertainment and MVD Visual working from the original uncut negative
and aided by a running audio commentary by legendary filmmaker Alex Cox, A
Bullet for Sandoval looks a bit rough around the edges transfer wise. A bit muddy looking with frequent print
damage and discoloration, the disc also appears to have some light frame rate
issues which are only noticeable in scenes of the camera panning or characters
on horseback riding across the terrain.
Still if you can get past some of these technical anomalies, A Bullet
for Sandoval is truly an interesting offshoot in Italian-Spanish coproducing:
a Spaghetti western with a less familiar set of snake scales whose coiled tail
rattles more or less the same way even if it sounds slightly different.
--Andrew Kotwicki
