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| Images courtesy of Arrow Video |
Arrow Video, between 2021 and 2023, have been turning up the
heat on our collective understanding of what makes the late 1960s/early 1970s
string of Italian based spaghetti westerns tick with their ongoing, seemingly
endless series of boxed sets dedicated to detailing four obscure, forgotten or
unreleased action adventures set in the old American west. Their first boxed set Vengeance Trails
chronicled four Italian tales of revenge on the mud and dust covered grounds of
the American Midwest before Blood Money embarked on another four
entrenched in illicit violent robberies that grew steadily more psychedelic and
experimental. And now in the time-honored
tradition of the ongoing releases of spaghetti westerns largely unavailable in
the United States, the good folks at Arrow have curated a newer, bolder,
rougher quartet of films that show off the harder, edgier side of what the
Italian western actioner was capable of.
Entitled Savage Guns: Four Classic Westerns ranging
from 1968 to 1975, the tetralogy of films represents a meaner, less forgiving
streak than before where the main characters can and likely will suffer
horrible fates, sexual violence is more pronounced and the overall feel of
these movies is decidedly more down and dirty with less than what was contained
therein the previous Arrow Video westerns boxes. Consisting of films by Paolo Bianchini, Edoardo
Mulargia, Mario Camus and lastly Lucio Fulci (in perhaps his best film!), all
four features restored in 2K with special attention devoted to reconstructing
Mulargia’s film El Puro represent the spaghetti western perhaps at its
meanest, nastiest and one prone to leave the viewer emerging the theater with
cuts and bruises.
Jam packed with extras including several cuts of each film
(notably El Puro and Wrath of the Wind), a large collectible
booklet featuring essays from Howard Hughes, a fold out double-sided poster and
reversible art on all four of the films each including their own subset of
commentaries from Adrian J. Smith, David Flint, Kat Ellinger and newly
conduction video interviews and appreciation essays by critics, Savage Guns is
another exquisite curation of hard, rusty sharp edged Italian westerns you’re
unlikely to find anywhere else. As with Vengeance
Trails and Blood Money, the films are thematically arranged so over
the course of the series the overall style and impact changes considerably by
the time you reach Lucio Fulci’s devastating Four of the Apocalypse. All in all, Arrow has done it again with four
integral new additions to our understanding of the spaghetti western with no
compromises.
I Want Him Dead (1968)
In Paolo Biachini’s aptly named Italian-Spanish I Want
Him Dead, we happen upon an ex-Confederate soldier named Clayton (American
actor Craig Hill) who makes a pit stop to trade some horses while his sister
Mercedes (Cristina Businari) awaits at a nearby hotel. Tragically however she is raped and murdered
by two vagrants including bandit Jack Blood (Jose Manuel Martin) who is connected
to a weapons dealer keen on keeping the Civil War going against terms of
surrender. While the law proves to be no
help if not in cahoots with his sister’s murderers, he takes matters into his
own hands amid police corruption and wartime deserters trying to overthrow a
truce with a single-minded focus on spilling the blood of the man who claimed
his sister Mercedes’ life.
Making itself known as a rape-revenge Western set amid the
waning days of the American Civil War with an emphasis on single-minded
vengeance playing out against a labyrinth of double-crossings and attempts at a
coup d’etat, I Want Him Dead starts out the Savage Guns box with
a brutal bang. While the rape itself
isn’t shown, its impact casts a pall over the proceedings and is the driving
force behind Clayton’s relentless pursuit of avenging his sister’s death and is
more or less a device to fully cement Jack Blood as an irredeemable
villain. While that stuff is kind of
boilerplate, setting the story within the world of the confederacy amid the
Civil War with political chicanery playing into the terms of continuing the war
helped create an even further kind of displacement for the viewer. We’re in a world of lawless monsters waiting
for God to sort them out.
Visually speaking the film shot in 1.85:1 widescreen by
Ricardo Andreu looks splendid with, of the films in the set, the most color and
vibrance capturing bright blue skies and beautiful terrain with clear
eyes. The score by Nico Fidenco is
appropriately moody and helps convey the hero’s sense of loss and building
anger towards the film’s adversaries. Legendary
Hollywood player Craig Hill whose career began with All About Eve is
more or less your stereotypical western hero who spends most of the film skulking
about sneakily working towards a kill only to find himself beaten and tossed
around time and time again. Jose Manuel
Martin makes the central bandit responsible for Cristina Businari’s (in her
screen debut) character’s death a stock cruel bad guy deserving of the film’s
ire and hero’s wrath. Mostly though the
film’s real star is the period and setting with potential war crimes breaking
out amid a standard vengeance programmer.
All in all, a good start to the Savage Guns series.
El Puro (1969)
Edoardo Mulargia was already well seasoned in the spaghetti
western subgenre beginning with his 1965 Blood at Sundown and Django knockoff
Don’t Wait, Django…Shoot! By the time he arrived upon La taglia รจ tua... l'uomo l'ammazzo io or as it is known in the US El Puro. Presented in both its 98 minute theatrical
version and the original 108 minute version reassambled from the negative and
an archival slightly faded anamorphic print, the film concerns an alcoholic gunfighter
in hiding named El Puro (Robert Woods from My Name is Pecos) who is
being tracked down by a ruthless ragtag gang of bounty hunters. Taking refuge in a small town living with a
barmaid/hooker named Rosie (Rosalba Neri) hoping for a new shot at life, he is
forced out into the open when the woman is murdered. Can he still shoot straight with all that
booze in his blood clouding his vision?
Though the bounty hunters themselves
are your usual gaggle of rapist murderers who have no trouble robbing a
gunstore, the film finds its wings as it settles down with El Puro and Rosie
talking about his past life as a gunslinger keeping track of the southern
border and their unlikely affections they begin forming for one another. Shot in panoramic 2.35:1 widescreen by Antonio
L. Ballestros (albeit shifting color timing depending on the version being
watched) and given a pulsating original recurring theme song by composer
Allesandro Allesandroni, El Puro is a decidedly slower, more nuanced
burn than the film before it. Also more
lyrical with the use of music and a central theme to evoke a sense of longing
and the inescapability of fate.
Robert Woods was already a familiar
face in the spaghetti western subgenre before arriving upon El Puro and
for the action hero star he gives arguably his finest dose of acting in his
career. Also a strong presence is
Rosalba Neri as the prostitute with a heart of gold who provides the film’s
hero with a potential way out until darker forces close in around them
both. Almost upstaging him is Marc
Fiorini as Gypsy, the leader of the bounty hunter gang who comes across as
certifiable and dangerous. Still, the
centerpiece of the film sees a barefoot calm and collected titular El Puro waiting
patiently for bounty hunters to come into his arena and meet their bullet
riddled ends. Decidedly bleaker in tone
to the previous film, El Puro starts to steer Savage Guns towards
deeper mercurial waters, craggy mountaintops and rocky canyons where we’re not
sure what’s below or how far it runs.
Wrath of the Wind (1970)
Continuing in the series’ direction of down and dirty looks
at mercenary characters murdering their way through the Midwest while facing
their own moral crossroads, Spanish director Mario Camus, a recurring Moscow
Film Festival favorite, unveiled his 1970 Spanish-Italian spaghetti western
crime epic Wrath of the Wind or as it is known in some territories The
Wind’s Fierce or Trinity Sees Red.
Released around the same time actor Terence Hill’s Trinity film series
was gaining popularity, the film follows in the footsteps of I Want Him Dead
for mixing political chicanery and swindling into the proceedings amid gory
bloodshed and ample room for redemption arcs to play themselves out. The film also capitalized on the star power
of Fernando Rey right before The French Connection was about to change
the action-thriller landscape forever.
In nineteenth century Andalusia, a powerful landowner with a
sprawling estate ground named Don Antonio (Fernando Rey) hires two gunslingers
Marcos (Terence Hill) and Jacobo (Mario Pardo) to infiltrate a group of peasant
revolutionaries mounting a labor movement to assassinate the leaders and end
the threat to Don Antonio’s iron grip rule.
But after forming a romantic bond with peasant rebel Soledad (Maria Grazia
Buccella), Marcos finds himself switching sides to fight alongside the impoverished,
leading to an all-out war between the revolutionaries and Don Antonio’s
murderous cronies intent on maintaining his empire.
Lensed in widescreen by legendary Italian cinematographer
Roberto Gerardi of La Strada and Marriage Italian Style and aided
by a moody spaghetti western score by Augusto Martelli, the film does a great
job of separating the worlds of the revolutionaries and the ruthless leaders in
power with the look and settings, showing off opulence and decay in equal
measure. The film is excellently cast,
coasting on the then-star power of Terence Hill in one of his more serious
efforts opposite Maria Grazia Buccella who makes a formidable ally that turns
Marcos around on his assignment. Of
course one can’t have a villainous patriarch exude elegance and murderousness
quite like Fernando Rey. From his
delivery to how he moves about the screen to his attire, Rey is clearly in
charge and took any means necessary to reach his perch. All in all, a solid change of direction for
its lead actor and continuation of the harder-boiled Spanish-Italian western.
Four of the Apocalypse (1975)
Who would’ve thought Lucio Fulci’s finest, most enduring
hour would’ve been a grimy, filthy yet understated and heartfelt spaghetti
western that’s every bit as gory as his Zombie films but cuts through
the emotional heart in such a way that it bleeds? Moreover, have you ever seen a spaghetti
western, let alone a Fulci, with the capacity to move you to tears? Such is the unearthed wow factor of Lucio
Fulci’s 1975 dour spaghetti western epic Four of the Apocalypse, an
unglamorous picture that showcases the unforgiving harshness of survival in the
west amid violent torture, rape, cannibalism and one of the most agonizing
human passages of childbirth ever committed to film. Easily the goriest and grossest film in the Savage
Guns box while also being the most unexpectedly emotional, Four of the
Apocalypse is what they call a low-key masterpiece of understatement that
is rough, raw and ultimately real.
In 1873, gambler Subby Preston (Fabio Testi) arrives in Utah
intending to begin working a casino when he is promptly arrested and tossed in
a jail cell where he meets with pregnant prostitute Bunny (Lynne Frederick), a
mentally disturbed but gentle natured black man named Bud (Harry Baird) and a
punch-drunk alcoholic named Clem (Michael J. Pollard). The foursome is discharged and they set out
together for Sun City on something of a 200 mile soul searching sojourn. However, they are besieged and assaulted
(physically and sexually) by a vicious bearded long-haired wanderer named Chaco
(Tomas Milian) who after leaving them for dead embarks on a murderous warpath
murdering entire settlements of caravans.
As Clem dies, Bud slips into cannibalistic madness and soon the wounded
Bunny’s life is threatened by impending childbirth, Subby grows more and more
vengeful and determined to track down and destroy Chaco.
Disarmingly raw and realistic, touching on themes and
concepts never explored in spaghetti westerns with the frail beautiful Lynne
Frederick hastily tiptoeing around the bloodshed, occasionally lyrical with
musical passages by Franco Bixio, Vince Tempera and eventual Zombie composer
Fabio Frizzi in the first collaborative effort between Lucio Fulcio and his
longtime cinematographer Sergio Salvati in glowing low contrast fogs, Four
of the Apocalypse is among the heaviest westerns ever created. Based on two short stories The Luck of
Roaring Camp and The Outcasts of Power Flat by Bret Harte in the
1860s and written for the screen by Ennio De Concini, the film presents Fulci
at his most sincere and heartfelt. Alas,
the Godfather of Gore has made one of the goriest westerns that somehow or
another is like rubbing alcohol to the eyes and emotions.
Daring for its ensemble mixture, its exploration of madness,
cannibalism, rape and revenge, Four of the Apocalypse might actually top
Django in terms of sheer grueling rawness. Take for instance a wintry birthing scene in a
snowy mountaintop mining town with the whole populace awaiting the child
delivery, hanging on every sound and scream of agony. The whole town is alive with chatter and fast
action but goes silent the moment a baby cry is heard. Fulci’s makeup department is working overtime
in the effects showing an emaciated and worn Bunny in one scene and a dead man
with one of his buttocks carved out with a knife in another, giving viewers a
gritty smorgasbord of rough violence and low key emotional weathers. The cast of the piece is splendid if not the
best arrangement in the series with Fabio Testi from Contraband as
conflicted man Stubby who learns the capacity to love and care for another,
Lynne Frederick from Phase IV as the battered but beautiful prostitute
Bunny who comes to love Stubby and lastly poliziotteschi staple Tomas Milian as
the evil and icily vicious Chaco. The
star power of all three plays against Fulci’s bleak but painterly tapestries of
the American west that feels somehow more believably lived in than the prior,
more augmented Savage Guns entries preceding it.
And so Lucio Fulci’s masterfully underrated epic Four of
the Apocalypse brings the exquisitely curated Savage Guns blu-ray
box to a close with plentiful extras that will take a lifetime to fully wade
through, numerous audio commentaries and multiple cuts of the films for comparative
purposes. Easily the best film in an
already strong set continuing Arrow Video’s ongoing efforts to bring rarely
seen spaghetti westerns into domestic moviegoers’ homes, Savage Guns represents
another important historical forward step for Arrow Video in their dedication
towards film preservation of pictures that aren’t as well known but most
certainly should be. All in all, bravo!
--Andrew Kotwicki
