Apache Trail(1942)

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Donna Reed, Lloyd Nolan, western, William Lundigan

From 1942, APACHE TRAIL stars Lloyd Nolan and William Lundigan as brothers “Trigger Bill” and Tom Folliard, two men on opposite sides of the law. Trigger Bill takes after their father, always out for the easy score, and Tom is more like their mother, easy going, basically honest. The film is based on a short story, Stage Station by Ernest Haycox.

Trigger Bill’s attempts to toughen his brother up results in Tom spending three months in jail after he’s bullied into a stage robbery attempt. He doesn’t flee like his brother and the others when the law jumps them. He’s finally released after three months in jail by a circuit judge that never even gets out of the stage, citing “consorting with known criminals” as the charge.

Tom can’t get his old job as shotgun guard back, but the Wells Fargo man believes in Tom and offers him a job as station master right in the middle of Apache territory. It’s about to be closed down because of the danger and finding someone willing to run it. Tom knows everyone from his former job and all finally agree to stay on.

Donna Reed plays Rosalie Martinez, the “almost eighteen” daughter of the station’s cook, who’s always had a thing for Tom.

A stage, with a strong box of money and passengers, pulls in shortly, just ahead of an Apache war party, soon followed by a cavalry officer. Someone has stirred the Apache up. and not too much later, Trigger Bill shows up. Tom is immediately suspicious, with that strong box of money on hand. He takes his brother’s guns, not willing to send him back out.

The next morning an arrow is shot into the stage and Tom decides to sneak out and do some scouting. The strong box is locked up and he tells his men to keep an eye on Trigger Bill. The cavalry officer leaves as well, heading to a nearby fort with plans to send help. Tom spots an Apache party with a white prisoner who he frees with a bit of guile. On the way back, he hears a tale of a white man, adopted into the tribe, then slaughtering a number of Apache and taking a peace pipe. Geronimo and his people are looking for him. Getting back to the station, he’s just in time to catch Trigger Bill trying to flee with the strong box and one of the women. In the gunfight, Tom outdraws brother, putting a bullet through each hand.

They find the peace pipe on him and learn the truth.

Then they settle in for a long battle with the Apache. After a lull, one Apache approaches and tells them they want the “white Apache.” No more deaths are necessary. It comes down to a vote, using domino tiles, white dots up to save him, black side up to send Trigger Bill out of the walled station. The deciding vote comes down to Tom and Trigger Bill calls him a fool for voting save. “I’d have sent you out there to save my skin!”

We learn different though, with both men showing a brotherly love that neither probably would have believed even just a few days before. Interesting film. I enjoyed Nolan in the Mike Shayne movies from that same period. I’d never seen him in anything from his younger years, always playing character roles in films I had seen previously.

A number of those faces one sees in movies without knowing names pepper the rest of the cast. The only one I could name was Chill Wills.

Deguello(Degueyo)1965

Tags

spaghetti western

See if this plot sounds at all familiar. A group of men protect a small town from a band of outlaws, helping them with weapons and a bit of teaching to defend themselves. Nah, couldn’t be.

The titular star is Giacomo Rossi-Stuart(billed as Jack Stuart) who plays Norman Sandel. He has the requisite good looks and blonde hair, but only minor acting skills. A bland, rather neutral expression on his face most of the time.

The standout is Dan Vadis as Ramon, the outlaw leader. He had the commanding presence thae Rossi-Stuart lacked to go with dark brooding looks.

As the film opens, Norman and his father are taking a break for lunch when they see a rider coming, slumped in his saddle. A neighbor, they get him down, only to have him killed by two other riders, masked, that managed to get on top of them without being seen. His dying breath mentions a Colonel Cook. The two killers are there to take Norman’s father with them and kill Norman. Norman gets them, but not before they kill his father.

Norman heads for town to find two of his father’s friends, Frank(Daniele Vargas, billed as Dan Vargas) and Logan(spaghetti veteran José Torres). They and his father served during the Civil War with Colonel Cook. The three men head to Cook’s home, Danger City, to find out what it was all about, picking up Dick Regan(Riccardo Garrone), a whiskry drummer whosr wagon had broke down and was then robbed by bandits while he hid. For me, he was suspicious from the start. He wore a short gun and was very good with it. We learn later he was more than just a drummer.

They arrive at Danger City only to find it apparently deserted. It’s not long before they learn it’s full of women and children. Ramon’s band had killed or taken prisoner all the men. When a young woman, Rosy(Rosy Zichel), Ramon’s girl friend who’d grown tired of his cruelty, arrives, they learn what’s up. Rumor had it that Cook had ten grand somewhere and Ramon wanted it. It went all the way back to the war. The townsmen, Cook included, he’d taken prisoner, were being tortured for information.

With Rosy’s help, Norman sneaks in and rescues Cook, who’s mind seems stuck in the Civil War.. They never make it clear whether he was already in that condition or it was the result of the torture inflicted on him. He refuses to tell them where the money might be, having promised Lee it would be used o buy arms for the South. Ramon wants the money and has promised to wipe out the town if he doesn’t get it.

The final sequence takes out most of the major players.

Not a terrible western. More than one reviewer noted that rookie director Giuseppe Vari might have done a better job with the script with a few more years of experience. That script, by the way, might have profited from another draft or two. It was by Sergio Garrone(as Willy Regan) and Vari.

Bombardier(1943)

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Eddie Arnold, Pat O'Brien, Randolph Scott, Robert Ryan

Randolph Scott and Pat O’Brien star in this war film as competing army officers. The picture is set before the U.S. enters WWII. O’Brien is Major Chick Davis, the champion of a new highly secret device: a bomb sight. Scott plays Captain Buck Oliver, an old fashioned “by the seat of his pants” pilot who doesn’t trust the new device. He prefers dive bombing his targets. BOMBARDIER is a fictionalized take on the Dolittle raid(the ending) over Tokyo.

The two men engage in a sort of duel of competing techniques as they attack a large raft. O’Brien wins the day of course and a bombardier school is opened at an air field owned by Burton(Anne Shirley) and Tom(an impossibly young Eddie Arnold) Hughes, the children of an famous pilot during the Great War.

The film is told documentary style with small individual stories within: a training plane fouls up and the crew bails but for two men. The Eddie Arnold character refuses to bail out, preferring to ride the plane down. The Ryan character stays aboard until they manage to free the automatic pilot. A German spy tries to buy the bomb sight and gets arrested. A half Mexican trainee flirts with a pretty young girl in the secretary pool.

O’Brien is somewhat of a misogynistic man, not liking to be around women, stripping the office of Burton Hughes of anything that smacks of femininity, though he’s stuck with her because it is her office. He eventually falls under her spell as well and ends up competing with scott for her affections. A death and separation screws up one relationship and O’Brien is refused marriage because he’s too much like her father.

There was a large number of errors sprinkled throughout the film. The bulk of the action takes place before the war though the bombers carried marking only used from 1942 through ’45. A flare hung on the plane is constantly said to be caught on the tail fin, though the action shows it on the rear wheel. The parachute is shown flapping wildly but the flare itself is fixed and unmoving.

One of four films produced by Hollywood during the war with a similar theme and pretty much of a propaganda tool.

A personal comment> It was hard to picture, for me anyway, Randolph Scott as a modern American soldier. He’s famously known for his many fine westerns and I couldn’t divorce myself from those images as I watched the movie. That’s entirely my problem though.

Three Crosses Not To Die(Tre Croci Per Non Morire)1968

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Craig Hill, Ken Wood, Peter White, spaghetti western

As seems usual with films in the spaghetti western genre, multiple titles, depending on the release, was the norm. In the U.S., this one appeared under NO GRAVES ON BOOT HILL as well as the one heading the post. The director of this one was Sergio Garrone, the fifth Sergio to play the director role in a Euro western. His reputation seemed to vary among disparate reviewers. It was the second Garrone effort after The Outlaw Rider. It’s considered a minor gem in the genre by some, myself among them.

The three of the title are Jerry(Craig Hill), a lothario caught putting the moves on another man’ wife, Paco(Pietro Tordi, billed as Peter White), a sneak thief caught stealing a horse), and Reno(Giovanni Cianfriglia, billed as Ken Wood, a bounty hunter picked up after killing three men trying to do the same to him. Each time we see a bald headed priest making notes in a small book.

They are locked in a cell with a well-dressed young Mexican man plagued by nightmares. Francisco Ortega(Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia) is scheduled to hang for murdering a father protecting his daughter’s honor. Caught standing over them with a gun in his hand, he maintains his innocence. In a dream sequence we see them murdered, never catching who holds the gun. His father and lawyer deliver the bad news. Clemency has been denied and the hanging will go ahead in ten days.

Later that night the three find their cell door unlocked, no guards around. Each succeeding door is unlocked until the last one. A door to one side opens and when they come through find the boy’s father. lawyer, and the priest we kept seeing. They are offered a deal. Prove the boy’s innocence in time and thirty thousand will be theirs. A bank draft is handed over, but can only be used if innocence is proved. Jerry tears it into three parts, so no one will be tempted, and gives his two partners a piece.

But the real murderer doesn’t want to be found. An earlier investigator has already been murdered and the three have to deal with a rigged lunch party for horse thief Pabo, followed by a mexican gang out to kill them. Paco knows them and as the leader is dying says they were paid a thousand dollars to kill them.

Sergio Garrone wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Franco Cobianchi. An excellent music score by Vasili Kojucharov (full name: Vasco Vassil Kojucharov) and Elsio Mancuso (as Vasco & Mancuso) filled out the movie.

A good one.

January 2015 Movie Round-Up

The Snow Creature(1954)

A Coffin For The Sheriff(1965)

Hands of A Gunfighter(1965)

My Horse…My Gun…Your Widow(1972)

Tequila!(1973)

The Man In The High Castle(2014)

My Horse…My Gun…Your Widow(Domani Passo A Salutare La Tua Vedova… Parola Di Epidemia)1972

Tags

Craig Hill, spaghetti western

Another western comedy made in the wake of the Trinity films successes in the late days of the spaghetti western.

Three men, Doctor Janus Saxon(Craig Hill), safe cracker Donovan(Carlos Otero), and a Mexican bandit named Carrasco (Chris Huerta) rob a bank. But Carrasco double crosses him with his brother Dog (Richard Melvill) and their gang waiting topside as they emerge from the bank. Saxon is somewhat of a philosopher and writes it off. He believes his day will come when the shoe is on the other foot. Donovan is more dramatic and attempts to hang himself, failing at that as the limb breaks.

Saxon is mainly a conman who fleeces folks at the pool table with a trick cue ball. They never really explain how it works though.

Our hero’s chance comes when Carrasco’s brother, nursing a hangover, doesn’t flee with his brother and the gang when the law is closing in. Now he is scheduled for a trial and a quick hanging. Carrasco wants to rescue him. Stupid as his brother is, he’s still blood. Dog is pretending an ailment for an attempt at escape and the sheriff. Appleton(spaghetti vet Luis Induni) is looking for a doctor, the town medico is passed out drunk, when someone mentions a new doctor in town that is winning at the pool table in the saloon. Saxon claims appendicitus and plans to operate> In privacy of course where he more or less tortures the location of the gold from Dog.

A trip to retrieve it brings a meeting with a young man who says his name is Louis Donovan(Pedro Mari Sánchez), the son of his old partner who was killed in a shootout with the law. The site proves false and sets off a chase for Dog, being moved to Louisville for trail and hanging.

That’s when Deborah Page(Claudie Lange) enters the picture, a beautiful young woman just as greedy as the men. She knows how to use her feminine wiles to get next to any man: first Carraso, then Saxon, then a banker late in the film. We get double cross piled on double cross as the film progresses.

Not a bad film, but some strange stuff goes on.

They never explain why Saxon steals a bicycle from a wandering painter, abandoning his horse to do so. Made no sense to me. And the time was during the Civil War. The bicycle in the film had a too modern look for the time period of the movie. And most gun handlers used a Colt Peacemaker, not introduced until years after the war. At the end, the three men are arrested by Confederate soldiers, we’re treated to a montage of war photographs before Saxon, Donovan, and Carrasco appear at a bank in Confederate garb to take possession of the bank’s money(gold, paper, and silver) ostensibly to move it to another bank before it’s lost to the North amid the ongoing battle. No explanantion for how they go from being arrested to having Confederate uniforms and replacing the unit sent to move the bank funds. One review site hinted they’s been in jail for several years, but it doesn’t work for me. Not enough years for the war to make that happen.

The Snow Creature(1954)

I’ve always been a fan of those fifties monster/sf movies. It began I think when the family got a TV in the late fifties and a lot of the fare was those cheaply made films. There was seemingly one of those late weekend shows on every one of the few stations at the time that specialized in these “horror” spectaculars. THE SNOW CREATURE was one that I missed.

An expedition into the Himalayas to seek out new flora unknown to us folks in the “civilized” regions. Financed by the Corey Foundation, botanist Dr. Frank Parrish(Paul Langton), the only other white man along was hard-bitten photographer Peter Wells(Leslie Denison). The rest of the team was comprised of native Sherpas led by guide Subra(Teru Shimada). The expedition is seen off by Subra’s young wife and brother Leva(Rollin Moriyama). the mission has hardly begun when a manlike creature kidnaps Subra’s young wife and disappears back into the mountains.

Keva and four Sherpas follow the mission to alert Subra who appeals to Parrish and Wells to help rescue his wife. Parrish scoffs at the notion of an Abominable smowman and refuses to risk his mission. Late at night, Sybra steals all the ammunition, including unloading all their rifles, and forces them to aid in a rescue mission.

Parrish starts to slowly believe when a set of big foot prints(you got me. I said it) pass through the camp one night and a native is killed the next night.

A cave is found and Subra’s wife’s necklace lies just inside. They explore the cave system and come upon a Yeti family. The big male is enraged and tries to yank a big rock out of the wall to toss at them, causing a cave-in that kils the female and young Yeti, though only stunning the male. In the confusion, Parrish and Wells regain control by seizing the rifles.

The plan now is to take the Yeti back to civilzation and make a fortune, though Wells is reticent to do so, preferring to take photographs and write a story only.

The rest of the plot is standard fare, the creature escaping in Los Angeles, terrorizing the city, and being hunted down by the authorities.

Some thoughts:

I know it was the fifties, but the natives were really treated as second class. As soon as they had a stunned Yeti on their hands, all thought of rescuing Subra’s wife were forgotten. They drugged(no reason given why a botanical expedition hunting plants would have strong sedatives) and tied the creature up and forced the Sherpas to lug it back down the mountain. The Sherpas were on the verge of being arrested for kidnapping Parrish and Wells with the co-operation of the two white men until Subra made an impassioned appeal and they drop the idea.

The Yeti was big and ferocious looking if one overlooked the cheap costume(you could see folds n the fabric as it walked). But it never challenged a male unless cornered, even ones half it’s size. Didn’t mind jumping females thpugh. Killed one and chased another. But all off screen. We heard a couple of screams, but no actual footage. Most of the scenes involved the creature simply showed it walking around arms hanging by it’s side. Lock Martin supposedly wore the Yeti suit, though he was uncredited and unconfirmed as the monster.

Not a great picture, but my unsophisticated young person back in those days would have thought it terrific.

Tequila!(Uno, Dos, Tres… Dispara Otra Vez)1973

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Anthony Steffen, Eduardo Fajardo, Roberto Carmadiel, spaghetti western

TEQUILA!, or the other American title FUZZY THE HERO, is an odd movie. It came at the end of the reign of the spaghetti western. The genre did drag through a few more years with a handful of films, but was mostly played out. It had it’s comedic elements introduced with the success of the Trinity films amid a great deal of violence. Roberto Camardiel plays the sidekick Fuzzy and Anthony Steffen the redoubtable bad man Shoshena. I say redoubtable because, as usual with this type, he inevitably does the right thing in the end.

When the film opens in an old ghost town, we find Fuzzy scurrying around in the middle of a gun battle, men trying to kill him and each other. Fuzzy ends up robbing the dead when it’s all over, including a pocket watch and chain. When the cover opens, it plays a musical tune, one known all over the west. It had belonged to a deadly gunman named Jaguar, so dangerous that the sound of that tune was enough to freeze everyone that heard it in their tracks.

Shoshena is a bank robber looking for a new partner, one to watch his back, while he worked. He was a well known safe cracker that utilized a doctor’s stethoscope to listen for the clicks of the tumblers as he spun the dial on a safe.

The town they pick has an officious banker, DeKovan, played by spaghetti vet Eduardo Fajardo, who’s making a play to grab the whole valley. He’s grabbed most of the ranchers’ mortgages by less than honest means and is demanding payment. He doesn’t really expect, or want them paid off. Just the land. He has a son, Rush(José Luis Zalde), with the hots for the daughter of one of the ranchers. Beatrice Lohsman(Maria Elena Arpon) has no interest in the young man who comes off like a spoiled brat, believing because he wants something he’s supposed to get it.

Shoshena and Fuzzy’s first attempt to rob the bank ends badly. You see, the ranchers’ money is put in on the same day each month, then transferred first thing the next day to a more fortified bank in a larger city. There’s only a limited window for them to get the job done. Shoshena is successful, unlocking the safe amid a large number of guards surrounding the building, only to have Fuzzy accidentally bump the door in his joy to hug his partner at the sight of over seventy thousand in cash. Not enough time left to do it again and they sneak out, leaving evidence of their work behind.

DeKovan is alerted and when word comes that a gang of brothers is robbing banks in the area, headed their way, he decides to move the cash to his ranch for safety. Our two bank robbers have to wangle a job guarding the money to get at it. No easy task as Shoshena had already turned DeKovan down on an earlier job offer.

And the gang of brothers coming didn’t help either. The watch the infamous Jaguar had sported had once belonged to the eldest brother until the outlaw had killed him for it. Fuzzy, as the supposed Jaguar, was forging a reputation, aided mostly by Shoshena who knew the truth, though he kept that to himself. The watch alone did most of the work for him.

The violent finale leaves evryone but our two herose dead and the ranchers about to string them up until Shoshena buys their freedom with the bank loot.

The film must be a rarity these days. The Spaghetti Western Database listing has no review and a link to a Spanish language review site, 800 Spaghetti Westerns. The IMDb’s listing has no reviews at all. And there’s not a trailer on Youtube either.

Hands of A Gunfighter (Ocaso de un Pistolero)1965

Tags

spaghetti western

HANDS OF A GUNFIGHTER is an early spaghetti western, pre-Leone success, with one foot still in Hollywood. The literal translation of the Italian title is TWILIGHT OF A GUNFIGHTER which fit the movie much better than the American. It used some of the same sets that Leone did for A Fistful of Dollars.

Craig Hill stars as Dan Murphy, a retired gunfighter trying to live a straight life with his wife and son, but haunted by nightmares of an incident four years before when a sheriff had tried to arrest him when he had his infant son in his arms. As he quickly turns, the sheriff fires, hitting and killing the baby.

How can this be?

Murphy got his measure of revenge after escaping by coming back and taking the sheriff’s baby boy and raising him with his wife as their own!

All that is coming to an end as a gunman, a sympathetic one, finds them and makes an offer. Return the boy and the sheriff will pretend Murphy was killed and the ten thousand bounty would be gone. Dan’s wife, Laura(Gloria Milland) convinces him that might be best for the boy.

Murphy had been living the straight life and packed his two gun rig away. He’d avoided trouble to the extent that some believe him a coward. That would be the four Carter brothers, the bully boys of the town. As usual in this set-up, the worst was the youngest. always looking for trouble, then whining to his brothers to help him out.

Friends of Murphy and his wife are about to be married. Pat Davis(Carlos Romero Marchent, related to the director and screenwriter) is to marry Margaret Dixon(Conchita Núñez), daughter of saloon keeper Alex(Francisco Sanz). That younger Carter brother had always fancied her and shortly after the wedding, the two men get into a fist fight. with father-in-law Alex killing Carter when he’s about to shoot Pat.

That sets the three brothers into a killing rage, shooting te Davis clan and burning the house.

Murphy’s nerves are already tightly wound from giving up the boy he’d been raising and he straps the guns back on to go after the brothers. Drinking takes him further down until he goes for the boy at the end.

A decidedly odd spaghetti western made before Leone’s style changed so much.

Terminator: Genisys

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Arnold Schwarzenegger

Hmmm! This might work.