Ciakmull L’uomo della vendetta (Ciakmull the Vengeful Man) was directed by Enzo Barboni, the director of They Call Me Trinity, Trinity Is Still My Name and Even Angels Eat Beans. He replaced Ferdinando Baldi, who was fired by the producer Manolo Bolognini because they fought over Baldi wanting Annabella Incontrera to play Sheila, the role that went to Ida Galli, who is also known as Evelyn Stewart.
Chuck Mool (Leonard Mann, Night School, Flowers In the Attic) escapes the institution he’s been in thanks to three men, Woody (Woody Strode), Silver (Pietro Martellanza) and Hondo (George Eastman). Chuck has no idea who he is and the men decide to ride with him in the hopes that he can get his memory back. He makes it to a town where he was supposedly the best gunfighter and is being counted on to choose sides in a war between the Caldwells, whose leader John (Helmuth Schneider) might be Chuck’s father and the Udos, whose leader tries to convince Chuck that he’s really his father. Turns out that Chuck’s half-brother Tom Udo (Lucio Rosato) has always hated him for being illegitimate and he was supposed to stay out of the way.
Pietro Martellanza and George Eastman were Barberi’s original picks to play Trinity and Bambino. There are hints of that movie here as some of the fights are comical and in the way that Hondo can shuffle cards, not to mention a bean eating sequence.
By the end, this movie finally remembers to have some action, but it’s helped along by the cast and a sparkling Riz Orlotani jazz score. It’s great!
The AKA for this is The Bastard of Dodge City which spoils one of the movie’s reveals.
This movie had its theatrical debut in the United Kingdom in 1970 and was released on television in the United States in 1971 where it won John Williams an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition.
Jane Eyre (Susannah York) is the kind of classic heroine you read about in high school whose best friend had a cough and was forced to sleep in the rain and died the next day and you wonder, “Why are they making us read this book?” Well, she’s also in love with her boss Edward Rochester (George C. Scott), who is much older than her and he’s the father of Adele, the girl she’s raising. But oh the foggy secrets of Thornfield Hall.
Based on the Charlotte Bronte book, this was directed by Delbert Mann, who had directed Marty, She Waits and David Copperfield. The script was from Jack Pulman, who had worked with Mann on the aforementioned David Copperfield and also wrote Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die and The Executioner.
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi.
Anthony Steffen, born Antonio Luiz de Teffé von Hoonholtz and also known as Antonio Luigi de Teff, was born at the Brazilian embassy in Rome in what is known as the Pamphilj Palace. His noble family came from Prussia, with his great-grandfather being the Great Baron of Teffé and his father Manoel being a Formula One racer and a Brazilian ambassador. His grandaunt, Nair de Teffé von Hoonholtz, was the first female caricaturist of Brazil and wife of Brazilian President Hermes Fonseca. And yet his teen years were filled with war, as he and his family worked with Italian resistance fighters against the Nazis.
From 1965 to 1972, Steffen became the Italian Clint Eastwood, showing up in 27 Italian Westerns like Django the Bastard, Arizona Colt Returns, A Few Dollars for Django and Viva! Django as well as giallo movies such as Crimes of the Black Cat, The Killers Are Our Guests and Play Motel. He retired to a jet set life based out of Brazil.
Shango (Anthony Steffen) has been framed for the death of a telegraph operator. That man just happens to be the only person that can inform a small Mexican town that the American Civil War is over, which allows Major Droster (Eduardo Fajardo) to keep the war going and lording over the people. Shango hangs from a wooden cage until Fernandez (Attilio Dottesio), his daughter Consuelo (Barbara Nelli) and son Pedrito (Giusva Fioravanti) help him to escape. Droster allows his henchman Martinez (Maurice Poli) to attack the people of this small Mexican barrio and this won’t stand. Shango must get his revenge and somehow goes from PTSD POV to avenging killing machine in moments. And it all ends in fire and self-sacrifice.
Giusva Fioravanti went from being a child star to — along with Francesca Mambro — becoming a leading figure in a far-right terrorist group, Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari. His brother Cristiano had joined a far right youth section at the age of 13 and Giusva joined as well to protect him. But even a year in the U.S. didn’t make him any less violent or devoted to the cause. Along with his girlfriend Francesca Mambro, they had no real ideology but still caused plenty of mayhem, including potentially being behind the Bologna Massacre in 1980 that killed 85 people. Today, Fioravanti is a writer for Il Riformista focusing on human rights and the criminal justice system in Iran and the U.S.
Along with What’s the Matter With Helen?, this movie is one of the two collaborations between writer Henry Farrell and director Curtis Harrington. It was the ABC Movie of the Week on September 22, 1970 and has stood the test of time as one of the better TV movies. And there’s some stiff competition for that.
Shot in just 12 days, it stars Anthony Perkins as Allan Colleigh, who has psychosomatic blindness after an accident — he left paint cans too close to a fire — that killed his abusive father and scarred his sister Katharine (Julie Harris from the 1963 version of The Haunting).
After Allan returns to their home after time in a mental hospital, he’s convinced that everyone is out to get him, including a new boarder with speaks in a hoarse whisper and one of his sister’s ex-boyfriends on the phone.
Joan Hackett — who was in two great TV movies, Dead of Night and The Possessed— appears as Allan’s former girlfriend. She gets caught up in his mania as rooms of the house explode into flames and he’s kidnapped by that mysterious ex.
How Awful About Allan has plenty of actors as comfortable on the stage as they were on the big or small screen. Perkins agreed to wear special contacts that completely made him blind so that his performance would be more realistic.
This didn’t get great reviews when it came out, but do the movie we love ever do?
Don’t have the box set? You can download this on the Internet Archive.
Based on the Richard Matheson novel Ride the Nightmare, Cold Sweat has Joe Moran — an American in France played by Charles Bronson — dealing with his wife and kids being taken by former associates that he once double-crossed.
Directed by James Bond director Terence Young from a script by Dorothea Bennett, Shimon Wincelberg and noir master Jo Eisinger, it shows just how quiet of a life Martin is living along with his wife Fabienne (Liv Ullmann) and daughter Michèle. But ten years ago, he’d been part of a gang with Katanga (Jean Topart), Ross (James Mason), his girl Moria (Jill Ireland), Whitey (Michel Constantin dubbed by David Hess) and Fausto (Luigi Pistilli) show back up and ruin his life.
Yeah, like Bronson is going to take that.
Liv Ullmann later complained that Bronson was rude to her and her daughter during the filming. When her daughter wandered over to his lunch table, Bronson brought her back and said, “Please keep your child to yourself.”
I grew up not far from Bronson and my dad always told me when we went to dinner, when and if we did, that the men in the bars had just come out of the mills and mines and just wanted some quiet. “They aren’t here to listen to you be stupid,” he said, and I get it. Bronson got it. And now Liv Ullmann’s kid got it.
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi.
C.C. Ryder (Joe Namath, who is from a town over from me and we shared the same dentist; perhaps he is better known as the New York Jets quarterback who was such a big deal that he had his own fashion doll) is a biker who hooks up with a gang called The Heads who are led by Moon (William Smith, who as we all know improves every movie).
There’s a race between the whole gang and C.C. decides to win it to get a fashion model named Ann McCalley (Ann-Margret, whose husband Roger Smith wrote this) to notice him. She’s kidnapped by The Heads and C.C. has to save her.
This was directed by Seymour Robbie, who mostly worked in television, and was savaged by critics. Gene Siskel gave it no stars and said, “Ann-Margret has a brief nude scene in which she proves that in addition to having a foul mouth she is fat.” Let me say something. Gene Siskel’s wife Marlene Iglitzen was quite attractive, but Ann-Margaret is, well, Ann-Margaret. He’d never get away with a comment like that today.
Well, because he’s dead.
But you know what I mean.
The Heads also have members like Crow (Sid Haig), Captain Midnight (Bruce Glover), Pig (Teda Bracci, who was Bull Jones in The Big Bird Cage and Rita in The Centerfold Girls), Pom Pom (Jennifer Billingsley, The Thirsty Dead), Zit-Zit (Jacquie Rohr, The Mini-Skirt Mob, Devil’s Angels), Tandalaya (Kiva Kelly), Lizard (Greg Mullavey, My Friends Need Killing) and Rabbit (Mike Battle, who also played for the Jets).
Glover was supposed to play the lead, but when Joe Namath saw him, he got Willaim Smith. Glover said, “”He took one look at me and said I was too short to beat him up. I had no power at the time, so I couldn’t quit. But I made my character and improvised every line I had in that movie.”
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi.
The Spaghetti Western Database is my guide when I watch these movies and they say this about They Call Me Trinity: “…often described as the film that destroyed the spaghetti western and saved the Italian movie industry. In Italy the movie even linguistically marks the ending of an era: whereas the diehard westerns were called spaghetti westerns, the Trinity movies and the numerous imitations it spawned, would be called fagioli westerns. Fagioli (= beans) referring to the obsession with food, notably beans, both Trinity movies express.”
Terence Hill, who plays Trinity, is nothing like the dark heroes in the rest of the Italian West. Sure, there’s some violence in this movie, but by the end, it’s become an actual comedy and you care more about the characters than what they’ll do or who they’ll kill.
Director Enzo Barboni wrote the original story and screenplay for the film. which supposedly was much darker than what ended up being in this movie. Producer Italo Zingarelli suggested the inclusion of a brother, which is how Bambino (Bud Spencer) comes in.
The original idea was for Peter Martell and George Eastman to be the brothers, but Hill and Spencer were popular after God Forgives… I Don’t!, Ace High and Boot Hill (which was released as Trinity Rides Again in some areas). This wasn’t just big in Italy; it was huge in France and Germany.
Again, unlike every Italian cowboy before him, Trinity doesn’t come into town dragging a coffin or tall in the saddle. He’s sleeping, lounging as his horse drags him somewhere new. His first meeting of the movie is with bounty hunters who have an injured Mexican with them. Trinity takes their prisoner and kills the others when they try to shoot him in the back. He’s nearly superhuman in his ability to draw and shoot, which is the opposite of his laconic demeanor.
Similarly, Bambino is the sheriff, someone who can shoot just like Trinity buy who is a burly man twice his size and someone who is ill-tempered where Trinity is full of smiles and kind words. All they have in common is that when they need to kill someone, it’s second nature to them. It’s what they do best.
Bambino became the law when he accidentally killed the man riding to town to take that role. Now his scam is taking that job until his gang rides in. He has to deal with a lot, like Major Harriman (Farley Granger), who is trying to run the Mormons off their land so that he can use it for his prize horses. Horses that are unbranded, so that means someone — someone like Trinity and Bambino — can make a lot of money stealing them.
Despite being called the Right and Left Hands of the Devil, the two keep doing the right thing, Maybe it’s because he’s fallen for two angelic Mormon girls and is thinking about marrying them both. Or perhaps Trinity just sees protecting these peaceful Mormons as the right thing to do, even convincing his brother and his henchmen to show them how to fight.
Of course they’re successful. Trinity also learns that being a Mormon means working hard, so he lies back down and lets his horse take him somewhere, maybe further west, perhaps somewhere that he can annoy his half-brother some more.
“You may think he’s a sleepy-type guy, always takes his time. Soon I know you’ll be changing your mind when you’ve seen him use a gun.”
I know that I should be protective of the rougher movies of the genre, but I have to confess that I loved every moment of this movie. It’s pure joy on film, from the arguments between Trinity and Bambino to the fact that Trinity looks at beans like most Western heroes look at money.
If you ever wonder what I want for Christmas, it’s this Trinity action figure.
When the sales copy for the movie promises “the most gory ninja film of its era,” you know I’m going to be ready for it. Haunted Samurai is based on the works of Goseki Kojima, the artist behind Lone Wolf and Cub.
Rokuheita Kusanagi (Hideki Takahashi) is given the toughest assignments by his master Yojiro. He must track down deserters to his clan and kill them in battle, such as his brother-in-law. In the aftermath of that success, his sister hangs herself. Now, he must find another deserter, one with a wife and child. He decides that he has had enough and he becomes the one that is hunted. There’s a killer a lot like him named Kyonosuke (Isao Natsuyagi) and in the movie’s wildest moment, an entire army of topless female ninjas who rise out of the water in a fight that sees women spitting daggers and a swordfight underwater.
As an eclipse comes closer, Kusanagi tries to become a farmer and forget the bloody past. It will never go away and he’s always seconds away from being discovered and having to kill again. You can’t escape the past, at least in samurai film.
Directed by Keiichi Ozawa, I didn’t find this lived up to the levels of gore promised, but I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t care. This is a great looking movie and a really fun release. I look forward to seeing what Surviving Elements has coming out after this.
The Surviving Elements and Diabolik DVD release of this movie comes in a limited slipcover with art by Vanessa McKee, commentary by film historians Chris Poggiali and John Charles, and a trailer. It’s only being made once, so get it now at Diabolik DVD.
Based on the Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Gambler, this is a movie of gambling, confidence men, dirty tricks, twists and so many turns.
Director Ron Winston mostly worked in TV, directing episodes of Branded, Hawaii Five-O and McMillan & Wife. There’s a fun cast, including Richard Ng as martial artist Koboyashi, Don Gordon as the protagonist Rooney and Suzy Kendall as the love interest Candace. Oh yeah and Stuart Margolin from The Rockford Files.
It nearly feels like a TV movie and that’s not a bad thing. It also feels vaguely Italian — Massimo Serato from Autopsy and Faith Domergue from Perversion Story are in it — but it’s an American/Yugoslavian production.
I mean, you can do worse than watch a movie with Suzy Kendall in it.
The VCI blu ray of this movie has audio commentary by writer/podcaster Rob Kelly. You can get it from MVD.
The plan? Wealthy landowner Don Antonio (Fernando Rey) wanted Marcos (Terence Hill) and Jacobo (Mario Pardo) to put a stop to the revolutionaries that threaten his profits. Marcos will kill anyone for money and easily does his job before he figures out that he did wrong. What helps is that he gets interested in a gorgeous woman connected to them named Soledad (Miss Italy 1959 Maria Grazia Buccella) and then decides to work on the side of the common man.
Directed by Mario Camus, who wrote this with Manuel Marinero and Mario Cecchi Gori, who would go on to script Il Postino, this may be a movie more interesting for the titles it went under than what it actually is. Also known as The Wind’s Anger, The Wind’s Fierce and — sold as a comedy and it isn’t — Trinity Sees Red,* this is the last non-comedy that Terence Hill would make for a bit. Hence this being sold as a Trinity movie.
*In Germany, it was called Der Teufel kennt kein Halleluja (The Devil Doesn’t Know Hallelujah), Trinity: I Open Graves With My Pistol in Greece and Vultures Are Waiting in Finland.
Arrow Video’s Savage Guns box set has high definition 2K restorations of all four films from the original 35mm camera negatives, with El Puro newly restored by Arrow Films. Plus, you get brand new introductions to each film by journalist and critic Fabio Melelli, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by author and critic Howard Hughes, a fold-out double-sided poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx and limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring original artwork and a slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx.
Wrath of the Wind has an alternate 106-minute Spanish-language version of the film, featuring additional and extended scenes not found in the Italian or English versions. There’s also new audio commentary by author and critic Howard Hughes, a short film by filmmaker Francisco Lacerda and the alternate Revenge of Trinity opening.
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