Celluloid Six-Guns #3 - The Grand Duel (1972) - With El Spoilero Grande

I think it is safe to say that Lee Van Cleef never made it into the top tier of actors. However, with his steely eyes, hawk-like features, and flinty line delivery, he was always a good choice as either a villain or tough-as-nails hero. Even if the movie is bad, Lee Van Cleef is always a welcome sight.

Thankfully, The Grand Duel (Il Grande duello) is a pretty good film, made better by Van Cleef's starring role.

Synopsis

A stagecoach bumps down a dusty road, approaching the small town of Gila Bend. On board is Sheriff Clayton (Lee Van Cleef). Among the other passengers is Elisabeth (Dominique Darel), who will become a plot point later in the film. The stagecoach is halted on the edge of town and everyone is told to remain inside. There are bounty hunters in town, looking for Phillip Wermeer (Alberto Dentice) an escaped criminal who is holed up in one of the buildings. Clayton stares down the men at the the town's edge and helps Wermeer avoid the bounty-hunters. He claims to wan to arrest him and bring him to justice. Wermeer was convicted for killing the patriarch of the Saxon family, whose sons - nut-job Adam (Klaus Grünberg), loud-and-violent town sheriff Eli (Marc Mazza)and the brains of the family, David (Horst Frank) - run Saxon City.

After escaping the bounty-hunters, Wermeer finds himself back in Clayton's custody. On the way to Saxon City, the stagecoach stops for the night. Wermeer tries to escape, but Clayton has anticipated the attempt and with a combination of bravado and a demonstration of force, stops him. However, what neither anticipated was the bounty hunters catching up with them. They briefly capture Wermeer and torture him for information about his deceased father's silver stash. Clayton rescues Wermeer and allows him to travel on his own to Saxon City, following with on the stage.

Lee Van Cleef; ready to kick butt and take names.

Arriving in Saxon City, Wermeer contacts the disgruntled townspeople - no one is happy with the brutal rule of the Clayton clan - and tells them to head off into the countryside and wait for him. Unfortunately, Adam Saxon is lying in wait and ambushes them, killing all of Wermeer's followers with machine gun fire. We also find out that Wermeer's father was killed by one of the Saxon's underlings, that Elisabeth is Adam's reluctant bride and that Clayton is no longer a Sheriff, having been stripped of his badge for going up against the Saxons. He has been helping Wermeer all along in order to...well, why he doesn't just kill the Saxons right away isn't clear. There are a number of gunfights which whittle down the Saxon lackeys. Clayton eventually tells the Saxons that he killed their father "for justice." There is a final showdown that leaves the Saxons dead, Wermeer and Elisabeth in love, Clayton with a flesh-wound and everyone leaving the now depopulated Saxon City. The end.

Analysis

This film is an enjoyable mess. Director Giancarlo Santi, who was AD for Leone on The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, imitates his former boss's style without bringing any real artistry to it. The soundtrack by Luis Bacalov is a serviceable copy of Ennio Morricone's work on earlier Spaghetti Westerns with harmonicas and angelic choirs over a strumming guitar. The more serious pieces alternate with with some silly piano music that sounds like it should be in a Western comedy (which may be the point, more on that in a bit). The story has a significant number of plot-holes and dropped subplots. Some of the more annoying one's involve the Wermeer silver which seems to be important until it is just dropped near the end and Elisabeth's sudden, inexplicable devotion to Wermeer. The two share little dialogue and have no screen chemistry, but, I guess courtship was more streamlined in the Old West.

The story has some odd tonal shifts, leading me to conclude that it was meant, in part, as a parody of the genre. Some of this comes from the aforementioned soundtrack, which veers between the haunting, Morricone-like title song and the comical piano work that would not be out of place in an episode of Hee Haw. Lee Van Cleef seems like he is in his own movie. From his dress - the same black on black he wore in his Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns - to his stoic nature, he is essentially playing the character he played in For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Everyone else seems to be in another film, a parody of those earlier movies, as well as other more serious genre entries (e.g., Once Upon A Time In The West and even The Wild Bunch). The Saxons are villainous caricatures. Adam is a pockmarked bundle of theatrical psychopath tics. Eli basically screams a lot and has to be reminded that as a sheriff he should kill fewer civilians. David is the closest to a serious villain, although his exaggerated misogyny and failure to kill the heroes on a number of occasions makes him more a satirical character. Hero Philip Wermeer is the worst, as far as character development. While obviously modeled after Clint Eastwood's preternaturally skilled gunfighter in Leone's trilogy (the aforementioned films with Lee Van Cleef as well as A Fistful of Dollars) Wermeer's abilities push him into the realm of a superhero. He is able to leap great distances, somehow evade multiple men shooting at him from point blank range, hides in a random hotel room that Clayton coincidentally stays in...and wins the love of Elisabeth by just being...a man, I guess? Not a Saxon? It doesn't matter, since the hero has to get the girl.

That's not to say the film is bad. There are some nice action scenes. The machine gun massacre goes on so long it becomes a parody of the finale of The Wild Bunch. Klaus Grünberg does a great job of making Adam Saxon a murderous nut, full of weird habits like sucking on his scarf while gunning down helpless people and wearing an out-of-place, all white suit (one would think that wouldn't be the best color choice for a dusty town). Lee Van Cleef is always a pleasure to watch and scowls charismatically throughout the film. There is a nice desaturated black and white flashback to the death of Papa Saxon, although it is immediately clear who killed him. While Santi is no Leone, the film still looks pretty good. And, the story, for all of its holes, in the end is a pretty standard and understandable tale of revenge.

So, is The Grand Duel a parody? That's hard to say. It does have elements of parody about it, mostly in the characterizations - all of which are collections of cliches and are played broadly - and layering on of genre conventions. It is hard to take a film seriously that a scene in which a character is catapulted over a building; by the same token, it is hard to think the filmmakers saw this as anything but a romp, with a by-the-numbers story. While not a comedy - there is little that is overtly funny - the films genre references and absurd tone make it a fun watch.

Verdict

A violent romp, The Grand Duel is a middling entry in the Spaghetti Western genre. The perfunctory nature of the story and sketchy character development and motivation, is offset by the over-the-top elements and a general sense of absurd fun. and Check it out.