Celluloid Six-Guns #4 - Hannie Caulder (1971) With Sagebrush Spoilers

Hannie Caulder is an interesting hybrid, a British-made Western that incorporates elements of classic American Westerns, Spaghetti Westerns and the emerging brutal sensibilities of the Seventies. Although it has slipped into obscurity, it is a pretty good movie and well worth tracking down.

Synopsis

Emmett (Ernest Borgnine), Frank (Jack Elam) and Rufus (Strother Martin) are the Clemens brothers. They are violent scum, who are marauding their way across Northern Mexico and the Southwest US. They are also inept, showing little talent for robbing banks, or bushwhacking stagecoaches. While fleeing from a bank job, they come across a horse watering station, kill the owner and then take turns raping his wife, Hannie (Rachel Welch). The men set fire to the station and ride off, leaving her to die.

An odd poster, given that the provocatively
posed Welch is surrounded by her on-screen attackers.

Hannie survives, meets bounty hunter Thomas Price (Robert Culp) and convinces him to help her learn to use a pistol and track down her attackers. Price takes her into Mexico to meet Bailey (Christopher Lee), a master gunsmith living in a remote villa. After having a weapon made for her, Price instructs Hannie in its use, While in Mexico, she also meets The Preacher (Stephen Boyd) a mysterious gunfighter.

Returning to America, Hannie and Price cross paths with the Clemens brothers. Price is killed by Emmett. Hannie has to face the brothers on her own. She kills Frank and Rufus, before having a final showdown with Emmett in an abandoned fort. The Preacher shows up to lend a hand, but it is Hannie who kills Emmett. As credits roll, Hannie and The Preacher ride back to town with Emmett's body, where Hannie will collect the bounty on his head. The End.

Analysis

This is an odd film. Not bad; just odd. It begins like a brutal Western version of I Spit On Your Grave (1978). The assault on Hannie is graphic enough to hit the audience right in the face. We feel for Hannie as the men abuse her and leave her to die in the wilderness. Raquel Welch is pretty good in the role; however, there is a strange tonal shift. Hannie seems to recover from her attack way to quickly. And, there are a couple of scenes that are played too lightly for what has happened. This is where some of the older sensibilities of American Westerns seem to be in play. It's almost like the filmmakers said "man, this is gonna be too dark" and pulled back a bit. I don't lay this at her feet; rather, it is a function of the script

One thing that does work well is that at no point does Hannie use her "feminine wiles" to gain revenge. A lesser film would've had a Welch using her beauty to lull the Clemens into a false sense of security. Hannie does not do this. While the Clemens brothers underestimate her, that is because they are cretinous misogynists. Hannie is a straight-forward killer, one who has absorbed Price's lessons. To me, this is very empowering. It is noteworthy to have a tough, female protagonist in Western of this era. While Hannie is reliant on Price for training, she comes into her own once he is gone.

The film also benefits from Culp, who is great in his role as the experienced bounty hunter and conveys the tension between what Hannie wants - the tools to kill her attackers - and what he thinks she should do - not give into the urge for vengeance. Borgnine, Elam and Martin are also effective as the murderous Clemens clan. If there is a problem, it is that they're too well known as character actors - Borgnine in particular - to be believable as being quite so reprehensible. Finally, Christopher Lee is a welcome screen presence, as always. Although his character isn't particularly well-developed, he does have some good lines.

The film looks good, although there is nothing particularly spectacular or note-worthy about the cinematography. There are a few stand-out scenes - the opening shot of the bank robbery is seen through the barrels of Rufus's shotgun, the slow motion face-off between Price and Clemens brothers is well realized; but it is mostly workmanlike. This is not a bad thing; but don't expect the string of magnificent scenes that you'd see in a Sergio Leone or John Ford film.

Verdict

While the film has flaws - the biggest being Hannie's lack of long-term trauma from what happened to her - it is better than it's obscurity would suggest. Check it out.

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.

Celluloid Six-Guns #1 - Top Five Westerns

If you've never seen a Western before, here are the five you have to watch.

5. The Wild Bunch - Sam Peckinpah riddled the Western genre with bullets in this violent story of a dying West and the misfits who populate it. Filled with amoral characters, one amazing image after another and an unforgettable finale, this film took the genre conventions of the previous 40 years and turned them on their heads. Our protagonists - bandits and killers all - ultimately learn that there is one thing that one can count on, in a world spiraling outside of control and understanding; each other. Peckinpagh was never better than this (although Straw Dogs is pretty close); his visual tics (like slow-motion violence) are perfectly utilized in this film. His love of tough-as-nails protagonists, almost all of whom are on the wrong side of the law, is realized with the help of a great cast. There are little character - like bounty hunters L.Q. Jones and Strother Martin arguing over who gets a dead man's boots - that in the hands of a lesser cast wouldn't have added to the overall story in a rich, meaningful way. Finally, this movie (along with a few others like Bonny and Clyde and 2001) gave everyone a taste what cinema's second golden age - the Seventies - would be like; experimental, transgressive and fun-as-hell.

4. Red River - John Wayne plays Thomas Dunson, a man who builds a Texas cattle empire out of nothing and then, during a tough cattle drive, kinda goes nuts. What starts out like a pretty standard adventure drama becomes a psychological study in what happens when fortitude and determination are taken to an extreme. This film is also notable for the naturalistic performances and well-defined characters, something you often find in director Howard Hawks' films. If you ever thought that John Wayne could only play one type of character - the stoic, upright good guy - then you have to see this movie.

3. High Noon - Gary Cooper shows what it means to do your duty, when he takes on a band of thugs in a town full of people unwilling to help him. Although we are supposed to root for Cooper and hiss at the cowardly town's people for not helping him take care of the bad guys who are threat to all of them, there is enough nuance in the movie to make the viewer question "what would I do?" It's also hard to miss the Cold War parable, with Cooper standing in for America, protecting a powerless Free World from Commie bushwhackers. Another neat thing about the movie is that the story is told in approximate real-time. This device works well, heightening the tension as the seconds speed by before the ultimate confrontation.

2. For A Few Dollars - If Spaghetti Westerns were a mountain, this would be the peak. Sergio Leone shot one amazing scene after another, stitched them together with a story of three men living with their own moral codes in a world of greed and chaos, set it to an amazing score by Ennion Morricone and unleashed it on audiences. The performances of the leads - Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Gian Maria Volonté (who is stunning as the psychopathic gang leader) - are enthralling, with Leone's (and cinematographer Massimo Dallamano) camera work allowing them to say as much with a steely-eyed glance as they do with the dialogue. Although some would pick Leone's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as his best work, this is a much tighter, less sprawling and, ultimately more satisfying film.

1. The Searchers - Yep, another John Wayne movie. The Searchers is almost flawless. Director John Ford and cinematographer Winton Hoch created a beautiful film with many scenes looking like Frederic Remington paintings set in motion. Whether majestic shots of Monument Valley or quiet, intimate scenes - like Dorothy Jordan folding up brother-in-law John Wayne's riding coat with obvious longing for him - there are few wasted scenes. The story also present a hero (John Wayne's Etahn Edwards) who's rage and need for revenge consumes him. Although he ultimately does the "right thing" when his search comes to an end, there is some real tension as to what he will do to niece Natalie Wood after he finally finds her. And the final scene is one of the darkest and meaningful cinema. It shows how a great filmmaker can pack what is on the surface a simple shot with multiple layers of meaning.

Next Film Series - Westerns...With A Twist.

With Zombie-A-Thon over, what will The Last Great Roadshow focus on next? How about Westerns. But not just any Westerns. We'll be looking at Spaghetti Westerns. We'll be looking at Sci-Fi Westerns. We'll be looking at Horror Westerns. Basically, anything that has the vibe of the frontier, of tough men and women hacking out a living on the edge of civilization. Of places where law and order come from a stout heart and a quick gun. And, we'll check out movies that play with the genre conventions, transporting them to different times and settings.