Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Clint Eastwood Fake News Alert





This article has popped up recently and is completely FAKE NEWS. The website does not exist, Eastwood never made the statement and the book referenced is not a western. This was originally posted on December 28 in Spain a day much like our April 1st. April's Fool Day where practical jokes are played.

El mayor regalo



My greatest gift: the need to make a better world

La Nacion
By Adolfo C. Martinez
November 29, 2018

Our opinion: good

A director is besieged by his actors and his technicians when filming the final scene of his western. Everyone wonders if the one who must die is the bad or the good one in history, and in the face of this dilemma, he will travel through a series of countries in which, perhaps, he finds the answer so desired. Inhabitants of France, Mexico, Ireland, Colombia and Rwanda are telling you their hardships and so you will know what to do. This atypical film speaks, between the document and the fiction, of the problems that the inhabitants of many countries are going through. The Spanish director Juan Manuel Cotelo, here also an actor, summed up the need for human beings to understand each other to build a better world.


El Tiempo
January 5, 2019
After its success in Spain and with distribution in 14 countries including Mexico and Spain, the film “The greatest gift”, the Spanish filmmaker Juan Manuel Cotelo, allows us to verify that the theme of forgiveness attracts anyone and that the public is also eager for positive stories

The film is about forgiveness, a weapon capable of ending any conflict and has already been used in France, Spain, Ireland, Mexico, Colombia, Rwanda and, in the words of its director, it works, always.

In an interview with Notimex, Juan Manuel Cotelo pointed out that “The greatest gift” arose from a meeting that he did not expect in Bogotá, Colombia, where after a colloquium at the end of some screening a great person approached him and literally said: “My bosses They want to apologize, they would like to do it through you. ”
The bosses of this character were in jail and had committed all kinds of evils and murders in the context of the drug war in that country.

“He told me how those people, about 850, surrendered, without being captured by the police or the Army, in a single day and one of the requests they made to the Colombian government was to get out of jail to apologize to their victims one by one. one, face to face, ”he explained.

Cotelo visited them in jail and then accompanied them in these meetings with their victims.

"What I experienced was so powerful, so surprising, so beautiful, that I really didn't have to think too much, and I told myself, this I have to tell you, from what came the project of my film," he said.

When concluding that it was necessary to think about resentment in all its facets, the film contains testimonies in France, Ireland, Rwanda, Mexico and Spain.

It is also a combination of fiction and reality, because all the characters are true.

“I did it to get the best out of everything because in reality there is no actor in the world that is able to replace a person who speaks with the heart of what he has lived and if he had put the best actor for each case, he would not reach never the real character, ”he noted.

"He stressed that" for me the documentary is infinitely more powerful than fiction, but fiction for me is a wonderful instrument of reflection, like a fable, we read a fable and see that the protagonist is the fox and the bird, the hare and the cat, but that fiction can lead me to think that I am that cat or I am that hare, ”he added.

In "The greatest gift" there is also a lot of humor, "because I like humor that not only makes me laugh but makes me think, so when I made the movie I tried to combine everything, reality with fiction, humor with the drama, as in fact happens in life itself ”.
After the success he has had in Spain and its distribution in several countries, Cotelo said that the issue of forgiveness is attractive to many people and also positive stories.

“The world is better with forgiveness, sometimes we don't talk about it, I think it's understandable that sometimes we put all the focus, all the energy, all the time, even the money into telling stories of someone who has hurt another, Call yourself lies, robberies, corruption or violence, ”he said.

However, "when someone forgives someone, when someone repents, a new story begins," he added.

On the Mexican testimony, Cotelo indicated that someone told him about a marriage in Mexico that had been broken for five years and that it seemed clearly irreconcilable.

"Nobody bet a penny for the reconciliation of that marriage and it happened, I can not tell how it happened because you have to watch the movie, but today that it seems that any discussion with a person even if it is small means breaking forever and is not so" , he claimed.

"You can regain peace as it has been lost, the last word is not hateful," he concluded.


El mayor regalo – Spanish title
The Greatest Gift – English title

A 2019 Spanish documentary production [Fireworkers A.I.E. (Madrid)]
Producer: Simona Puscas
Director: Juan Manuel Cotelo
Story: Juan Manuel Cotelo, Alexis Martínez
Screenplay: Juan Manuel Cotelo, Alexis Martínez
Cinematography: Alexis Martinez
Music:
Running time: 107 minutes

Story: A Spanish film director finds himself tired of the stereotypical western movie endings based on revenge so for his movie his decides to take an unusual turn, therefore he goes around the world looking for new ideas on how to end his western movie. He finds victims of terrorist attacks, genocides and much more who have learned to forgive

Cast:
Will – Santi Rodriguez
Young Tim Guenard – Daniel Ruizar
Tim Friend - Joe Gómez
Jack - Carlos Aguillo
Director - Juan Manuel Cotelo
Sheriff - Paco Estellés
Periodista - Carlos Chamarro
Vaquero - Jorge García Guerrero
Producer - Inés Sájara
With: Charo Gabella, Saskia Guanche, Alejandro Navarro 





Special Birthdays


Gaston Glass (actor) would have been 120 today, he died in 1965.













Giuseppe Addobatti (actor) would have been 110 today, he died in 1986.










Po-Chih Leong (actor) is 80 today. 

Monday, December 30, 2019

New Book Release All About Sergio Leone: The Definitive Anthology. Movies, Anecdotes, Curiosities, Stories, Scripts and Interviews of the Legendary Film Director.


All About Sergio Leone: The Definitive Anthology. Movies, Anecdotes, Curiosities, Stories, Scripts and Interviews of the Legendary Film Director.

Authors: Oreste De Fornari, Giuseppe Tornatore
Publisher: Gremese Editore
Country: Italy
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN10 8873017843
ISBN13 9788873017844
Available: December 30, 2019

A definitive anthology dedicated to the most American of the Italian directors, who's way of doing cinema has influenced tens of filmakers (Tarantino above all). Besides a detailed examination of films, personal memories of the director and of the many collaborators who worked with him (from Bertolucci to Dario Argento, from Ennio Morricone to Clint Eastwood), script excerpts and beautiful photographs. The volume by De Fornari, an experienced Italian film critic (who knew Leone well) and author of another insightful book about Leone, uses individual films along with original material: a preface by Acadecmy Award winning filmaker Giuseppe Tornatore, a collection of quotes arranged alphabetically and an essay ("Six Ways Not to Resemble John Ford") that explains what distinguishes Leone from the myriad of Italian and American directors making westerns.

European comic books! ~Abi Salgari, Serie d’Oro


This comic book series had no cover date which collected four books per issue. Numbers 1-17 reproduces the SALBIAR ALBES (5) starting from #59; issues 18-25 collects the ALBI SALGARI (9). Issues 7-10 have hardcover covers. #11 the covers are plasticized and featured exclusively western themed images created by Spanish authors. From #12 to the finish is added a sixteenth with prose novels and rubrics. Not all copies of the same issue collect the same books. Volumes varied from 192 to 216 pages.
The collection began in 1957 with #1 and continued until #25 in 1966. Published in Milan, Italy by GVA under the direction of Gusto Vaglieri

Special Birthdays


Lino Toffolo (actor) is 85 today.








Russ Tamblyn (actor) is 85 today.

Sunday, December 29, 2019

New Film Release ~ Fistful of Nerf


Fistful of Nerf – English title

A 2019 British production [Bebop Films (London)]
Producer: Azeem Mustafa, Benjamin Daniels
Director: Azeem Mustafa, Benjamin Daniels
Story: Azeem Mustafa
Screenplay: Azeem Mustafa
Cinematography: Ethan Harris-Woodfin [color]
Music: Paolo Fosso
Running time:

Cast:
Calamity John – Tony Manders
One Eyed Jack – Paul Terry
Brimstone McGee – Natalie Winter
Pope – Stephen Emery

Story: One Eyed Jack and his partner have traveled the American West on the hunt for the man who gave One Eyed Jack his name: Calamity John. At a seemingly serene spot in the California woods, they finally meet. It won't be serene for much longer.


Who Are Those Composers? ~ Bruno Nicolai



Bruno Nicolai was born in Rome on May 20, 1926. While studying piano and composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, he befriended Ennio Morricone and formed a long working relationship co-scoring many films with the maestro. The relationship eventually broke up over an argument over credits and Nicolai broke away and established himself as a composer, conductor. Nicolai also scored a number of Europ-westerns and giallo exploitation films. He also wrote many scores for director Jess Franco. He also served as musical director for other composers' film scores, prevalently those of Carlo Rustichelli and Luis Enriquez Bacalov.

Nicolai developed the reputation of the ‘The Guy You Got When When You Couldn’t Get Morricone’. Nicolai's score for the second of the Sabata trilogy “Adios, Sabata” is the one of the main reasons people tended to think that way...and yeah, all the things we associate with a Morricone score are there: the vocal stylings, the flutes, and Alessandro Alessandroni’s iconic whistling. But you have to remember Bruno was in the studio when these elements were being thrown together in the first place. He can claim some ownership of them. He was the guy who added the whip cracks, mission bells and other percussion sounds to Morricone’s scores. You will notice when Nicolai and Morricone split that particular sound disappeared from Ennio’s compositions.


As mentioned before Nicolai collaborated with Jess Franco no less than four times. Each time he added his own personal flair of lush orchestration to Franco’s own personal brand of industrial euro sleaze.

As Morricone’s star began to rise and he became an icon, Bruno Nicolai was all but forgotten and when he passed away on August 16, 1991 it was several months later before his death became known. For whatever reason Gemelli records which Bruno founded, refused to release any of his scores for several years. Finally his family who ran the company relented to the demand of his many fans and we now have access to many of his compositions. Truly Bruno Nicolai rates as one of the greatest of the Euro-western composers.


NICOLAI, Bruno (aka Paul Clemente, Leo Flag) [5/26/1926, Rome, Lazio, Italy – 8/16/1991, Rome, Lazio, Italy] – composer, conductor, songwriter, musician (piano, organ harpsichord), married to Carla Coppi (1955-1991), father of Lea Nicolai, Giulia Nicolai, producer Flavia Nicolai, founded Gemelli Records.
For a Few Dollars More*- 1965 [musician (organ)]
$100,000 for Ringo*– 1965
Django Shoots First* – 1966
Cisco*– 1966
Stai zitto fascista… Elima questo prima di contattare il tuo datore di lavoro – 1966 [film was never made]
Gentleman Killer* – 1967
Days of Vengeance* - 1967
Run, Man, Run* – 1967
Turn… I’ll Kill You - 1967
The Mercenary* - 1968* (co)
Land Raiders* - 1969
Adiós, Sabata* – 1970
Arizona Returns* – 1970
Gunman in Town* - 1970
Have a Nice Funeral My Friend* – 1970
A Man Called Apocalypse Joe* - 1970
The Buzzards and Crows Will Dig Your Grave* – 1971
Blazing Guns - 1971
A Bullet for a Stranger* – 1971
Dead Men Ride - 1971
God in Heaven... Arizona on Earth – 1972
The Hellhounds of Alaska - 1972
His Name Was Holy Ghost – 1972
My Horse... My Gun... Your Widow – 1972 (co)
Hellhounds of Alaska – 1973
Another Try, Eh Providence?* - 1973 (co)
The Man Called Invincible* - 1973
Shanghai Joe* – 1973

* Available on CD

Special Birthdays


Alfred Vohrer (director) would have been 105 today, he died in 1986.













Camillo Bozzoni (cinematographer) is 85 today.

Saturday, December 28, 2019

Spaghetti Western Locations for “Day of Anger”


We continue our search for filming locations for “Day of Anger”. The scene switches to the interior of the stable where we see an older man grooming a horse. Scott enters with Talby’s horse and calls the man Murph and tells him to take good care of the horse he just brought in. Murph asks Scott what he’ll do with the dollar he’ll earn and Scott tells him he’ll save it as he already has eight dollars and with another ten he can by a Colt and the emporium. The discussion turns to how important a good gun is and how to use it, like Doc Holliday. Murph’s ears perk up when he hears the name Talby and says he’s heard the name before but not in Clifton.


The scene was filmed in the stable at the Cinecittà Studio western set in Rome, Italy.
 



For a more detailed view of this site and other Spaghetti Western locations please visit my friend Yoshi Yasuda’s location site: http://y-yasuda.net/film-location.htm and Captain Douglas Film Locations http://www.western-locations-spain.com/

Special Birthdays


Michael Hinz (actor) would have been 80 today, he died in 2008.













George Blagden (actor) is 30 today.

Friday, December 27, 2019

Spaghetti Western Trivia ~ Pierre Brice a Mule?



Hella Brice told another secret about her husband Pierre Brice, who died four years ago. In 1981, she and her husband were targeted by Austrian drug investigators - without knowing. The reason: an unknown criminal had hid 2.5 kilos of heroin in the car tires of Pierre Brice’s car. They were able to prove their innocence and involvement in drug smuggling and convicted the real culprit. It was the former chauffeur of Pierre Brice.

RIP Đjorđe Nenadović


Serbian actor and radio presenter Đjorđe Nenadović, best known for his humorous and satirical show “Caravan”, as well as for entertainment and music shows “Microphone is Yours” and “Evening Wish Show” of the first program of Radio Belgrade, passed away December 26, 2019 at the age of 85 in Belgrade, Serbia. Born on July 27, 1935 in Belgrade, Nenadović graduated from the Theater Academy in the class of Professor Mate Milosevic. He starred in radio dramas as well as in theater, and in more than 40 films and series in domestic and foreign productions, most commonly under the pseudonym George Heston. Nenadović appeared in three Euro-westerns: “Frontier Hellcat” 1964 (Miller); “Last of the Renegades”1964 (Captain Tom Bruce) and “The Treasure of the Aztecs”1965 (Count Embarez).

Club Houdini



Club Houdini

Club Houdini – Spanish title
Club Houdini - El secreto de los cineastas olvidados [3rd Season] – Spanish title
Clube Houdini – Portuguese title

A 2017-2019 Spanish television production [La Penúltima TV (Madrid)]
Producer: César Ruiz de Diego, Chema Lozano
Director:
Story: Rodrigo Sopeña
Teleplay: Rodrigo Sopeña
Photography: Felipe Baeza [color]
Music:
Running time: 12 minutes

Cast:
Houdini - Iñaki Ruiz de Galarreta
Martina – Mafalda Carbonell
Mateo – Nico Rossi
Andres – Alejandro Serrano

Season 3 Episode 32 Bocadillos Lejanos (Far Away Snacks)
The Club combines the indications of the three photos and deduces where the object hidden by Clint Eastwood will be. However, the forces falter and Mateo has only one sandwich to distribute among the four.



Trailer link:


Voices of the Spaghetti Western ~ Blood at Sundown


As we know most of the Euro-westerns were co-productions from Italy, Spain, Germany and France which incorporated British and American actors to gain a worldwide audience. The films were shot silent and then dubbed into the various languages where they were sold for distribution. That means Italian, Spanish, German, French and English voice actors were hired to dub the films. Even actors from the countries where the film was to be shown were often dubbed by voice actors for various reasons such as the actors were already busy making another film, they wanted to paid additional salaries for dubbing their voices, the actor’s voice didn’t fit the character they were playing, accidents to the actors and in some cases even death before the film could be dubbed.

I’ll list a Euro-western and the (I) Italian, (S) Spanish, (G) German and (F) French, (E) -English voices that I can find and once in a while a bio on a specific voice actor as in Europe these actors are as well-known as the actors they voiced.














Today we’ll cover “Blood at Sundown”
[(I) Italian, (S) Spanish, (G) German (F) French, (E) English]

Anthony Steffen – (I) Adalberto Maria Merli, (S) Rogelio Hernandez, (G) Klaus Kindler
Evelyn Stewart – (I) Mirella Pace, (S) Gloria Roig, (G) ?
Gemma Cuervo – (I) Noemi Gifuni, (S) María Luísa Solá (G) ?
Hugo Blanco – (I) Pino Colizzi, (S) Joaquín Díaz (G) ?

















ROGELIO HERNANDEZ [1930-2011]

Rogelio Hernández Gaspar was born in Barcelona, Spain on a Christmas day in 1930, and he began acting in Madrid, both in the theater and as a dubber. Throughout his life he has been linked to the world of dubbing as an actor as a director.

He is remembered for his voice of actors such as Michael CaineMarlon Brando, Paul Newman and Jack Nicholson, Burt Reynolds, Robert Duvall and Richard Harris.

Special Birthdays


Toke Lars Bjarke (actor) 20 today.

Thursday, December 26, 2019

Gian Maria Volonté, actor author



Cinecitta News
By Stefano Stefanutto Rosa
12/10/2019

"There is no single and precise technique. You can interpret a character in total immersion, but the opposite can also happen. Diderot maintains that the actor, while communicating to the spectator a great emotion by exploring the disturbing territories of the tragedy, perhaps thinks of the restaurant where he will go to eat after the show". Thus an ironic Gian Maria Volonté (1933-1994) who was remembered 25 years after his death, as well as an exhibition at the Porretta Terme Festival, with two days dedicated to him, the first at the Casa del Cinema in Rome with a round table moderated by Fabio Ferzetti and scheduled after the screening of the restored version of “Sacco and Vanzatti” (1971).

The idea of ​​this film is the story of two Italian anarchists, who emigrated to the United States and were unjustly sentenced to death for a robbery armed with two victims, comes to Giuliano Montaldo after seeing a piece about those events in a Genoese theater. Three years will pass, the director recalls, before finding someone willing to finance the venture, in the person of Arrigo Colombo, the producer of Sergio Leone 's “For a Fistful of Dollars”. And long is the search for locations - Dublin and Boston - capable of restoring the atmosphere of early twentieth-century America.

Volonté plays Bartolomeo Vanzetti, more politicized and militant than Nicola Sacco (Riccardo Cucciolla), a character that Volonté played in the play "Sacco e Vanzetti", directed by Giancarlo Sbragia. "Gian Maria was the fundamental thrust of the film, his character lived day and night - says Montaldo - his relationship with acto Cucciolla was protective as it was in fiction. And then he wrote and rewrote, at least three times, his lines, in black school notebooks".

An actor's method that Felice Laudadio well remembers, having known and frequented Volonté: "For every role he took two, three months of time, of absolute concentration, then transcribed minutely on a first grade school notebook the script, then on a second his lines, changing the words and finding the most suitable for the character and even his physiognomy. Finally the third notebook reported the lines in the final version. Obviously this perfectionism, was an added value, which often created problems and clashes with the directors, Elio Petri and Gianni Amelio know something about who directed it. "The actor Volonté is therefore not only an interpreter but also an author. "He changed the social conception of the actor, engaging himself personally in the voice / facial battle, very participated at the time – underlines Franco Montini openly opposing and promoting the strike of the actors against the custom of doubling many performers, as indeed happens to him in the two westerns of Leone ”.

The intellectual Volunteer emerges here with arrogance, the man of the left for a period close to the Communist Party, the generous and committed "street companion" in the political battles of the 60s and 70s. "The Unit was presented to the newspaper, where I held the position of head of the editorial team for culture and shows - Laudadio recalls - asking me decisively to publish a statement on the voice / face issue, despite my warning that it would probably cause a hard reaction from the producers. And in fact Gian Maria is blacklisted and that's when his international career begins". And always Laudadio returns the image of a Volonté engaged, during the political elections, in a tour that takes him to meet the Italian immigrants of Switzerland and Germany to support the vote to the PCI.

But the artistic greatness of Volonté remains in his mimetic ability, in being everything and the opposite of everything, without ever identifying himself with a mask, with a human prototype, as Montini points out. From the cruel Mexican bandit of “A Few Dollars More” (1965) to the enterprising head of Eni in “The Case Mattei” (1972); from the exalted and assassin inspector of the political office of the police station in “Investigation on a Citizen Above Suspicion” (1970) to the melancholy Aldo Moro of  “Il caso Moro”  (1986); from the rebel officer of “Uomini contro”(1975) to the ambiguous head of the Italian-American mafia in “Lucky Luciano”(1973).

"His way of acting coincides with the construction of an identity that has an independent life - explains the psychotherapist Giovanni Savastano, author of the book" Gian Maria Volontè. I therefore act"- He does not descend into the character, he becomes it, I do not go out nor do I enter the character 'as he himself suggests." The result of this 'Volonté Studio' is each time a journey inside the character to metabolize it, to do it even obsessively. Too bad not having seen it applied in that filmic project for some time cherished by a Don Quixote next to a Sancho Panza interpreted by his friend Paolo Villaggio.

Who Are Those Gals? ~ Lorraine Clewes



Lorraine Clewes was a British theater, film and TV actress. She was born in Birminghan. England on November 12, 1917. She started her film career in the late 1930s as Alice in 1938’s “Prison Without Bars”. She’d go on to appear in 19 film and television series ending in 1993 with her final film appearance as Tia Anna in “The Milky Life”. Lorraine also was active on stage and appeared leading roles in such Broadway plays as “The House in Paris” (1944) and “Women of Twilight” (1952) She was married to actor James D.C. Liggat in 1940 and they had two children Katrina Bayonas [1941-    ], and  producer, assistant director Susie Ligget. She then married Albert G. Gislingham in 1963. She spent he later life in Madrid, Spain with her daughter Katrina and died there in December of1996.

Her only Euro-western appearance was as Clara in the 1971 film “Pancho Villa” starring Telly Savalas, Clint Walker, Chuck Connors and Anne Francis.


CLEWES, Lorraine (aka Loraine Clewes) [11/12/1917, Birmingham, England, U.K. – 12/?/1996, Madrid, Madrid, Spain] – theater, film, TV actress, married to actor James D. C. Liggat [1920-1981] (1940-19??) mother of Katrina Bayonas [1941-    ], producer, assistant director Susie Liggat, married to  Albert G. Gislingham (1963-19??).
Pancho Villa – 1971 (Clara)

Special Birthdays


Richard Widmark (actor) would have been 105 today, he died 2008.













Rolf Olsen (director, screenwriter, actor) would have been 100 today, he died 1998.













Mikhail Boyarsky (actor) is 70 today.











Paolo Rosani (aka Bud Randall) (actor) would have been 70 today, he died in 1982.












Ramón Langa (actor) is 60 today.