Saturday, August 31, 2024
Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Egidio Candiani
[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]
Egidio Candiani was an Italian silent film actor born in the 1800s. He appeared in 15 films between 1912 and 1916. Most likely also a stage actor but I can find no biographical information on him.
Candiani appeared in one Euro-western as Starry in the 1914 Italia film “Il supplizio dei leoni” (A Mexican Mine Fraud).
CANDIANI, Egidio [Italian] – film actor.
A Mexican Mine Fraud – 1914 (Starry)
New Spanish Blu-ray re-release of “Get Mean”
Get Mean
(1975)
Director: Ferdinando Baldi
Starring: Tony Anthony, Lloyd Battista
Country: Spain
Label: Mon Inter
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Language: Spanish
Subtitles: Spanish
Running time: 90 minutes
ASIN: B0D92FYTY6
Available: July 30, 2024
The Great Duel | Lee Van Cleef, Tarantino's love and that forgotten western
Between crime fiction and spaghetti westerns: why (re)discover Giancarlo Santi's film loved by Tarantino
The Hot Corn
By JacopoConti
August 18, 2024
MILAN – Ended up in oblivion for decades, The Great Duel
at some point returned to the attention of the most attentive public in 2003,
when Quentin Tarantino used the main passage of the film's soundtrack, signed
by Luis Bacalov, for a precise sequence of Kill Bill: Volume 1. Since then, at
regular intervals, we read either about how much it has been underestimated by
some over time or how Tarantino's exhumation would, instead, have pushed others
to overestimate it. We are on the side of those who say that there is more than
one valid reason to recover the film (you can find it streaming on Prime Video
and Apple TV), even if we understand the dissatisfaction of those who, watching
it, thought they were rediscovering a cult à la Sergio Leone at the highest levels
but found themselves faced with something else (complete with references to
Days of Wrath and Django).
Yet The Great Duel has in some way to do with Leone's cinema, because the director, Giancarlo Santi, had been the deputy of the great Sergio in the filming of two of his major works (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West). And "a little bit" – net of the less successful sequences – the mistreated disciple has learned, especially in the good management of close-ups (especially in the finale) and silences, in the use of flashbacks and in the centrality assigned to a Morricone-style soundtrack.
This film, with a modest budget and spaghetti western aesthetics and plot, is also extraordinarily representative of what was the Italian cinema of the early 70s, both in the field of westerns and outside that perimeter. The merit? It is probably to be attributed to Ernesto Gastaldi, author of the screenplay and guru of the scripts of that period (his, among others, Milan hates: the police can't shoot, Once Upon a Time in America and Days of Wrath) who in the film directed by Santi manages to make the elements of the spaghetti western tradition coexist with those of the detective story (without sparing us even some occasional heavy jokes) and detective stories. A genre film, therefore, in which different narrative forms converge.
Absolute protagonist? Clarence LeRoy Van Cleef Jr. or Lee Van Cleef with now white hair, who embodies - as already happened for the elderly John Wayne - not only himself and his character (in this case Sheriff Clayton), but also the entire baggage of good and bad that he had played in the previous films. Masks gathered inside that face of an old fox and that attitude of a seasoned and aware star with which he makes fun of the four thugs decorated with bounty hunters in the first sequence. From the beginning, thanks to Van Cleef, we have no doubt that the sheriff will be the star of events until the unexpected final twist.
Clayton is looking for the young Philipp Wermeer – played by Alberto Dentice, the then impersonator of Massimo Ciavarro credited with a pseudonym and then a journalist for L'Espresso – convicted of the murder of Patriarch Saxon, a grabbing and violent capitalist who together with his three sons controlled a border area through his properties with the sole aim of enriching and expanding his possessions. From this point of view, we are faced with a feudal (or pseudo-mafia) western, with the addition, however, that the antagonists are characterized more by their tics, neuroses and bizarre elegance, than by the qualities demonstrated on the battlefield or in the liturgy of the duel. But the issue is more complicated.
How come? Because we are not in a Bud Spencer and Terence Hill comedy. Here, behind the apparently trivial fight between the sheriff and the bounty killers, there is a shade of mystery, a truth that few know and that no one seems to want to say. Will the young Philipp really be guilty? Who is trying to frame him? The answers come gradually, not without some misdirection. Furthermore, in the film we witness a reversal of values between the figure of the sheriff and the family of capitalists, in which the separation between law and justice plays a fundamental role, which, on the other hand, often coincide in the American western (remember that we are in Italy, two years after the release of Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion).
The Saxons, dressed in white and masters of the county, are supposed to represent the state or some offshoot of it, but in reality they are deranged who use the system to serve their business, not to maintain social order. The sheriff, on the contrary, is dressed in black, and, indeed, due to differences with the top management, he has been removed from his role. It is therefore not the institution itself that takes care of individuals, but the moral strength of the insulted ex-sheriff, who unhinges a corrupt mechanism (as is the same judge who condemned Philipp) through the deadly weapon of truth and alliance with the persecuted other. The law in itself is no longer enough, it is necessary that upright men put it into practice, otherwise the gear breaks. All the time.
Spaghetti Western Locations for “Face to Face”
We continue our search for locations for “Face to Face”. Hearing the shots behind them from the massacre of the small band of people crossing the dunes on foot, Brad tells the wagon to move on while he and Beau ride off to set up an ambush to keep the vigilantes from catching and killing the remaining band.
Filmed at the sand dunes of Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park.
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
Richard Basehart (actor) would have been 110 today but died in 1984.
John Warrel (Alfredo Varelli) (writer, actor) would
have been 110 today but died in 1996.
Germaine Damar (actress) is 95 today.
Susana Campos (actress) would have been 90 today
but died in 2004.
Noël Simsolo (actor) is 80 today.
William P. Yazzie (actor) would have been 70 today but died in 2017.
Friday, August 30, 2024
Spaghetti Western Trivia – the water trough
The only remaining structure in Golden City is a water
trough that can be seen in the center of town in almost every Spaghetti western
film that was made there. All the buildings have been removed and the location
is an open field. The water trough was there amid the ruins of the set when I
was there in 2003 and 2005. Now it sits all by itself, a remnant of days gone
by. If it could talk what fabulous tales it could tell of films, crews and
actors who once walked past it or hid behind it during one of the many staged
gunfights.
Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Gonzalo Cañas
[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]
Gonzalo Cañas Olmeda was a Spanish actor and puppeteer, a familiar face in Spanish popular cinema. Born in Cuenca on July 7, 1937, Cañas shared the screen with such actors as Lina Morgan, Rafaela Aparicio and Tony Leblanc. After making his debut with a small role in " Cerca de las estrellas" in 1962, his popularity soared the following year thanks to " Confidencias de un marido", in which he appeared with Rafaela Aparicio and Enriqueta Carballeira. "La frontera de Dios" (1965) with Julia Gutiérrez Caba and Concha Velasco and "Soltera y madre en la vida" (1969), with Lina Morgan, were other films that followed. But his great passion was for puppets and in 2001 began what would be his great dream project when he acquired the "Theater of Automata" the oldest and best preserved in Spain, and then restored it. Gonzalo regained its 35 characters and managed to bring this mechanical theater on a tour of Spain and other countries such as France, Belgium, Italy and the Czech Republic. The last will of Gonzalo Cañas was the donation of this almost century-old puppet theatre to the Madrid City Council as indicated by AISGE.
Gonzalo died October 29, 2012, at the Hospital de Guadarrama in Madrid from kidney failure at the age of 75.
Cañas appeared in only one Euro-western “Montana Trap” (aka “Potato Fritz”) (1975) with Stpehen Boyd and Hardy Kruger
CANAS, Gonzalo (Gonzalo Cañas Olmeda)
[7/7/1937, Cuenca, Cuenca, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain – 10/29/2012, Guadarrama,
Madrid, Spain (kidney failure)] – writer, film, TV actor, puppeteer.
Montana Trap – 1975
New 4K Australian release of “Once Upon a Time in the West”
Once Upon a Time in the West
(1968)
Director: Sergio Leone
Starring: Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards,
Claudia Cardinale
Country: Australia
Label: All Interactive / Paramount
Region: 0
4K UltraHD BluRay and BluRay
Details: Likely identical to U.S.A. edition
UPC: 9305000084045
Available: August 30, 2024
Film shoots: when Aragon became the Wild West
Between 1965 and 1972, the surroundings of Fraga, Candasnos and Alcolea de Cinca hosted the filming of some thirty spaghetti westerns in a little-known chapter of Spanish cinema
[Very close to Candasnos, a ranch was built to host filming, such as this one for the film 'Five Thousand Dollars on One Ace' (1964).]
El Periodico
By Ruben Lopez
August 24, 2024
The 'spaghetti western' became almost a genre in itself in the 60s and 70s of the last century. Sergio Leone opened the season in 1964 with his mythical 'A Fistful of Dollars', but later 500 more films would arrive shot between Italy and Spain. The Community of Madrid and the Tabernas desert, in Almeria, took up a large part of the productions made in Spain, but Aragon also hosted many of these shootings due to its similarity to the Far West. Specifically, the triangle between Fraga, Alcolea de Cinca and Candasnos, in the regions of Bajo Cinca and Cinca Medio, was the setting for more than 30 films shot between 1965 and 1972.
All this cinematographic past was captured in detail in the book that the Madrid-born Javier Ramos Altamira published two years ago ('The Western's routes in Catalonia and Aragon'), but here, in the community, the greatest expert on the subject is Diego Tejera. This filmmaker from Fraga knows all the titles and their corresponding locations perfectly. In fact, a few years ago he promoted the travelling exhibition 'Fraga City, city without law', in which he explains the details of the great cinematographic phenomenon that starred in those years municipalities such as Chalamera, Ballobar, Alcolea de Cinca, Candasnos or Cardiel, a small abandoned town twelve kilometres from Fraga.
As Tejera recalls, Aragon began to host these shootings for purely economic reasons. The Balcázar brothers, born in Barcelona, decided to jump on the 'spaghetti western' bandwagon in the early 1960s. They set up film studios and even built a fictitious town in Esplugues de Llobregat. "It had everything: the living room, the prison, the inn... But they also needed to shoot outdoors, so they thought that filming in this area of Aragon would be much cheaper than going to Almeria," says Tejera.
['Hate for Hate'
(1967) was filmed in the surroundings of Alcolea de Cinca.]
The Balcázar brothers found so many competitive advantages in the area that they even considered bringing their studies here. The idea did not take hold, but the filming boosted the area economically in the same way. "Fraga's hotels were delighted because they were films that moved quite a few people; the shops also noticed it and I even know a man who rented them horses," explains Tejera, who points out that the westerns even created jobs: "In Fraga there has always been a gypsy community and many of them worked as extras because the directors said that they resembled Mexicans."
All that time passed away due to the decline of the (also called) 'chorizo westerns'. Even the Esplugues studios ended up being dismantled in the face of the decline of the subgenre. Of course, they had an epic ending: the burning and demolition of the fictional town ended up appearing in the last film of the Balcázar family ('Now They Call Him Sacramento').
Film tourism
Despite the fact that the phenomenon is already a thing of the past, Tejera is convinced that much more tourist profit could be obtained from it. "The DPH published the book Huesca de cine a year ago and there appears my route, but little else has been done," laments the expert, who has been knocking on the doors of the regional institutions for several years to promote a project in the area "now that film tourism is so in vogue."
['Yankee' (1966), directed by Tinto Brass, was filmed in the surroundings of Chalamera.]
According to Tejera, it would not be complicated to get started because Javier Ramos' book includes maps and indications of the locations of the shootings. In fact, both are preparing all the information to present it to the regions of Bajo Cinca and Cinca Medio with the desire to make a route. "Information leaflets could be made and posters could be installed on location," says Tejera, who points out that Cardiel could be the epicentre of these routes, a town that was already abandoned when it hosted the shootings.
Among the films shot in the area are 'Five Thousand
Dollars on One Ace' (1964), filmed in Fraga and Candasnos, 'The Texican'
(1966), 'Yankee' (1966), 'A Pistol for Ringo' (1965) or 'The Return of Ringo'
(1966), shot between Fraga, Alcolea and Torrente de Cinca and with music by the
great Ennio Morricone. Many of these films appear in the documentary by Catalan
Pere Marzo 'Goodbye Ringo' (2019), which recovers part of this little-known
chapter of Spanish cinema.
Special Birthdays
Eduardo Ciannelli (actor) would have been 135 today but died in 1969.
Rosalío Solano (cinematographer) would have been
110 today but died in 2009.
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Ricardo Canales
[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]
Ricardo Canales Paniagua was born sometime in 1896, in Valladolid, Castilla y Leon, Spain. He was the son of the owner of the theater where he began his career, he decided to emigrate to Venezuela after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. An actor with a long career in his country, he settled in Argentina at the beginning of 1940 until 1950, the year in which he returned to his native country.
In cinema he debuted during the golden age of Argentine cinematography in 1942 with “Tú eres la paz”, directed by Gregorio Martínez Sierra, and starring Catalina Bárcena and Alicia Barrié. He said goodbye with “Don Juan Tenorio” in 1949, under the direction of Luis César Amadori and starring Luis Sandrini and Tita Merello.
In the theater he was a member of the Margarita Xirgú Company, the Eugenia Zúffoli Company and then his own.
He was married to Susana Niaucel and they had two children, Ricardo Canales Niaucel, born in Valencia on September 27, 1924, who died in Buenos Aires on August 15, 1993 (he became manager of the Association of Theater Entrepreneurs in Buenos Aires-Argentina) and Susana Canales Niaucel, born in Madrid on September 5, 1933, who developed her talent as an actress in her father's company and in film.
Ricardo Canales died in Madrid, Spain on October 4, 1978 at the age of 82.
Canales appeared in two Spaghetti westerns “Django non perdona” (Django Does Not Forgive) in 1966 as Renoir and also that same year as the village spokesman in “Los cuatro salvajes” (Ringo; the Face of Revenge).
CANALES, Ricardo (aka Riccardo
Canale) (Ricardo
Canales Paniagua) [1896,
Valladolid, Castilla y Leon, Spain – 10/4/1978, Madrid, Madrid, Spain] –
theater, film, TV actor, married to Susana Niaucel [1904-1986] (193?-1978)
father of theater manager Ricardo Canales [1924-1993], actress Susana Canales (Susana Canales Niuce) [1933-2021].
Django Does Not
Forgive – 1966 (Renoir)
Ringo; the Face of
Revenge – 1966 (freed village
spokesman)
Spaghetti Western Pietrastornina, presentation of "The man who said no" by Mirko Alivernini
Avellino Today
August 23, 3034
An important part of this third edition will be dedicated to cinema. To the cinema of the past, present and future." This is how the president Fulvio Urciuolo, sly and evasive, described the "cinema part" of Spaghetti Western Pietrastornina, an event that will take place on September 6, 7 and 8 in Pietrastornina Avellino, Italy. The cinematographic offer and the choice of guests are the result of the precious and patient collaboration born and consolidated with the "Camposecco Far West" group. A union of intentions with the rediscovery of the men, places and stories of Italian western cinema at the center. But that's not all.
That reference to the future had displaced us but now everything turns out to be much clearer. Mirko Alivernini will in fact be one of the guests who will take the stage of the Film Festival on the evening of the 8th.
Alivernini will present his latest work, "The man who said NO", a unique presentation specially designed for the audience of Spaghetti Western Pietrastornina, who will thus be able to (re)appreciate, also and not only, the talent of Massimo Vanni, who plays the protagonist, a pensioner forced to fight against an injustice. Vanni himself will be a guest, always on Sunday, of the event that will enrich with curiosities and anecdotes of his long and rich career.
"The Man Who Said NO" was in fact shot entirely with a Samsung S23Ultra smartphone. But not only the shooting phase, in fact the entire post-production has also been entrusted to this device, demonstrating how even new devices, such as smartphones, can represent a resource for the cinema system.
In short, a journey between Alivernini's futuristic vision, Massimo Vanni's past and, of course, the present. For a journey beyond the frontier of time. For a cinema, quoting Urciuolo, of the present, the past and the future. But be careful.
"Alivernini and Vanni are only the first two 'unlocked' protagonists – Maestro Alabisio we feel like considering him, always with the utmost respect, one of us, a friend, an illustrious friend, of Spaghetti Western – but there will be others and we will soon communicate them to you." - they confirm us from the association - "You just have to follow us step by step."
Meanwhile, the town begins its transformation.
Whisky, Flat Feet and Hard Fists / Los fabulosos de Trinidad / Fabulous Trinity
Nischenkino
By Bluntwolf
August 16, 2024
In a town in the Wild West, Nora, a beautiful rogue, meets the bounty hunter Scott, who accompanies her to Mexico on business. Once there, the girl uses all her seductive skills to secure the release of three arrested arms smugglers. When the guerrilla leader sees through the trap, he hunts down the smugglers and Scott ... (Pidax Film- und Hörspielverlag)
Whisky, Flat Feet and Hard Fists is a wannabe-amusing and sometimes quite confusing spaghetti / chorizo western, which has been enriched with a lot of action, crossfire, brawls, frauds, trials and tribulations as well as several shootouts. Director Ignacio F. Iquino's screenplay also has "funny" dialogues, silly situations as well as some twists and turns. The mainly Spanish production was shot in Fraga (Huesca) and in the vicinity of Barcelona (Catalonia) and was crammed with many familiar faces embodying rather exaggerated characters as well as a rather light-hearted riot. The movie has few, if any, new ideas to offer, but it knows how to score with a few successful moments here and there. The whole fuss revolves around three sympathetic arms smugglers, the burly brothers Bud Wesley / Pinzio Trinidad (Cris Huerta), Ray Wesley / Panza Trinidad (Ricardo Palacios) and Charles Wesley / Ponza Trinidad (Tito García), who are currently having to do forced labor in a Mexican prison. This penitentiary is under the command of Chief Constable Colonel Jiménez (Fernando Sancho), a relentless supporter of General Emilio Zapata at the time of the Mexican Revolution.
Suddenly, Nora Winters / Vargas (Fanny Grey) appears in the area and claims to be the niece of the three corpulent brothers. Of course, Chief Constable Jiménez falls in love with the equally attractive and young woman, who demands that he release her uncles. When Jiménez finally realizes that he has been tricked by her, he immediately picks up the trail of the three coarse siblings. From now on, there is a series of chases, arrests and repeated outbursts of the three always hungry men, including betrayals, fistfights and shootouts between them, the Mexican colonel and the bounty hunter Scott (Richard Harrison), who is also after the trio and has his eye on Nora. In the following time, the three bandits are repeatedly confronted with new opponents, brawls and shootouts. This "hilarious" chorizo western was of course staged in their style after the successes of the Terence Hill / Bud Spencer western comedies: Three villainous but somehow sympathetic arms smugglers experience several adventures, constantly fight with enemies and even solve a conflict among themselves, while of course they are led by the main antagonists Fernando Sancho and Richard Harrison are hunted mercilessly.
The Spanish westerns of the earlier era usually tried to imitate their American counterparts rather than cultivate their own distinctive style as the Italians did, but in the case of whisky, flat feet and hard fists, Italian models of the late period of the genre were clearly copied. If you like Western comedies, you can watch the flick without hesitation. However, the inclined audience must be aware that the film proves to be more embarrassing than funny. The flick could even be considered the swan song of the paella or chorizo western, also because it is one of the last films to be shot in the western town of Fragas, where hundreds of westerns were made in the 60s and 70s.
The main cast as well as the supporting actors can be described as passable. The robust Richard Harrison takes on the role of the shrewd bounty hunter Scott and delivers a solid performance. Harrison played some minor roles in Hollywood flicks such as Kronos (1957), South Pacific (1958) and Robur (1961). In 1961, he took the chance to go to Europe when he was offered a leading role in The Invincible Gladiator. For the next two decades, the actor settled in Italy and appeared there in other Pepla, such as The Seven Gladiators and Perseus: The Invincible. In order not to be pushed too much into the part of the muscle man, he looked for roles in standardized Italo westerns such as Three vs. Sacramento (1963) and Reckoning in Vera Cruz (1963) and a little later $100,000 for Ringo (1965) and El Rocho – The Killer (1966). Richard Harrison is even said to have been offered the leading role in For a Fistful of Dollars (1964) – according to his own statement in various interviews – but he declined and explained: "Perhaps my greatest contribution to cinema was that I didn't do Fistful of Dollars and recommended Clint Eastwood for the role." However, we don't know for sure whether this anecdote can be believed at all, as there are a few more rumors circulating about the assignment of the role of the "man without a name".
The trio of greasy main protagonists were usually recruited for Italo Westerns from the second or even third row, where they were often allowed to play the comically cheerful buddy type a la Bud Spencer in supporting roles: Tito Garcia, Cris Huerta and Ricardo Palacios. The three do their job quite well, without having to slip into too crude silliness. The same can be said about the German dubbing, which proves to be really successful and fortunately largely dispenses with stupid jokes. In addition, you will recognize numerous faces from many other Spanish/Italian co-productions such as Gustavo Re, Ricardo Moyán, Cesar Ojinaga and the always great Fernando Sancho – in his usual role as a short-tempered Mexican. The extremely attractive Fanny Grey doesn't have much to do, but comes across as the seductive niece Nora enormously appealing. Enrique Escobar's anti-climatic music plays happily in the background most of the time and also has a catchy theme song "Restless Hands" – sung by John Campbell – in store. Campbell was also destined to sing the title song of the sequel Ninguno de los tres se llamaba Trinidad (I magnifici tre di Trinità / Fat Brothers of Trinity, 1973), which was directed by Pedro Luis Ramírez and written by Ignacio F. Iquino with an almost identical cast and was not released in Germany.
Both films were also produced quite cheaply by Ignacio F. Iquino and the one reviewed here was also directed by him in a lousy way. Iquino wrote screenplays, directed and produced many films with his company I. F. I., including a number of mostly obscure westerns, such as Nevada Joe (1964), No Dollar for Your Life (1966), Cinco pistolas de Texas / 5 dollari per Ringo (1966), Rancheros (1970) and Two Hallelujah for the Devil (1971). Flicks like this have often been cast with Richard Harrison, Jorge, Daniel or George Martin, Luis Davila and Robert Woods. Iquino worked in all kinds of genres from the 1940s until the late 1980s, where he mainly produced B-movies. However, in his best times he also led in acceptable films such as El tambor del Bruch (1948), Historia de una escalera (1950, based on the novel by Antonio Buero Vallejo), Brigada criminal (1950), Judas... a man of our day! (1952) and Los ángeles del volante (1957).
The image from the Spanish licensor is presented to us in 16:9 – 1.85:1 format and leaves a lot to be desired. It would have been nice if Pidax had had the theatrical copy discovered by Lars Dreyer-Winkelmann (see extras) completely rescanned and not just the German sound. The German and Spanish tracks are available in DD 2.0, both of which sound good. Subtitles can only be switched on for the previously shortened scenes. In addition to a reversible cover, a picture gallery and the German theatrical trailer are provided as extras. The video introduction by Lars-Dreyer Winkelmann (approx. 11 minutes) can be seen as an interesting feature with a charming story about the film copy of whisky, flat feet and hard fists he discovered.
Whisky, flat feet and hard fists should ultimately only be something for lovers of western comedies and completists. However, due to the quite well-known cast, the flick can be consumed reasonably painlessly, whereby Ms. Grey has to be described as a real eye-catcher and extremely welcome distraction.
Special Birthdays
Carlo Savina (composer) would have been 105 today but died in 2002.
Paul Costello (actor) would have been 100 today but died in 2005.
Luisa Montagnani (writer) is 95 today.
Wednesday, August 28, 2024
Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Anna Campori
[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]
Anna Campori was an Italian theater, film, radio, TV, voice actress who was born in Trastevere, Rome, Lazio, Italy on September 22, 1917. As a teenager Campori attended classical high school. She made her debut on the scene, in the twenties, at a very young age, in her father's theater company, as an operetta singer. Later, she joined a modest prose company. She then married to actor Pietro De Vico Pietro De Vico [1911-1999] since 1937 and joined his theatrical group where she became the lead actress. After her time in the theater, she began a film career in 1951 and went on to appear in over 70 films and television series gaining celebrity status as the grandmother in the TV series ‘Giovanna, la nonna del Corsaro Nero’ in the 1960s.
Anna died in her hometown on January 19, 2018, at the age of 101.
Anna appeared in only one Euro western as Irene Jefferson in the 1967 film “Ric e Gian alla conquista del West” (Rick and John, Conquerors of the West).
CAMPORI, Anna [9/22/1917, Trastevere, Rome, Lazio,
Italy – 1/19/2018, Trastevere, Rome, Lazio, Italy] – theater, film, radio, TV,
voice actress, married to actor Pietro De Vico [1911-1999] (1937-1999), mother
of Alessandra De Vico a second daughter [19??-2011].
Rick & John, Conquerors of the West – 1967 (Amalia)
“The Great Silence” Review by Fred Blosser
Cinema Retro
Review: “The Great Silence” (1968), starring Jean-Louis
Trintignant, Klaus Kinski, Vonetta McGee, and Frank Wolff; directed by Sergio
Corbucci; Film Movement Classics 50th anniversary Blu-ray edition (2018) by
Fred Blosser
“The Great Silence,” an Italian Western by Sergio Corbucci, has received a handsome 50th Anniversary release on Blu-ray from Film Movement Classics. Fans will be happy to see such recognition for a movie that hardly caused a stir when it was released in 1968, and in fact never played in U.S. theaters at all. In traditional Westerns, heroes like The Virginian and Shane are men of few words because they choose not to talk much. Corbucci’s black-clad hero is known as “Silence” because he can’t talk at all. His throat was slashed, severing his vocal cords, when he was a boy. But “silence” also carries a symbolic, almost fetishist connotation for the character. “He’s called Silence,” it’s said of the supernaturally omnipresent pistoleer, “because wherever he goes, the silence of Death follows.” Corbucci’s plot unfolds against a beautiful but pitiless mountain landscape, dominated by its own “great silence” of winter ice and snow -- at least, until gunshots ring out and Ennio Morricone’s musical score pounds across the soundtrack, reflecting the desperation of Corbucci’s characters with its clanging, shrieking instrumentation.
In Corbucci’s bleak story, newly appointed Sheriff Gideon Burnett (Frank Wolff) is dispatched to remote Snow Hill, Utah, to quell rampant banditry by offering amnesty to the lawbreakers. There, powerful, entrenched interests resent his intrusion. Because they profit from the disorder, and in fact are its root cause, they’re happy with things just the way they are. Store owner, banker, and justice of the peace Henry Pollicut (Luigi Pistilli) drives homesteaders into debt, and when they default, forecloses on their property, leaving them destitute. Once displaced, they flee into the mountains and survive by stealing, like Paul Muni’s character in 1932’s “I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.” Rewards are placed on their heads and collected by Loco (Klaus Kinski) and his posse of bounty hunters. As long as this system perpetuates itself, the bounty hunters enjoy a thriving livelihood, and invariably they deliver their prey dead. One of Loco’s victims is black, prompting the blond, blue-eyed killer to marvel: “What times we live in, when a black man is worth as much as a white one.” Wearing a cable-knit scarf down his neck that looks like the chain-mail of a medieval Teutonic Knight, Kinski delivers the line with unsettling, offhand, bemused diffidence. The victim’s vengeful widow Pauline (Vonetta McGee) enlists Silence to call out the bounty hunter and gun him down.
As Corbucci reveals in quick, Sergio Leone-style
flashbacks, Pauline’s consuming hatred for Loco (called Tigrero in the original
Italian-language version) is rivaled by a simmering enmity between Silence and
Pollicut. Years before, in carrying out
evictions as a deputy, Pollicut had gunned down Silence’s parents and cut the
boy’s throat to render him mute, thus unable to identify Pollicut as the
culprit. In turn, once grown into
gunslinging adulthood, Silence shot off Pollicut’s thumbs to end his nemesis’
gun-toting career. You have to go along
here with Corbucci and his scriptwriters, and accept an apparent lapse of
logic. Why hadn’t Pollicut, at the
outset, simply murdered the kid along with the parents, and saved himself the
later pain and fuss?
Then again, this was a common Spaghetti Western convention: the killer who leaves a loose end, only to face payback years later. Luigi Pistilli may have felt a sense of deja vu as Pollicut. He’d already played a similarly careless villain, Walcott, in 1966’s “Death Rides a Horse.” There, Pistilli’s character kills a father, mother, and daughter but neglects to eliminate the young son who grows up to become John Philip Law’s avenging Bill Mesita. The viewer may experience deja vu too, since the incomparable Spaghetti villain Mario Brega plays Pistilli’s henchman in both films.
In Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West,” Henry Fonda’s hired gun, Frank, makes the same mistake as Pollicut by hanging a peon but letting the victim’s kid brother grow up to become Charles Bronson’s angel of death, Harmonica. Leone’s picture, which debuted in Italy two weeks after Corbucci’s, is a sprawling, operatic, sentimental epic about the passing of the Old West. Corbucci’s, shorter than Leone’s by an hour, is roughhewn and anything but nostalgic. Expansive outdoor scenes of towering, snow-clad mountains (filmed in Italy’s Dolomites, standing in for the Rockies) are offset by others in cramped indoor locations, where Corbucci often uses closeups in naturalistic, cinéma vérité style to heighten a sense of tension and claustrophobia. His story is set in 1898, the turn-of-the-century time frame that, in other Westerns, offers a convenient demarcation between the romantic frontier of myth and the modern “civilized” West. The transition is exemplified in Silence’s gun, a new-style Mauser automatic pistol. But Corbucci presents his Old West as a savage world of plutocracy gone berserk, about which no one in their right mind would feel nostalgic. “You represent the law,” Loco tells the well-meaning but inept Sheriff Burnett, “but my law is survival. Survival of the fittest.” The ending suggests that the Twentieth Century will bring social change only to the extent that Loco and his hired killers may have to find a new line of work as the available supply of wanted “outlaws” runs out.
It wasn’t until 2001 that the film enjoyed an official release here, on DVD from Fantoma. By that time it had gained a cult reputation as a lost classic, a precursor to later and better-known movies with a comparably pessimistic vision of the West, like “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” and “Heaven’s Gate.” Quentin Tarantino named it as one of his favorites, and was inspired (if that’s the right word) to produce “The Hateful Eight” (2015). Tarantino’s snowbound Western has a richer visual look than Corbucci’s, thanks to a bigger budget and modern advancements in filmmaking technology, but it’s Tarantino’s typically silly, bloated product. Whatever its technical faults (like Pollicut’s jarringly phony prosthetic thumbs that Silence shoots off in the flashback scene), “The Great Silence” has a somber, provocative gravity, bolstered by solid performances and underscored visually in two pivotal scenes. In one, the frozen corpses of men with prices on their heads are scooped out of snowbanks, where they’ve been kept in cold storage, and hauled onto the top of a stagecoach like sides of beef for delivery in town. In the other, ragged fugitives huddle miserably at gunpoint as they await execution, men and women alike.
For European audiences in 1968, such scenes may have stirred painful memories of the Nazis’ and Fascists’ merciless reprisals against the soldiers of the Resistance during World War II. Corbucci’s allusion would have been hard to miss in Italy and France, only two decades after the war. Had the film been released to American theaters, it’s a sure bet that the critics here would have overlooked or dismissed those political implications. Stateside movie reviewers of the late 1960s might discuss the leftist underpinnings of prestigious European films like “The Battle of Algiers” and “Z,” but genre pictures like Spaghetti Westerns rarely received such serious consideration. To the extent that the New York Times and other major outlets reviewed them at all, they did so mainly to castigate their violence, much as community groups nowadays unload on shooter’s-eye-view video games. In 2018, sadly, Corbucci’s politics seem more relevant than ever. You may be tempted to filter his portrait of an unjust economic and legal system, which marginalizes, demonizes, and preys upon the disadvantaged, through the latest reports from the White House and Wall Street on the evening news.
Film Movement Classics’ Blu-ray disc presents “The Great Silence” in a sharp 2K digital restoration that includes both the English language and Italian language tracks for the movie, with English subtitles. The bonus materials include two alternate endings that Corbucci had prepared in an attempt to slide the movie past censors. One retains the nihilistic ending of the original, but attempts to soften it by editing out almost all of the explicit violence in the last five minutes. The result is virtually incomprehensible. The other ending provides a happy outcome for the good guys, rather than the hopeless one in the original. It has a nutty, surrealistic charm, but its total disconnect in tone from the rest of the somber picture, and its rabbit-out-of-a-hat, nick-of-time rescue, wouldn’t have fooled even the densest viewer. “Westerns Italian Style,” a 1968 documentary narrated by Frank Wolff, presents some interesting behind-the-scenes footage of Corbucci and Trintignant, as well as brief interviews with two other Spaghetti luminaries, Sergio Sollima and Enzo Castellari. The voices are badly dubbed and the script is generally inane, but if you can ignore the campy vibe of the documentary, it offers some informative stuff in passing. The disc also includes a new taped interview with Alex Cox, whose thoughts on Spaghettis are always worth listening to, and a handsome keepsake booklet by Simon Abrams.
Who Are Those Guys ~ Andrew Divoff
Andrew Daniel Divoff was born on July 2, 1955 i San Tomé, Anzoátegui, Venezuela. His father was Russian. His parents worked as wildcatters for Exxon. Divoff describes himself as having been an introvert and an outsider during his childhood in Caracas, Venezuela, stating that he had experienced near-daily physical altercations and bullying from other children. Divoff's first language was Spanish, but he learned English while still living in Venezuela. After Divoff's parents divorced, he emigrated with his sister and mother to northern California when he was 10 years old. Divoff's mother worked for the State Department, and he moved with her when she was transferred to Spain. Divoff lived five years in Vilassar de Mar (Catalonia), between 1973 and 1977. He attended the University of Barcelona and then transferred his credits to Georgetown University, where he continued his study of languages and linguistics, and has resided in the United States ever since. Divoff did not graduate from Georgetown University, instead deciding to take a year off to help his father settle in California for retirement.
After returning to California, Divoff worked as a dispatcher for a limousine company, eventually becoming a limo driver in 1983. During his evenings off, Divoff took acting lessons; his teachers included Milton Katselas, director of Butterflies are Free. His first role was that of a Russian guard for a 1986 episode of ‘Misfits of Science’. Divoff's subsequent TV appearances in the 1980s included bit parts and work as an extra in ‘The A-Team’, ‘The Twilight Zone’, ‘MacGyver’, ‘Scarecrow and Mrs. King’, and ‘Matlock’.
Divoff married Russian actress Raissa Danilova in 1992, though the two later divorced in 1998.
In 2014, Divoff developed his own craft beer, the Djinn's Hellabrew, which he has sold to benefit charities.
DIVOFF, Andrew (Andrew Daniel Divoff)
[7/2/1955, San Tomé, Anzoátegui,Venezuela -
] – stuntman, film, TV actor, married to actress Raissa Danilova (Raisa
Shamailovna Danilova) [195?- ] (1992-1998).
Oblivion – 1993 (Redeye/Einstein)
Backlash: Oblivion 2 – 1994 (Jaggar)
Special Birthdays
Umberto Mozzato (director, writer, actor) would have been 145 today but died in 1947.
Milos Vavruska (actor) would have been 100 today
but died in 2004,
Vladimir Ivashov (actor) would have been 89 today
but died in 1995.
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