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.
No comments:
Post a Comment