From the WAI! vault

 

Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Vicente Cárdenas

[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.]

Vicente Cárdenas was a bullfighter and later banderillero, born in Mexico City on January 22, 1904 (although other sources point to January 29, 1910, as his date of birth). He began to bullfight as a novillero in 1926, an attempt in which luck did not favor him. in 1929 he joined the ranks of the banderilleros, joining the Juan Silveti gang, with which he toured all of South America. In 1931 he came to Spain, performing with the main matadors, both Mexican and Spanish. He visited Spain in 1953, performing with Jesús Córdoba. Due to his seniority and knowledge, he was requested by the matadors with the best poster. Vicente lived for many years in Spain before returning to Mexico where he died as a result of cardiac arrest, in the town of Caletilla, Guerrero on June 9, 1986

Vicente Cárdenas appeared in only two films as an actor: “The Brave Bulls” in 1951 in the role of Goyo Salinas and his only Spaghetti western film, “Cavalca e uccidi” (Ride and Kill) in 1963 in an uncredited role.

CARDENAS, Vicente (aka "Maera Chico" Vicente Cardenas 'Maera') (Vicente Cárdenas) [1/22/1904, Mexico City, Federal District, Mexico – 6/9/1986, Caletilla, Guerrero, Mexico] – bullfighter, banderillero, film actor, married Doña Tony González father of Marcelo Cardenas [19??-2004], bullfighter Vicente Cárdenas "Maera Hijo" (19??-1968), one other child.

Ride and Kill – 1963

Almería Western Film Festival presents the program of its 14th edition

AudioVisual451

Marco Sánchez Sequera

The Tabernas Desert is preparing to host the 14th edition of the Almería Western Film Festival (AWFF), an event dedicated exclusively to the western genre that will be held from October 10 to 13 in the municipality of Tabernas. The festival comprises four days of activities that will revolve around the leitmotif of this edition: water, train, immigration and Sergio Leone.

The organization has presented the contents of its next event. The event, held at the Almeria Provincial Council, was attended by the Deputy for Culture, Cinema and Identity of Almeria, Almudena Morales; the mayor of Tabernas, José Díaz; and the director of the festival, Juan Francisco Viruega; as well as the illustrator of the poster of this edition, Celia Coe.

[José Díaz, Juan Francisco Viruega and Almudena Morales.]

Almudena Morales highlighted that the festival "celebrates one of the most exciting chapters of our extensive cinematographic history, such as the close relationship of our land with the western genre. In addition, it reaffirms once again that the province is the best set for film projects, and this is demonstrated by the numerous shootings and the great artists who have worked here."

"This festival is a great commitment to the seventh art that enriches the cultural panorama of the province, becomes a powerful tourist incentive and reinforces the actions that we promote in favor of the audiovisual with the Almeria International Film Festival, FICAL and Filming Almeria as emblems. From the Provincial Council of Almeria, we reaffirm our commitment to culture and we will continue to support events like this that make the history of the province greater," added the vice president of the Provincial Council.

"This edition the Tabernas Film Award will be awarded to Fabio Testi, who has left an indelible mark on the Western. He receives this award on the fiftieth anniversary of the filming of 'The Four of the Apocalypse', largely in the Tabernas Desert. The Italian actor will be with us and, like other winners in this category, he will have his chair on the town's Paseo del Cine, an initiative to keep alive the memory of great legends of the genre," announced José Díaz.

AWFF will pay tribute to prominent figures in western cinema in other of its awards. The Spirit of the West Award will go to Argentine director Lisandro Alonso, in recognition of his innovative contribution to the genre. The legendary Italian director Sergio Leone (1929-1989) will receive, posthumously, the In Memoriam Award, a tribute to the creator of spaghetti western, while the Italian editor Eugenio Alabiso will be awarded the Desierto de Tabernas Award for his work in the edition of western classics, and the writer and film historian from Almeria José Enrique Martínez will receive the Award for the Dissemination of the Western Genre.

"The Spirit of the West Award once again goes to an international filmmaker, the Argentinean Lisandro Alonso, who despite his youth has a career of more than 20 years and has achieved success at festivals around the world. He is the contemporary western director pampered by the Cannes Film Festival, where all his films have competed. Together with other contemporary filmmakers such as Chloe Zhao, Carlos Reygadas or Oliver Laxe, he is probably the best exponent of international neo-western, focusing on the coexistence of indigenous tribes with capitalist societies, migrations or the exploration of territory from an existential perspective," explained Juan Francisco Viruega.

On the other hand, in this edition a journalistic or essayistic award has been created, to recognize the work of those professionals who investigate the legacy of the western genre. "We wanted the first winner to be José Enrique Martínez Moya from Almeria, who has dedicated his life to the recovery of the historical cinematographic memory of the province," adds the director of the festival.

Main Sections

The festival's Official Feature Film Section presents a selection of films that will compete for the jury and audience awards. Attendees will be able to see 'Escanyapobres', by Ibai Abad (Spain); 'Eureka', by Lisandro Alonso (Argentina); and 'Until the End of the World', by Viggo Mortensen (USA). USA-Mexico-Canada). The opening film will be 'Paradise', directed by Max Isaacson (USA), while the competition is completed with titles such as 'Nina', by Andrea Jaurrieta (Spain); 'Los de abajo', by Alejandro Quiroga (Bolivia); and 'Ride', by Jake Allyn (USA). USA).

In the Panorama Special Documentary Section, the public will be able to enjoy works such as 'Sergio Leone, the Italian who invented America', by Francesco Zippel (Italy), which explores the life and work of the master of spaghetti western, and which will have its premiere in Spanish commercial theaters at the festival. Also part of this section are 'Territory', by Alex Galán (Spain); and 'The Magnificent Stranger', by Iván Karras and Miguel Ángel Guerra (Spain), which will have its world premiere at the festival.

The festival will feature a selection of 30 short films in four sections, such as the International Short Film Section and the Outlaw International Short Film Section, where a variety of innovative works will be presented. The RTVA Short Film Section will offer a look at local talent, while the Outlaw Section of Made in Almeria Short Films will highlight the creativity of the region. In addition, this edition will have a Film Schools Section that will be evaluated by a young jury.

The jury of the Official Feature Film Section will be made up of renowned figures, such as the English director Alex Cox, the director and screenwriter Elena López Riera, the RTVE journalist Cristina Delgado, the screenwriter and writer Fernando Navarro, and the director of photography Pepe de la Rosa. For its part, the jury of the Official Short Film Section is chaired by the director and screenwriter Rubin Stein, accompanied by the actress and producer Eva Almaya, the writer Juan Manuel Gil, the composer Pilares Onares and the director of advertising and video clips Willy Rodríguez. The jury of the RTVA Short Film Section is chaired by the screenwriter and director Sandra Romero, the film writer José Enrique Martínez Moya, the presenter of Canal Sur Manuel Carretero and the head of locations and president of the Association of Audiovisual Technicians of Almería (TESA), Sofía Rodríguez.

Other activities

The festival will offer a Western Classic Section, which includes screenings of classics such as 'The Iron Horse', by John Ford (USA). USA, 1924); 'A Fistful of Dollars', by Sergio Leone (Italy, 1964); and 'The End', (Spain, 2009), allowing attendees to relive the magic of the traditional western on the big screen.

In addition, literary works related to the genre will be presented, such as 'Malaventura', by Fernando Navarro; 'Carlo Simi, designer of dreams', by Andrea B. Nardi and Giuditta Simi; and a selection of novels and western essays by Carlos Aguilar. There will also be the exhibition '60 years of Sergio Leone in Tabernas', which will highlight the impact of the director on the environment.

Attendees will be able to enjoy a series of parallel activities, such as the X Western Characterization Contest, the VII Window Decoration Contest and the XI Tapa Route. And the workshops and master classes will include topics such as 'New archetypes of the western', taught by Fernando Navarro; 'The magic hour of the desert', with the photographer Pepe de la Rosa; 'Collage western', with Celia Coe; and the round table 'Of railways and ghost birds', on trains, western and Almeria. Likewise, the highlights include the dramatized reading of the script 'Dead Mexicans' with director Alex Cox, and the talk 'Rabios@', with Eva Almaya and Willy Rodríguez.

The cultural offer is completed with music, theatre and children's shows, such as the concerts of Leone Band and Peligro Ciervos, the performance of the San Indalecio de La Cañada Musical Group, the presentation of the official tunes of the Almería Western Film Festival by the composer Javier Arnal, and the play 'A Hollivud 2 kilometres', of the Theatre Classroom of the University of Almeria.

Who Are Those Singers & Musicians – Franco Morselli

Franco Morselli is/was a pop singer who was an Italian singer in the late 1960s. He had an outstanding voice and can be heard on several film soundtracks during this time. His recording career was not successful and although his recordings were often played on the radio, they proved unprofitable. After eighteen records he changed his life fundamentally and became a shoe salesman!

I can find no biographical information on him and whatever happened to him.

MORSELLI, Franco [Italian] – singer.

Sonora –1968 [sings: “Un giorno ti pentirai”]

No Room to Die – 1969 [sings: “Maja”]

 

You Tube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CotTnxY4WqQ

Special Birthdays

George Irving (actor) would have been 150 today but died in 1961.

Donald Pleasence (actor) would have been 105 but died in 1995.

Kieron Moore (actor) would have been 100 today but died in 2007.

Frank Krog (actor) would have been 70 today but died in 2008.

Spaghetti Western Trivia- Mexican Lobby Card

 Here’s a Mexican lobby card advertising the film “A Pistol for 100 Coffins” with Peter Lee Lawrence and directed by Umberto Lenzi but the named Antonio Sabato was not in the film.

[submitted by Michael Ferguson]

Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ José Cárdenas

[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.]

José Cárdenas is/was a Spanish production designer, director, writer and film actor. He directed and wrote the 1963 short film “Feria en Nueva York” (1963). He has two film credits as an actor, one being his only Spaghetti western as Ramon in 1970’s “El Zorro, caballero de la justicia” (Zorro, the Rider of Vengeance).

I can find no other biographical information on him.

CARDENAS, José (José Cárdenas) [Spanish] – production designer, director, writer, film actor.

Zorro, the Rider of Vengeance – 1970 (Ramón)

New German Blu-ray release “Schnelle Colts für Jeannie Lee”

 

“Schnelle Colts für Jeannie Lee”

(Gunmen of the Rio Grande)

 

Director: Tulio Demicheli

Starring: Guy Madison, Fernando Sancho, Madeleine Lebeau, Gérard Tichy, Carolyn Davys

 

Country: Germany

Region: B

Label: TG Vision

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect ratio: 16:9, 2.45:1

Languages: DD 2.0 mono English, German

Subtitles: English (only for missing parts of English audio)

Running time: 85 minutes

Extras: 8-page leaflet with pictures and a text by Martin Hentschel; gallery; German theatrical trailer HD; US theatrical trailer; trailer show

ASIN: B0D9RC9KFB

Available: October 4, 2024

Voices of the Spaghetti Women ~ “The Tall Women”

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 be 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 “The Tall Women”

[(I) Italian, (S) Spanish, (G) German, (F) French, (E) English]

Marry Ann – Anne Baxter (E) Anne Baxter, (S) Elsa Fábregas, (G) Ilse Kiewiet

Ursula – Maria Perschy (E) Maria Perschy?, (S) María Luisa Solá, (G) ?

Dorothy – Maria Mahor (S) Consuelo Vives, (G) ?

Pilar – Perla Cristal (S) Roser Cavallé, (G) ?

Katy Grimaldi - Rosella Como (S) Asunción Vitoria, (G) ?

Bridget – Christa Linder (S) Elvira Jofre, (G) ?

Betty Grimaldi – Adriana Ambessi (S) Rosa Guiñón, (G) ?

White Cloud – Fernando Hilbeck (S) José Luis Sansalvador, (G) Randolf Kronberg

Gus Macintosh – Gustavo Rojo (E) Gustavo Rojo?, (S) Rogelio Hernández, (G) Rainer Brandt

Elsa Fábregas  (1921 – 2008)

Elsa Fábregas Munill was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on June 30, 1921. She was the niece of Spanish theater and voice actor Emilio Fábregas. Elsa was one of the most important and recognized dubbing actresses in Spain. His first appearance in a dubbing was in 1935 in the film Little Jacques.

A regular voice for several of the great actresses of Hollywood's golden age (among others Doris Day, her favorite, or Katharine Hepburn), perhaps her most emblematic contribution is in the dubbing of Vivien Leigh's character Scarlet O'Hara in the film “Gone with the Wind”, made between the end of 1938 and the beginning of 1939. Seventy-three years of profession in the world of dubbing.

Other great roles were Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz”, Rita Hayworth in “Gilda” (1945), Gloria Swanson in “Twilight of the Gods” (1952), Bette Davis in “What Happened to Baby Jane?” and Eleanor Parker in “When the Crowd Roars” (1954).

Elsa also dubbed on television and in animation as the bored witch in ‘The Three Twins’ in the Catalan version. She participated in more than 1500 dubbing sessions before her death on December 21, 2008, in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. She was 87 years old.

Special Birthdays

James R. Webb (director) would have been 115 today but died in 1974.

John Larch (actor) would have been 110 today but died in 2005.

Ferenc Bencze (actor) would have been 100 today but died in 1990.

Mircea Albulecsu (actor) would have been 90 today but died in 2016.

Heinrich Starhemberg (actor) would have been 80 but died in 1997.

Angelo Michajlov (composer) is 85 today.

Sophie Hardy (actor) is 80 today.

RIP Ken Tobias

 

Canadian singer, songwriter and musician died in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada on October 2^nd. He was 79. Tobias was on born July 25, 1945, in Saint John. He formed a folk-bluegrass group “The Ramblers” with his brother Tony Tobias. Later moved to Halifax to perform on ‘Frank's Bandstand’ and was also part of a rock 'n' roll group “The Badd Cedes”. He joined ‘Singalong Jubilee’ from 1965 to 1967 as guitarist, solo then chorus performer. Ken then moved to Montreal and to Los Angeles, where he recorded his first hit ‘You're Not Even Going to The Fair’ with Bill Medley of the “The Righteous Brothers”. He recorded two albums, and his best-known hit is for “The Bells” – ‘Stay Awhile’. He moved to Toronto in 1972, where he continued to perform and record albums, write music for films, television, commercials and a ballet. In the mid-1980s, Ken became a renowned painter. Ken sang the main theme for the 1977 Spaghetti western “Silver Saddle” and a second song heard in the film “Two Hearts”.

Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Diego Cardenas

[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.] 

Diego Cardenas is/was most likely a Spanish character actor. His only film credit is for the Spaghetti western “Spara, Gringo, spara” (The Longest Hunt) 1968 where he plays a bandit.

The problem arises is that for many of credits in the film they were either an alias or made-up names. Was Diego Cardenas a real person or was he just a made-up name to add to the credits list.

CARDENAS, Diego [Spanish] – film actor.

The Longest Hunt – 1968 (bandit)

 

The film that changed the history of the western and the life of Clint Eastwood

It's been 60 years since A Fistful of Dollars, the foundational film of spaghetti western with which Sergio Leone redefined an entire genre and influenced subsequent generations

[Clint Eastwood, protagonist of the famous dollar trilogy]

El Debate

By Belén Ester

9/22/2024

There are films that are destined to change the history of cinema, to mark culture and time, to redefine the way films are made, seen or understood. The Birth of a Nation, Ben-Hur, Star Wars or Jaws are some examples. So is A Fistful of Dollars.

In 1963, Sergio Leone, a young Italian film director who had grown up in American blockbusters and had made his directorial debut with The Colossus of Rhodes, wrote a story set in the West with three other screenwriters. His idea of making Italian Westerns had been in his head for years. Perhaps since 1961 when he saw Kurosawa's Yojimbo, who would end up denouncing him for plagiarism. Or perhaps as a child, when he tirelessly watched John Wayne films in his native Rome. The fact is that in 1964 his script saw the light of day with a baroque and excessive film with which cinema would change radically.

For a Fistful of Dollars tells the story of an unnamed gunman, a filthy gringo who arrives in a town where two opposing families live, one an arms dealer and the other an alcohol dealer. And observing, patiently, is how the anonymous character, handsome, cold and of few words, will try to get a cut. He was Clint Eastwood, a television actor who had made the more or less successful series in the United States Rawhide and who had such a low cache that it was what Leone's meager production, which wanted Charles Bronson, could afford. So, without speaking a word of Italian, Eastwood came to Spain and bought a poncho out of his pocket at a street market in Almeria. In addition, Leone's childhood friend, Ennio Morricone, composed a soundtrack with castanets and whistles because he did not have the budget to put together an orchestra with enough strings. And so on.

The rest is history.

The Dollar Trilogy

The film was released in village and second-hand cinemas in Italy, but word of mouth made cinemas across the country ask for more copies week after week. Eastwood did not teach his family any. He was afraid that they would understand the way of making westerns that that crazy Italian with whom he could only understand with an interpreter had devised, and sometimes not even that.

                             [The western that changed everything]

 However, a visionary Leone used the image of that hero with dark intentions to shape a type of cinema that critics and producers referred, not without a certain contemptuous sarcasm, as spaghetti western.

Without a founding charter or roadmap, Leone was proclaimed the father of a bastard genre that did not limit itself to imitating the American classic, but gave it a twist by proposing as its protagonist a selfish and greedy character who, only at the end, shows a hint of goodness. In addition, everything was dirty and dusty, the plot fled from the fort, the railroad, the conflict with the Indians or the construction of the nation, to focus on the Mexican border where, in addition, the honorable speeches of the heroes gave way to the sadistic reasons of the villains. For a handful of dollars he changed everything and people adored him. Leone would shoot the following year, also in Spain, Death Had a Price and, in '66, with Hollywood money involved, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, forming the so-called Dollar Trilogy that he did not conceive as such and that is known in this way for having in all three films an Eastwood without a name - and with the same poncho - as the protagonist.

But what is truly surprising about the film is its mannerism. His highs, low angles, discordant cuts, very close ups, depths of field and long static shots with which he delighted the respectable of the 60s who were used to the beautiful rides through Monument Valley. Here there was beauty too, but more violent, dirtier, less honorable... Beauty in the composition, not in the characters, nor in their intentions, nor in their message. And, without intending to, one of the most profoundly moral genres that has ever existed was also born.

['A Fistful of Dollars' (1964)]

In 1966, Sergio Corbucci premiered Django and Damiano Damiani, Yo soy la revolución. In 1967, Sergio Sollima made El halcón y la presa and Tonino Valerii, El día de la ira. In 1968, Mario Caiano, His Name Screamed Vengeance and Gianfranco Parolini, If You Find Sartana... Pray for your death, and so on up to 600 titles that would end up influencing the American genre itself, from which, precisely, these filmmakers tried to distance themselves.

Today there is still debate about the real contribution of spaghetti western to the history of cinema or whether it influenced the editing of action cinema or the approach to violence of thrillers. But what is certain is that he redefined an entire genre, or perhaps innovated it, or perhaps parodied it. And that nothing would be the same anymore. It all began like this, in 1964, with a gunman arriving in a cursed town, without a past or future. Only with his revolver and his empty pockets.

Men, guns and phalluses: how the 'western' became the garden of delights of masculinity

The gender of manhood par excellence has also been the canvas on which to reflect all the types of men that exist and all the relationships that can be established between them, in an increasingly free and explicit way in recent years

El País

By Weldon Penderton

August 7, 2024

Back in the twentieth century they showed a lot of movies on television. Some were westerns, better known as western movies, and were labeled as male consumer products. Films by men and for men, like almost all historical or adventure films, where women had a domestic or romantic function reserved in the background. The protagonist was reserved for the heroes. Between the hero and the woman was the villain, often of border masculinity, also at the service of the protagonist. The vicissitudes of all of them took place in a dangerous territory in the process of civilization inhabited by the Indians, who used to represent the function of the monster.

This is a rather condescending look at a genre that, with more or less freedom to be explicit, has always managed to reflect in depth. However, prejudice is still in force in some way, while the genre evolves with the times and maintains an iron health.

It is curious that a genre located in such a specific way in time and space, the foundational scenario of the United States of America, has exceeded its own limits in such an excessive way. It's not that the western has been mixed with so many genres that the meaning of the term has disintegrated, it's that westerns are shot and written all over the world: spaghetti and chorizo westerns are, respectively, western films made by Italians and Spaniards, and I'll bet my skin that there are also a good handful of curry westerns out there. In Spain, the novels of Marcial Lafuente Estefanía, Juan Gallardo Muñoz or Francisco Caudet Yarza were written by the thousands and were mostly read.

Only in recent years have On the Disappeared Coast (Francisco Serrano), Basilisco, The Spider and Monster Killer (Jon Bilbao), Sheriff Goodman vs. Pinhead (Takeshi García-Ashirogi), Strange Way of Life (Pedro Almodóvar), The Wasteland (Carla Berrocal) or the collection of paperback novels Estefanía Project, which already has more than a dozen titles, seen the light. All chorizo westerns. Beyond the undisputed cultural colonizing power of the United States, the West seems to have transcended the category of mythological space that any earthling handles in his personal imagination. Naturally, such an exuberant genre has also transcended its own rules and prejudices, snatching the point of view from the white man to pay attention, either explicitly or clandestinely, to the conflicts of women, natives and even "the other white man", that is, villains and people with complicated sexuality, who are often confused. But let's start at the beginning.

Dorothy M. Johnson (1905-1984), the great lady of the western, was a writer who dedicated her work to distributing the limelight equally among all the inhabitants of the territory. In his stories, women, natives and even native women are as protagonists as the white man. His chronicles and stories are chillingly good, exciting, morally complex. When asked what a woman doing writing westerns, she said that the inclination to write about the border was not a skill linked to sex like hair on the chest. And when she herself wondered if a western could be starred by a man who was not brave or knew how to shoot, she wrote The Man Who Killed Liberty Valance (1953), which gives us the measure of both his talent and his importance. Isn't Johnson's experiment, that of putting the spotlight on the coward, a reflection on masculinities?

It is easier to explain through the film made by John Ford, one of the masters of the western (Irish, curiously), based on Johnson's story. Two very different men, John Wayne and James Stewart. You only have to look at them: hard masculinity and soft masculinity, if I may be allowed the image. Johnson starts with the classic western hero, Wayne and his monolithic masculinity, with his hip gun as a symbol of everything, his virile sobriety that never takes off his boots and his impenetrable face, and adds a novel masculinity with Stewart's body and his trembling hands that do not adapt to the weapon. He also dares to question the official account of events, to suggest that history may not be as it has been told, and to warn of the dangers of relying on appearances when it comes to masculinity.

The classic, gentrifying western often tried to whitewash the origins of a nation built on genocide so recently (at least on the screens, not so much on the pages). Growing up in a place where women are scarce, it also ended up becoming, in spite of itself, a reflection on what it means to be a man, as happens in the prison, sailor or gangster genre. In Gangsters queers: eccentricity and fury in film noir (Juan Dos Ramos and Alex Tarazón, 2022) it is explained how the habitual consumer of film noir has traditionally been unable to see the obvious indications of homosexuality among the overwhelming presence of extravagant masculinity so prevalent in the genre. Often this eccentricity was nothing more than a way of camouflaging homosexuality. The same has probably happened with the western, a direct precursor of gangster cinema. It was something difficult to avoid in a world in which men spend the day measuring their dueling phallic symbols.

As a reaction to the canonical western and its attachment to the official account of the events, the spaghetti western emerges, which incorporates the dirt and freedom of the lack of means to witness all the disgusting things that happen on the border. Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone (Italians) made five westerns together that are legends. From the nameless character of Clint Eastwood, who starts from John Wayne himself to point out by contrast the entire gallery of new men, he traces a journey that becomes less and less playful and more melancholic, a western that finds the epic more in pettiness than in greatness, a feast of vultures, that licks its wounds for the wasted opportunity when it is already evident that the New World will make exactly the same mistakes as old Europe. Leone and Morricone revolutionized the West through music, which expanded on the landscapes of Almeria, Granada and Burgos, and from rhythm and close-up, which turned faces into landscapes. Faces that challenge each other, scorched by the sun, chewing dirt with half-closed eyes. Not a trace of heroes: convicts, ruffians, scoundrels, hustlers, gunmen, bandits, chieftains, bounty hunters, miners, settlers, missionaries, deserters, desperados, soldiers who have lost faith, good, ugly and bad, a formidable collection of rascals covered in filth that constitutes a veritable bestiary of masculinities. Many of these ruffians who put their faces on were Spanish, and there is even an Almerian with the face of Henry Fonda who is just the same age as the film Until His Time Came (1968).

But Leone's case is not representative of spaghetti, which is usually a low-budget cinema determined to curl the curl. We already know that the relationship between the presupposition and the grotesque is inversely proportional, and how fertile the grotesque soil is when it comes to embodying projections of the subconscious and representing what cannot be said. In Cursed Gold (Giulio Questi, 1967), a band of outlaws who are friends of gold and handsome boys indulge every night in a joint drunken party. Naturally, we cannot see the heart of the party, but the dawn, with the bodies piled up on the stage, reminiscent of The Fall of the Gods (Luchino Vistonti, 1969), could not be more eloquent. In Los Marcados (Alberto Mariscal, 1971), a Mexican western, the villains outside the law are two homosexuals who are involved, are not effeminate and, as if that were not enough, they are father and son. Like extravagance, it is a classic resource to embody deviants in the role of villains so that the exemplary punishment that is invariably applied to them softens the heart of censorship. In Requiescant (Carlo Lizzani, 1967), where Pasolini himself appears playing a revolutionary priest, the draculian cacique is in love with the most handsome and blondest gunslinger in the place. In Wages to Kill (Sergio Corbucci, 1968), Franco Nero, the hero with full lips, decides to humiliate an evil Jack Palance by stripping him naked in the middle of the bullring and painting his face as a clown. Palance, by the way, is in admirable physical shape. The archetype of Ringo, the gunslinger angel face, whose beauty makes that of the women around him pale in comparison, is a constant in spaghetti, probably propitiated by the need to take advantage of the excess of heartthrobs in Italian cinema. Gian Maria Volonté, Giuliano Gemma or Carlo Palmucci are good examples. And even Sancho Gracia appeared from time to time in the desert of Tabernas.

But rascals, miserable people, villains, dandies, lettuce and puppets aside, the explicit presence of homosexuality, without alibis, begins to be normalized in the genre. Some of the most popular examples, despite being considered westerns, are already developed in the twentieth century. This is the case of The Power of the Dog (a novel by Thomas Savage in 1967, a film by Jane Campion, Australian, in 2021), where the protagonists are already in a car even though they live on a ranch and, more shamelessly, Brokeback Mountain (story by Annie Proulx in 1997, film by Ang Lee, Taiwanese, in 2005), whose action is later than that of Grease or Dirty Dancing. The first is the American version of Rebecca, but changing Mrs. Danvers for a bachelor, asexual, maniacal and cruel rancher. The second is actually a classic story of faggots in the closet. Okay, the boys are cowboys, so their stories will be westerns. The first one was quite crepuscular, let's say the second one was postwestern. Cases such as Midnight Cowboy (1969) or Dallas Buyers Club (2013) are excluded from the western category because they take place in urban environments. As Willie Nelson sang and Orville Peck, the singer of the mask, sings now, jeans often make a splash of each other without anyone noticing.

Books have been much more daring than cinema, to be honest. The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon (1991) is a novel written by Tom Spambauer, a homosexual man who grew up on his parents' farm, next to an Indian reservation, but who emigrated to New York in time to face the entire AIDS crisis. It's one of those novels that, if you're lucky enough to stumble upon it in adolescence, leaves you in turmoil. It tells the story of an Indian raised in a brothel in Idaho in the middle of the gold rush. Naturally, he is dedicated to the oldest trade in the world. The novel has a tremendous erotic charge and tells, among many other things, that in the West no one was surprised to arrive at a brothel and find an Indian working there. She also falls in love with her father (and there are already two cases of incest). Surprisingly, no one has dared to make it into a film, although Pedro Almodóvar has expressed his intention to do so on several occasions. He would recently get rid of the thorn with Strange Way of Life (2023), a very brief and referential domestic western that brings together several of the most recurrent ingredients of his filmography, with an arachnidly female rancher and a tribute to Grupo Salvaje (1969) that does the pirouette by introducing a trigger in the first carnal encounter between the two lovers. If we remember the gun and the duel as symbols, we must recognize that never was a trigger used in a more suitable way. The film also takes the opportunity to reflect on masculinities by making use of the classic homosexual positions, active and passive, rigid masculinity and flexible masculinity once again

Cormac McCarthy puts the point of view in human eyes that witness in amazement the ineffable grandeur of the territory and its atmosphere. His novels are probably the most cosmic novels of the West, and they demonstrate the insignificance of people in a lush world that can kill you at any moment of cold, thirst, sun, a shot, a stone, a lightning strike or a stendhalazo. War, blood and corpses are part of the landscape, just like a storm, a bush or a vermin. The territory remains atrociously beautiful after the annihilation of the great herds of buffalo or the annihilation of people. In Meridiano de sangre (1985) he underlines this insignificance of the human being by introducing a character hyperaware of it. Judge Holden, an albino without a single hair on his body, an enlightened man connected to the violent beauty of the world, shows behaviors that could be described as homosexual, yes, always atrocious, impassive in the face of suffering and in a scenario where the collapse of ethical codes typical of times of war reigns. Holden is one of the most unforgettable characters that the books have revealed to us, a kind of man-eating god, related to Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen (Alan Moore & David Gibbons, 1986). Ridley Scott pursued the film adaptation for years, but the project never went ahead. At the moment, it seems that a film by two white men, one Australian and the other openly gay according to Wikipedia (John Hillcoat and John Logan), is in pre-production.

In Days Without End (2016), Sebastian Barry, another Irishman, also makes use of the atrocious beauty of the territory to locate the story of two soldiers of the Civil War who spontaneously become married and travel the country together, sometimes posing as a heterosexual couple. They invent cross-dressing in a world where no one seems prepared to imagine a man being hidden inside a woman's dress. A much more anthropocentric view than McCarthy's, more biblical.

The tandem of Kelly Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond (director and writer respectively) surprised us in 2010 with Meek's Shortcut, a western without shots in which the territory allied with the psyche of the settlers is enough and more than enough to crush them and in which Meek seemed to once again implement the archetype of the lone ranger, always suspicious, more for being a bachelor than for being a loner. They returned to the fray with First cow (2019), a story of friendship between two men who don't shoot, a cook and a fugitive. The novel (The half-life, 2004) also told the story of a second friendship, this time between two women, in the same place but a hundred years later. Friendship, psychogeography and a sense of wonder is the specialty of this couple determined to reflect on how close in time the events of the western are.

The author of this text has little information to offer you regarding how Native Americans decode this whole matter of being a man. The lists offered by a hasty investigation are always headed by Sherman Alexie (a Spokane married to a Dakota), with several works translated into Spanish. Navarre Scott Momaday, a native of the Kiowa, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 with his first novel, The House Made of Dawn. The Wikipedia category Native American women novelists contains only 12 names. The question of virility in indigenous cultures is probably not so exotic. One only has to take a look at the importance of rites of passage (ceremonies that turn boys into men), how bardaxes or people who were sexually difficult to classify were automatically considered sacred beings or the relationship of the Indian proman with manes, headdresses, war paintings and beads in general, which, on reflection, It is not so different from the military finery of the white man, the plumage of the male peacock or the pistol on his hip, the boots with his good spur, the scarf around his neck, the sheriff's star and the gunslinger's hat. Of John Wayne and of the entire garden of delights of masculinities that the western has deployed behind him for our enjoyment and reflection.

[Weldon Penderton is the author, together with Albert Kadmon, of the pulp and homosexual western The Ballad of the Golden Hand, published by Niños Gratis.]

Special Birthdays

Albert-Michel (actor) would have been 115 today but died in 1981.

Ferdynand Wójcik (actor) would have been 110 today but died in 1980.

Larry Ward (actor) would have been 100 today but died in 1985.

Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Gianni Cardello

[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.]

Gianni Cardello is/was an Italian character actor. He appeared in only two films that I am aware of, both in 1972. “Il giustiziere di Dio” (The Judgment of God) where he’s billed as Gianni Cardillo and “Sei bounty killers per una strage” (Six Bounty Killers for a Massacre).

There is also a director with the same name, but I can find no relationship between the two men.

I can find no biographical information on Gianni.

CARDELLO, Gianni (aka Gianni Cardillo) [Italian] – film actor.

The Judgment of God – 1972 [as Gianni Cardillo]

Six Bounty Killers for a Massacre – 1972 (carriage driver)

WEST GERMANY: A Champion

TIME

April 27, 1959

Alston Hoosman, 38, is a handsome, laughing bulk of a man (6 ft. 5 in., 225 Ibs.) who has always wanted to be a champion. He fought his way up to sixth place on the boxing press’s list of U.S. heavyweights before Joe Louis knocked him out in Oakland, Calif, in 1949; then he drifted off to Europe, where he won some notice but not top billing as an actor in German films and TV. Last week Al Hoosman found himself an acknowledged champion at last—champion of the 5,000 luckless children born in Germany to U.S. Negro G.I.s and the German women they met during the occupation.

Back in 1950, when Al was still a heavy-weight-at-large hanging around the Frankfurt PX, he got to know some German girls with Negro babies. He heard the bitter stories of the Negerkinder. He heard about the little boy who, taunted by a ring of white children crying, “Du schwarzer Neger,” answered them bitterly: “Be happy you are not one.”

Two years later Hoosman landed a leading role in a German movie called Toxi—and the part set him to thinking. Says he: “I played a Negro G.I. who regrets having left his girl friend in the lurch, and comes back to Germany to get his baby.” It led him to try organizing boxing benefits for G.I. Negro children; but he got little help from the U.S. Army, which was not anxious to call dramatic attention to its illegitimacy problem. Last year, impelled by the fact that the great majority of Negro-fathered children are now approaching the school-leaving age of 14, when they must find an awkward place for themselves in German society, Hoosman took a giant step and founded the Association to Help Colored and Parentless Children.

For the past 16 months the organization has consisted of little more than Hoosman, his portable typewriter and a pile of stationery. Working out of his tiny Munich hotel room, he has searched for sponsors, raised funds, got publicity, gathered statistics and lists. Last Christmas the Bavarian radio helped Hoosman put on a party for 40 Munich Negerkinder. He got headlines in the West German press by smuggling out of East Germany a little Negerkind named Roswitha Kubik. Louis Armstrong and his band raced over from a Stuttgart concert to put on a special Saturday afternoon party for Hoosman’s Munich children. Last week Munich’s Lord Mayor Thomas Wimmer promised Hoosman official support for “your great cause.” Al Hoosman of Waterloo, Iowa, a man with a cause, as well as an itch to write verse, combined his two interests:

I hope my life has not been lived in vain;

Of many failures I hope there has been gain.

I truly pray that—in some way—I’ve helped my fellow man.

For I can.

[submitted by Steve Mason]

Who Are Those Gals? Dora Doll

 

(Dorothee Hermina Feinberg was born in Berlin, Germany on May 19, 1922. She was the daughter of a Russian-Jewish banker who was expelled by the 1917 revolution. She came to France at the end of the 1930s and aspired to become an actress. She already spoke Russian and German and soon learned French, then Italian and English.

Under the stage name Dora Doll, one of her first screen appearances was as Juliette in Henri-Georges Clouzot's “Manon” (1949). She appeared as Lola in Jacques Becker's “Touchez pas au grisbi” (1954) and as Genisse in Jean Renoir's “French Cancan” (1955).

In 1976, she appeared on television in the French series ‘Hôtel Baltimore’ in the role of Suzy. In 1977, she appeared in Fred Zinnemann's “Julia” as the woman passenger accompanying Lillian Hellman. In 1982, she played in Ettore Scola's “That Night in Varennes”. In the late 1990s, she played the grandmother Louise Chantreuil in the TV series ‘Tide of Life’. In all she appeared in over 230 films and television roles from 1938 to 2010

Dora was married twice. Her first husband was the actor Raymond Pellegrin from 1949-1955, and they had a daughter, Danielle. She was later married to François Deguelt from 1965-1971.

In 1993, Dora Doll was awarded the Prix "Reconnaissance des cinéphiles" from Puget-Théniers in honour of her life's work. She was made Knight of France's National Order of Merit in 2000.

Dora Doll died on November 15, 2015, at her home in Gard, France, at the age of 93.

Doll’s only Euro-western was as Mae Marlane in 1956 “Fernand Cowboy” starring Fernand Raynaud.

DOLL, Dora (Dorothee Hermina Feinberg) [5/19/1922, Berlin, Berlin, Germany - 11/15/2015, Saint-Gilles, Gard, France] – film actress, married to actor Raymond Pellegrin (Raymond Louis Pilade Pellegrini.) [1925-2007] (1949-1955) mother of Danielle Pellegrin, married to singer François Deguelt (Louis Deghelt) [1932-2014] (1965–1971).

Fernand Cowboy - 1956 (Mae Marlane)

Special Birthdays

Ferrusquilla (actor, singer) would have been 105 today but died in 2015.

Luis Morris Bermúdez (actor) would have been 95 today but died in 1974.

Serena Michelotti (actress) is 80 today.

RIP Robert Watts

 

Robert Watts, the British producer and production manager who collaborated with George Lucas on the first three Star Wars films and the first three Indiana Jones movies, died on September 30 at his home in East Sussex, England. He was 86. Born Robert Meade Watts on May 23, 1938, in London, Watts also worked alongside Indiana Jones director Steven Spielberg on the Spielberg-produced “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (1988) and “An American Tail: Fievel Goes West” (1991). Robert was a production manager on the 1970 Spaghetti western “El Condor”.

Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Antonio Carcedo

[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.]

Antonio Carcedo is a Spanish character actor and member of the Almeria Western Club. He’s also a talented musician who’s appeared in two recent Western film shorts made in Almeria. In 2016’s “Western” he appears as the deputy and then appears in 2018’s “La Vida”

I can find no biographical information on him. He’s pictured below in the 2016 film “Western” where he plays the deputy. Antonio is on the right in the white shirt and black vest with the badge.

CARCEDO, Antonio [Spanish] – film actor, musician.

Western – 2016 (deputy)

La Vida – 2018

Carlo Simi: l’architetto del cinema

 

New Yorker magazine

Author Beatrice Dell’Aversano

September 22, 2024

 

The flavor and aesthetics of the time of the story. The fake facades to be applied to the new buildings were built in Rome, as were all the urban elements. Not everything could be shot in New York, so he decided to create two twin scenes, one in America and one in Rome. The facades of the buildings were twins, as were the manholes, the details of every corner. He even took note of the times so he could have the same play of shadows so that, in the editing, the difference would not be perceived. He assembled it in Rome to see if it was correct, dismantled it and sent it to New York where he reassembled it again. Carlo Simi's drawings were perfect metaphors of the story intended for those workers who would then have to give shape to the plot. He designed the scenography and, at the same time, gave all the instructions on how to build it, up to noting how and how many screws were needed.

The soul of the architect met the dreamer in construction, the visionary in him created the magic.

Alfred Hitchcock said that “cinema is the how, not the what”, Carlo Simi was absolutely the excellence of the how. In his work he managed to create the background of the emotions that passed from the images through the characters, the story, the teams. “A Designer of Dreams”, as the title of his biography written by Andrea B. Nardi, on November 7, 2024, the 100th anniversary of his birth. The biography that his daughter Giuditta has edited with immense love will be presented at the Almeria Western Film Festival and will be published by the Centro Sperimentale, a tribute intended for a few.

The University of Burgos will establish a chair of architecture and cinema in his name. When I asked Giuditta to tell me about this biography, she replied that it is first and foremost the story of a man. Ironic, very cultured, creative, a lover of beauty, but with an always humble approach to the things of life. Beautiful memories of him, a man who never gave up sharing his thoughts, certain of his ideas and the immense abilities that made him an outcast.

Carlo Simi was a great architect, an immense set designer, an unforgettable man but, above all, quoting another famous film, he was her father.

The Magnificent Stranger”

 

The Magnificent Stranger – International title

 

A 2023 Spanish documentary production [EMB Documental (Madrid)]

Producers: Miguel Ángel Guerra, Iván Karras

Directors: Miguel Ángel Guerra, Iván Karras

Story: Iván Karras

Cinematography: Alfonso Eusebio Martínez [color]

Music:

Running time: 85 minutes

 

Cast:

José Luis Galicia, Enrique Cerezo, Carlos Aguilar (Carlos Gutiérrez), Manuel Vidrié Jaime Comas, Victor Matellano, Andrés Vicente Gómez, Joan Padrol, Julio Sempere, Manuel Vidrié (Manuel Gómez)

The documentary is narrated in three 'acts', the first dedicated to the creation of Golden City, the second to its influence on Hoyo de Manzanares and the third, dedicated to Sergio Leone's film. To tell this story they have had first-hand testimonies, from people who participated in the shootings, producers, people who give a global vision of what that time meant... they even contacted Manuel Vidrié, retired bullfighter and double of Clint Eastwood

"At the beginning of the sixties, a producer, also experienced in writing and directing films, sees the option of building the first permanent western set in Europe in the mountains of Madrid, in Hoyo de Manzanares. And he asks his brother-in-law, a nationally and internationally valued artist, to build the model of the village in collaboration with a film decorator. Together they build and manage for more than ten years the sets that housed the film that changed a genre, the way of making films and marked the beginning of the careers of three essential figures in the history of film."

 

Trailer link: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1233213861455682