In 1967’s “Halleluja for Django” the building containing the stolen treasure gets blown up, small amounts of gold coins are sporadically falling from the sky for the next several minutes. This clearly violates the laws of physics, since a single explosion would cause all the coins to disperse instantly and fall back on the ground a few seconds later. It is impossible for the coins to remain suspended in the air for as long as they do in that scene.
[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.]
CATULLO, Lucia [9/10/1927, Bari, Puglia, Italy –
12/31/1985, Narni, Umbria, Italy (cancer)] – theater, radio, film, TV, voice
actress.
Screen Rant
By Charles Nicholas Raymond
December 20, 2024
Thanks in large part to Lee Van Cleef, Death Rides A Horse makes for the perfect viewing experience after Clint Eastwood's The Man With No Name trilogy. Although The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is generally considered the quintessential Clint Eastwood Western, it's far more than just a vehicle for the actor. As indicated by its title, it's really a movie driven by a trio of stars, not just Eastwood. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly wouldn't have worked without the compelling performances offered by Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef. The latter is similarly vital to For a Few Dollars More as well.
Lee Van Cleef is in top form in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which sees him play the film's villain to sinister perfection. His ruthless yet calm demeanor allows his character - known only by the nickname of "Angel Eyes" in the movie - to stand out as one of the greatest Western villains of all time. But of course, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More are hardly the only Westerns to benefit from the actor's presence in the cast. Lee Van Cleef actually made several quality Westerns worth watching, including Death Rides a Horse.
Death Rides A Horse Is An Entertaining 1960s Spaghetti
Western
It Continues A Great Western Trend For Lee Van Cleef
Having found success working in great Spaghetti Westerns like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and For A Few Dollars More, Van Cleef continued to dabble in the subgenre. One of the roles he picked up was Ryan in Death Rides a Horse, which gave him top billing. His co-star was John Phillip Law, a gunfighter looking for revenge against the outlaws that killed his family. This puts him in conflict with Ryan, a man who unjustly went to prison after he was falsely accused as an accomplice to the crime.
Naturally, his reputation makes him and Bill enemies, but as the story progresses, they have to put their differences aside and team up against the real killers. Because Ryan has history with the gang whether he was actually a party to the murders or not, there's nothing friendly about their alliance. It's not even clear if it will last, particularly when it becomes apparent that perhaps Ryan is hiding more than he lets on. All of this makes for an interesting dynamic, and one that feels tailor-made for a Western setting. And in keeping with the expectations of the genre, their conflict comes to a head in an exciting climax.
Death Rides A Horse Offers Several Great Parallels To
Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy
Lee Van Cleef's Work In Sergio Leone's Movies Has A
Clear Influence On Death Rides A Horse
Even the goals of the main characters are in line with each other. Revenge is ultimately the primary motive of Lee Van Cleef's character in Death Rides a Horse and For a Few Dollars More. Yet, he's still the more calculated member of the duo in both instances, with his partner being the more impulsive, action-oriented type
The similarities to the Man with No Name trilogy also extend to the overall tone of the film, and they make sense when considering its background. The screenplay for Death Rides a Horse was penned by genre veteran Luciano Vincenzoni, who co-wrote both For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Further strengthening the comparison is the music; Ennio Moricone, who famously composed the iconic music behind Sergio Leone's Dollars movies also developed the soundtrack for Death Rides a Horse.
Death Rides A Horse Has One of Lee Van Cleef's Best
Performances
“Ryan fits this profile especially, with Van Cleef doing his best to draw out Ryan's darker impulses and measured intensity.”
Ryan fits this profile especially, with Van Cleef doing
his best to draw out Ryan's darker impulses and measured intensity. The actor
succeeds in creating a portrayal of Ryan as a dangerous outlaw, but also
someone guided by a strong sense of morality. In this way, Lee Van Cleef's
character in Death Rides a Horse is able to shine as a memorable Western
anti-hero.
John Sturges (director) would have been 115 today but died in 1992.
Mady Rahl [voice actor] – would have been 110 today but died in 2009.
Paddy Fox (actor) would have been 105 today but
died in 1988.
Aldo Florio (director, writer) would have been 100
today but died in 2016.
Florencio Amarilla (actor) would have been 90 today
but died in 2012.
Christa Pasemann (actress) would have been 90 today
but died in 2018.
[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.]
Barbara Catturanini is/was an Italian actress who has only one film credit and that was for a Spaghetti western. Most likely she was a model working in Rome who was hired for her role as a saloon girl in 1981’s “Buck ai confini del cielo” (Buck at the Edge of Heaven). There were several saloon girls in the film so picking her out is impossible.
CATTURANINI, Barbara [Italian] – film actress.
Buck at the Edge of Heaven – 1981 (saloon girl)
We Have Issues
By greigzilla
December 20, 2024
While the weird and wonderful world of Spaghetti Westerns can understandably be rather a niche and confusing place thanks to each film often owning a multitude of conflicting titles, dubbing that makes a Japanese monster movie seem subtle and a sense of eccentricity that often has you wondering if the filmmakers are simply taking the piss, I’m rather confused that the Sartana series isn’t more well known. For a start, there’s sense of campy fun about the gunslinger’s unlikely adventures that sit just on the right side of ridiculous and if nothing else, the franchise complete with five (official) entries that all own pulpy titles so flamboyant, they fuck harder than a bionic horse.
The first entry set the tone with the absurdly muscular
moniker of If You Meet Sartana Pray For Your Death, but barely a year later,
Gianni Garko returned in I Am Sartana Your Angel Of Death, which seemed like a
good sign that the caped gunslinger wasn’t intending to tone down his act…
A seemingly quiet day is suddenly interrupted with the sound of gunfire, when a remarkably prepared gang robs a bank of $300,000. However, when I say prepared, I don’t just mean that these guys have studied the opening times, no, their plans involve misdirection, ambushes, some of the gang being disguised as soldiers and even a man pretending to play dead into order to claim a reward and the reasons for all this subterfuge seems to be that the man behind this robbery is notorious gunslinging tricker, Sartana! Of course, as often is the case in Sartana adventures, things aren’t all that they seem and even though the leader of the heist dressed like Sartana and claimed he was Sartana, the real Sartana isn’t best pleased that a fair amount of identity theft occured along with the stealing of $300,000.
So, with the desire to clear his name and possibly earn some money into the bargin, Sartana plays detective, back tracking to question witnesses about exactly what they saw, but whomever was responsible wasn’t about to take any chances as the mysterious ringleader shot all the members of his crew in order to make a clean getaway. However, this isn’t the only roadblock in our enigmatic leads way as he has to carry out his flamboyant investigation while the bounty of $10,000 hangs above his head that tends to bring some unwanted attention.
Among some of the shifty characters on Sartana’s trail
are the opportunistic Shadow, intimidating old acquaintance Deguejo and the
frankly camp Hot Dead, a man who manages to balance out how shitty his is at
gambling by being great at bounty hunting. However, Sartana’s not exactly a
slouch in the brains department, and with quick-shooting vagrant Buddy Ben by
his side, our slippery hero manages to avoid certain death thanks to a mixture
of traps, tricks and, in the most extreme cases, close up magic.
Like a lot of Sergio Leone also-rans, the second Sartana flick strives to combine as many aspects familiar to the Spaghetti Western as is humanly possible but at a far more exagerated rate which tends to cause a notable slide toward self-parody. However, while I Am Sartana Your Angel Of Death frequently steps a shined cowboy boot into the cowpat of ridicule, it manages to maintain its pulp credentials nicely by taking the usual themes and visuals of the genre and channeling them through the lens of a conspiracy thriller/whodunit. For example, the whole mess kicks off when someone thinks it’s a good idea to hinge an entire bank robbery on framing a man known across the land as a fiercely intelligent and determined killer. It’s not even that foolproof of a disguise as the subterfuge only requires the guilty party to wear a hat and cloak and happily say “I’m Sartana” to anyone who will listen, but unbelievably it actually works as the bank staff of Spaghetti Westerns tend to be about as smart and levelheaded as the average Simpsons character. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so easy to successfully frame Sartana if he wasn’t so dashingly enigmatic that giving off smoldering, knowing looks seems to be his entire personality, but mysterious gunslingers are as mysterious gunslingers do and why spend time with the logistics when we can just let our hero off the chain to get to the bottom of this confusing mess.
Thus a stoney faced, returning, Gianni Garko returns to alternate between impassively out shooting large amounts of the cast (often at the same time) and looking righteously smug when one of his overly complex tricks manages to bamboozle an enemy. However, since original director Gianfranco Parolini had moved on to the similarly far fetched Sabata series, Giuliano Carnimeo, helmer of The Case Of The Bloody Iris and, er, Ratman, stepped in to call the shots with a noticably lighter touch. When Sartana isn’t escaping by MacGyvering his smug ass out of a jail cell with some stolen keys with a cowboy hat on a string, he’s utterly flummoxing hardened bounty hunters by fluttering some playing cards at them; but even though you know long in advance that every speed bump our hero faces is only a double feint that he’s somehow planned way in advance, it’s still somehow greatly satisfying everytime he does it. The man has some fucking style too, taking his vengence to hilarious, gothic extremes in a climax that sees him ducking around a dusty church, flinging an unlimited number of knives into the ribs of countless villains while his dishevelled buddy, Buddy Ben, plays an ominous tune on an organ like our antagonist is the phantom of the fucking saloon or something.
Thankfully, the movie realises that a stern, monosyllabic gunfighter who is a complete stranger to any sort of comeuppance is only as good as his wacky supporting cast and so we have a string of random bounty hunters, sidekicks and wild cards thrown in to keep the story ricocheting all over the place to the point where it’s almost impossible to follow. While many are merely single serving psychos and expendable henchmen, standouts include Frank Wolff’s affable tramp, Buddy Ben who seems to have Sartana’s back for… reasons; but almost stealing the show is the exceedingly strange Hot Dead who is played by the exceedingly stranger Klaus Kinski – again, a veteran of the Sartana saga after playing a completely different (and noticably dead) charscter in the previous film. A weird, needlessly gleeful goblin of a man, his whole deal is that he is a fucking terrible gambler who nevertheless cannot stop betting on literally everything; however, the silver lining is that he is a chillingly gifted bounty hunter that kills outlaws to fund his uttedly pathetic habit. In fact there’s numerous times where you kind of wish that Kinski was the main villain instead of whoever the hell it ends up being (I lost track in all the gunfire)
Admittedly silly, I Am Sartana Your Angel Of Death, is still undoubtedly huge fun for those who like their pulp adventures served up with a heaping side dish of chuckle inducing camp; but maybe that’s the real con here. Maybe when we’re dropping belly laughs at him rolling wagon wheels stuffed with dynamite at his enemies, Sartana is actually bamboozling us; tricking us into having fun with the same type of razzle dazzle he often fucks over his foes with.
Oh Sartana, you sly bastard.
Oreste Fares (actor) would have been 140 today but died in 1950.
Giacomo Furia (actor) would have been 100 today but
died in 2015.
Giovanna Ralli (actress) is 90 today.
Italian composer Nora Orlandi died in Rome on January1, 2025. She was 91. Born in Voghera, Lombardy, Italy on June 28, 1933, she was also known by her pseudonym Joan Christian, was an Italian pianist, violinist, soprano vocalist, composer and occasional actress. As the first female film composer of Italian cinema, she composed scores for Spaghetti Westerns, Eurospy films and giallos throughout the 1960s and was best known for "Dies Irae", a short piece she wrote and performed for Sergio Martino's “The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh” (1971) which was later reused in Quentin Tarantino's “Kill Bill: Volume 2” (2004). Her younger sister is the singer-songwriter Paola Orlandi. Otlandi composed some of the best and most remembered scores of the Spaghetti genre including “Death at Owell Rock” – 1966 (co), “Fort Yuma Gold” - 1966 (co) [sings: “Don’t Cry Cowboy”], “A Gunman Called Nebraska” – 1966, “Johnny Yuma” – 1966, “A Golden Sheriff” – 1966 [as Jan Cristiane] “Savage Gringo” – 1966 [sings: “Cuando se muere el sol”], “Clint the Stranger” – 1967, “$10,000 for a Massacre” – 1967, “Vengeance is Mine” – 1967 [sings “Captain Brown”], “One More to Hell” – 1968 [sings: “Forgive and Not Forget”], “The Price of Power” – 1969 [singer], “Blindman” – 1971 [singer], “These Damned Pounds of Gold” – 1971, “Man of the East” - 1972 [sings: “Jesus Come to My Heart” with 4x4 chorus], “On the Third Day Arrived the Crow” – 1972 and” The Prey of Vultures” – 1972.
[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.]
Stefano Cattarossi was born in Belluno, Veneto, Italy on August 20, 1950. He appeared in only three films according to the IMDb but must have been more renowned individual as Google is loaded with links to his name but no biographical information. Maybe because he was the great-grandson of the bishop of Belluno Giosuè Cattorossi [1863-1944].
He died in his hometown on August 5, 1992, two weeks before turning 42.
His only Spaghetti appearance was as Kit in 1968’s “Gli specialist” (Drop Them of I’ll Shoot).
CATTAROSSI, Stefano [8/20/1950 Belluno, Veneto, Italy
– 8/5/1992, Belluno, Veneto, Italy] – film actor, artist, great-grandson of the
bishop of Belluno Giosuè Cattorossi [1863-1944].
Drop Them or I’ll Shoot – 1968 (Kit)
Zorro
(2024)
Director: Emilie Noblet, Jean-Baptiste Saurel
Starring: Jean Dujardin, Audrey Dana, Salvatore Ficarra,
André Dussollier, Eric Elmosnino
Country: France
Label: France.TV Distribution
Discs: 2
Language: DTS-HD 5.1 French
Running time: 320 minutes
ASIN: B0D9KWVV3S
Available: December 31, 2024
John Patrick Dulaney was born on December 11, 1946, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He attended Harding High School in Oklahoma City and studied Motion Picture Direction at Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois. At 19 he started work in a Hollywood film lab editing, printing and special effects but soon began directing short films. Later he continued directing and producing films in New York City where he also owned a small cinema in the East Village. In 1969 he left for Europe where he began his acting years. His travels have taken him around the world many times (24 years overseas and 50 countries) and he has made various films in Europe and Asia. He has written two novels as yet unpublished, enjoys composing. Returning to Hollywood in 1988-89 he produced or lined-produced various films including the short children's film "The Legend of the Emerald Princess" with Charlotte Lewis which was sold to Disney TV and won an award at the New York International Film Festival. Today John then moved to Los Angeles and returned to acting. In 1993 March in Concord, California John founded and ran one of the first 20 commercial web pages in history, Mind Logic an internet mail order company selling audio/video electronics and computers. John now lives in Bellevue, Washington with his wife Jo Jo.
John appeared in small supporting and character roles in seven Spaghetti westerns and is probably best remembered in the pictured role of the duel judge in 1971’s “Return of Sabata”.
DULANEY, John (aka Johan Dolaney) (John
Patrick Dulaney) [12/11/1946, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.A. - ] – author, producer, cinematographer,
writer, composer, film, TV actor, married to Nancy Ellen Kunesh [1947- ] (1965-1966) father of Tom Dulaney (Thomas
John Dulaney) [1966- ], married
to Maria R. ‘Jojo’ Dulaney [1963- ]
(1985- ), father of Chris Dulaney
[1989- ], Jacqueline J. Dulaney
[2005- ].
Have a Good Funeral... Sartana will Pay – 1970 (cowboy)
The Long Ride of Revenge – 1970 (gambler)
The Price of Death – 1971 (townsman)
Return of Sabata – 1971 (duel judge)
They Call Him Cemetery – 1971 [background]
Trinity is STILL My Name – 1971 (saloon patron) [scene
was never filmed]
Jesse and Lester, Two Brothers in a Place Called Trinity
– 1972 (angry bank customer)
Edie Martin (actress) would have been 145 today but died in 1964.
Paola Borboni (actor) would have been 125 today but
died in 1995.
Raymond Pellegrin (actor) would have been 100 today
but died in 2007.
Ty Hardin (actor) would have been 95 today but died
in 2017.
Esad Jujić (actor) would have been 85 today but
died in 2014.
