.Westerns...All'Italiana!

Saturday, July 23, 2022

Spaghetti Western Podcast

Join me at noon PST for Season 4, episode #7, #92 of the “Spaghetti Westerns Podcast. We’ll talk about “Gunfight at High Noon”. Whatever became of the great Gilbert Roland. Who are The Fantasia Brothers. Our film of the week is “The Hills Run Red” and we’ll have an autograph, book and CD of the week and we’ll wrap things up with The Weekly News. See you at High Noon.

National Day of the Cowboy 2022

The silent westerns of director Jean Durand – “The Railway of Death”

Le railway de la mort – French title

La course a la mort – French title

Todeszug – German title

Der Todeszug – German title

The Railway of Death – English title

Their Lives for Gold - U.S.A. title

A 1912 French film production [Gaumont International (Paris)]

Producer:

Director: Jean Durand

Story: “Lust for Gold” Jack London

Screenplay: Jean Durand

Cinematography: ? [black & white]

Running time: 15 minutes

Cast:

Joe Barker – Joë Hamman (Jean Hamman)

Tim/Tom Burke – Max Dhartigny

Engineer – Ernest Bourbon

Passengers – Gaston Modot, Berthe Dagmar (Albertine Hamon)

With: Joaquin Renez, Gustave Hamilton, Édouard Grisollet

Location: Camargue, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

“Le Railway de la mort” is less concerned with narrative continuity than with setting up dangerous stunts in ever more spectacular action sequences, one after another. A grim adventure tale that borrows liberally from Jack London, this “Lust for Gold” story turns two friends, Joe Barker and Tom Burke, into fierce antagonists in their frantic search for the secret claim that a dying gold miner has entrusted to them.

Shot on location in the Camargue region, the story supposedly is set on the Nebraska prairie, among and beyond towns named Rockfield, Silver City, and Fort William. The flat, empty, sometimes marshy landscape is familiar from Hamman’s other westerns, but now the chases involve not only horses and, as in “Cent dollars mort ou vif”, a train, but also the only transportation in the area. The exterior sets also are more elaborate than those of the previous films, often arranged in deep-space compositions. Especially notable, however, are the framed shots early on (more characteristic of Léonce Perret) looking out from darkened interiors, accentuated by deep blue toning, as when Joe opens a door to see Tom steal away in the night and then, framed by a tent opening, Tom goes off alone on horseback.

Most striking, of course, are the action sequences. Tom, in a long shot, leaps onto the last car of a passing train, quickly pursued by Joe on horseback; in a reverse-angle shot from within the train car, Tom and Joe trade gunshots. When Joe fails to catch the train, he races across the flooded prairie to a high signal arch over the tracks, from which he can drop onto the top of the last train car. In a stunning long shot, the locomotive hits the timbers, flips over on its side, plows into the dirt, and Joe, in a cut-in closer shot, crawls out of the cab window, barely alive. In the final sequence, months later, Joe discovers the mining claim that Tom is now working. He stealthily approaches Tom’s storehouse of explosives and, softly silhouetted through gingham curtains, opens a window to toss a burning brand inside. When the smoke of the explosions clears, the whole site is in ruins, and a dissolve reveals the dying Tom crawling to Joe’s body and grasping from his clutched hand a few tiny gold nuggets.” - Richard Abel

Entire film link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raWCzOg_X14

Spaghetti Western Locations ~ “The Mercenary”

We continue our search for film locations for “The Mercenary”. After Garcia and his company of regulars are routed a burial detail is seen burying a few of Paco’s men. Paco is drinking tequila while Sergei is eating dinner. The two discuss why Kowalski didn’t kill Roman when he had the chance and Sergei explains to him he may feel sorry for him and is only looking out for himself. Paco explains he’s only in the revolution to kill the rich and take their money. He’s seen his father and brother die in the mine. He asks Sergei if he’s doing alright so far and Kowalsk say’s ‘No.”

This scene was filmed at Carabana near Madrid.

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

Damiano Damiani (director, screenwriter) would have been 100 today but died in 2013.

Buzz Kulik (director) would have been 100 today but died in 1999.

Sydney Lassick (actor) would have been 100 today but died in 2003.

Gerard Brach (screenwriter) would have been 95 today but died in 2006.

Erika Blanc (actress) is 80 today.

Friday, July 22, 2022

Spaghetti Western Trivia ~ Italian actors in American TV shows

The Danny Thomas Show was entering its 10^th season (October 1962-April 1963), and need a new visual setting to work with.

The producers settled on having the lead character, entertainer Danny Williams (Danny Thomas) and his wife (Marjorie Lord), go on a European tour. First, they arrived in London, England, then Paris and finally Italy.

They divided up the Italian shoot between Rome and Venice. In Rome, the episode The Roman Patriot (#302, February 18, 1963), they had actor Massimo Serato, as what Danny thought was an Italian Gigolo, who takes a fancy to his bored wife.

While still in the Eternal City, the episode When in Rome (#305, March 11, 1963), had Umberto

Raho as a taxi driver.

Switching to Venice, the episode Venetian Melody (#308, April, 1st, 1963), has the happy couple helped by a hotel busboy played by Tony Brandt (who is also credited as the Italian assistant director, as he knew English), who recognizes him as a famous American actor.

Brandt would become Sergio Leone's long-suffering assistant on Duck You Sucker (October 1971), and later an assistant on Tonino Valerii's A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die (October 1972) and Monte Hellman's China 9, Liberty 37 (August 1978). All three films were shot in English as the primary language.

Back to Venetian Melody, plot wise, Danny meets a pintsized street urchin singer played by the talented 'Piccola Puppa' (the Little Doll), whose birth name was Giuliana Crimilde Coverlizza.

Playing her younger accordion-playing brother was Antonio Piretti (sometimes spelt Pieretti).

Piretti would later appear in Django Shoots First (October, 1966), this time as Erica Blanc's younger sibling. 'Puppa' would make many US tv appearances over the following years, and finally getting to perform in AIP's Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (April, 1966), and belts out the number "Stand Up and Fight". Soon after she retired, as most child performers do, later married and raised a family, having a son in 1973.

Piretti, on the other hand, continued on for another ten years until he also retired from acting.

The Danny Thomas Show, finished off the tenth season, and lurched into its last, and finally folded at the end of April, 1964, having amassing a staggering 343 episodes. Thomas would later resurrect his TV family on the short-lived Make Room for Granddaddy (September 1970-March 1971) before calling it a day.