Happy 70th Birthday Loni von Friedl

Leontine Anna-Maria Friedl von Liebentreu was born on July 24, 1943 in Vienna, Austria. The daughter of cinematographer Fritz von Friedl [1901-1971], her brother is actor Fritz von Friedl II [1942- ] and she is the aunt of actor Christoph Friedl [1976- ].

 
As Loni von Friedl, she has made over 90 film and television appearances since her debut in “Der fidele Bauer” in 1951. She’s probably best remembered for her appearance as Elfi Heidemann in “The Blue Max” (1966). Loni appeared in only one Euro-western “The Moment to Kill” (1968) as Regina Forrester.
 
Loni was married to actor Götz George from 1966-1976 with whom she had a daughter Tanja. She later married actor Jürgen Schmidt [1938–2004] from 1995 until his death in 2004.
 
Today we celebrate the Loni von Friedl’s 70th birthday.

Remembering Marcello Giombi

Marcello Giombini was born in Rome, Italy on July 28, 1928. His father was a music professor who specialized in the oboe and who played in several orchestras.

 
He was a composer of secular music and film music as well as being interested in electronic music.
 
Giombini established himself especially in the 1960 and 1970s sixties as a satisfactory and creative maker in the renewal of the religious music and also in the liturgical area. Marcello was also composer of many soundtracks for movies, especially of the genre of Spaghetti westerns for which he composed 15 scores from “The Relentless Four” in 1965 to “Dallas” in 1975. He’s probably best remembered for his scores to “Sabata” (1969) and “Return of Sabata” (1971). Later he became a pioneer of electronic music in Italy.
 
Marcello’s son, Pierluigi Giombini [1956- ], is known as one of the most famous composer of "Italo Disco" in the 1980s.
 
Giombini died December 12, 2003 in Assissi, Italy.
 
Today we remember one of the Euro-westerns greatest composers on what would have been his 85^th birthday.

Remembering Memmo Carotenuto

Guglielmo ‘Memmo’ Carotenuto was born on July, 24, 1908 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was the brother of Mario Carotenuto and became a well-known actor making his debut in the theater as a child in the Roman dialect company which was part of his father Nello Carotenuto. Memmo entered films in technical roles, playing first in small parts, starting in 1935 with ‘Vecchia guardaa” directed by Alessandro Blasetti.  He continued to work even during World War II.

 
His first major role came with the interpretation of the roommate's hospital protagonist in “Umberto D.” (1952), in which Vittorio De Sica gives him a chance to showcase his dramatic talent that gets only better in the coming years. In 1956, his portrayal of Quirino alongside actor Marcello Mastroianni in “The Bigamist by Luciano Emmer, earned him the Silver Ribbon award.
 
With a distinctive voice and big hearted charisma of the typical Roman plebeian but sincere ways, from the 1950s he appears in over one hundred films often with the masters of Italian comedy such as Totò, Alberto Sordi, Peppino De Filippo, the aforementioned Vittorio De Sica and Gina Lollobrigida.
 
Noteworthy is his part in Mario Monicelli's “Big Deal” (1958), as the convict Cosimo, with Vittorio Gassman and in “Poveri ma belli” (1956) and “Belle ma povere” (1957), both directed by Dino Risi.
 
In the seventies, his film appearances are less frequent and are becoming less engaged, participating in the cast of films with Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia or with Enrico Montesano.
 
Carotenuto appeared in one Euro-western: “The Crazy Bunch” (1974) as Letto. Memmo died in

Rome on December 23, 1980.

 
Today we remember Memmo Carotenuto on what would have been his 105^th birthday.

7 MAGNIFICENT PISTOLS

Sette magnifiche pistole – Italian title

…e Benson imparo’ ad uccidere – Italian title
Siete pistolas para Timothy – Spanish title
7 savuavaa pistoolia – Finnish title
Les sept colts du tonnerre – French title
San Antone – German title
Ein Mann der Tot Sancho-dich kusst der Tod – German title
Sancho - Dich küsst der Tod – German title
Sete magnificas pistolas – Portuguese title
7 pistoler och massor av dollar – Swedish title
7 Magnificent Pistols – English title
7 Magnificent Pistols for Timothy – English title
 
A 1965 Italian, Spanish co-production [G.L.A. Cinematografica M.B.S Cinematografica (Rome), Balcázar Producciones Cinematográficas (Barcelona)]
Producers: Alessandro Jacovini, Augusto Silvestrini, Alfonso Balcazar
Director: Rod Gilbert (Romolo Girolami)
Story: Alfonso Balcázar
Screenplay: Giovanni Simonelli, José Antonio de la Loma (José Hernández), Alfonso Balcázar
Cinematography: Victor Monreal, Angelo Filippini [Eastmancolor, Techniscope]
Music: Gino Peguri
Song: “Cavalca cow boy”, “Seven Magnificent Guns” sung by I Marcellos Feral
Running time: 100 minutes
 
Cast:
Timothy Allister Benson – Sean Flynn
Rodrigo Rodriguez – Fernando Sancho (Fernando Les)
Cora Lee/Coralie – Ida Galli
Corky – Poldo Bendandi (Leopoldo Bendandi)
Slim – Daniel Martín (José Martínez)
Brett Colson – Spartaco Conversi
Gray Eagle – Rafael Albaicín (Ignacio Esucdero)
Black Fox – Antonio Almorós (Ramón Almorós)
Bart – Frank Oliveras (Francisco Oliveras)
Cowboy – William Conroy
Abel – Tito Garcia (Pablo González)
Rodrigo’s wife – Silvana Bacci
Sheriff Coleman – Osvaldo Genazzani
With: Anita Todesco, Maruska Rossetti, Ivan Basta, L. Gallo

Timothy, a shy and well-mannered young man, after getting his law degree, moves to the West where he has inherited a gold mine. But his life soon becomes difficult, because the area is dominated by a rich Mexican, eager to take possession of Timothy’s mine. Rodriguez relentlessly kills all those who agree to work there. Luckily for Timothy, his faithful friend Corky, reduced to despair by the oppression of the Mexican, manages to track down and engage four of his brave comrades in arms: Black Fox, Abel, Brett and Burt. After arriving at the Timothy’s ranch, they endeavor to make him as soon as possible a perfect western hero. When Timothy proves to have learned the lessons he’s been taught, hostilities open taking place at different times resulting in a  large number of corpses. In the final showdown with the Mexican, Timothy is forced to fight with only the help of his girlfriend. But the heavy fire of the two allows the posse of friends to arrive in time for the total elimination of the band. Timothy, a man of law and now a happy groom, is elected sheriff of the now peaceful country.
 
Full Spanish language film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgfEEQoqbC8

Happy 75th Birthday Götz George

Götz George was born in Berlin, Germany on July 23, 1938. His father Heinrich George was a famous film and theater star, his mother Berta Drews was a well-known character actress. George is named after his father's favorite character, Götz von Berlichingen. His father was imprisoned by the Soviets and starved in the Soviet concentration camp Sachsenhausen Speziallager Nr. 7 Sachsenhausen. George grew up in Berlin with his elder brother Jan and his mother. He went to school in Berlin-Lichterfelde and later attended the Lyzeum Alpinum in Zuoz, Switzerland.

 
George made his stage debut in 1950, performing a role in William Saroyan's Mein Herz ist im Hochland. From 1955 to 1958 he also studied at the Berlin UFA-Nachwuchsstudio, though he received the crucial part of his acting education between 1958 and 1963.
 
Hansgünther Heyme signed him in 1972 to the Kölner Schauspielhaus, where George played Martin Luther in Dieter Forte's Martin Luther und Thomas Münzer. His most important stage achievement, in his own opinion, was the lead role in Büchner's Dantons Tod during the Salzburger Festspiele in 1981. In 1986 and 1987 George, together with Eberhard Feik and Helmut Stauss, stage-managed Gogol's Revisor. Performing in Anton Tschechow's Platonov, George went on his hitherto last theater tour.
 
In 1953 he was able to get a small film role next to Romy Schneider in “Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht”. In the same year he played, as he would often do from then on, next to his mother in Shakespeare's Richard III. After small movie parts during the 1950s, Götz George broke through with audiences and critics in the film “Jacqueline” (1959). George was awarded the Bundesfilmpreis and the Preis der Filmkritik for his role. In 1962 he received the Bambi Award as the most popular actor.
 
In the sixties, George got the chance to show that he is able to do more than playing sappy peasants, through roles in movies such as “Kirmes”, playing a desperate Wehrmacht deserter, and “Herrenpartie”. More often, though, he performed in comedies and action-oriented movies which benefited from his physical presence. He became well-known to a broad audience when, during his theater tour in Göttingen, Horst Wendlandt persuaded him to play in one of the Karl May series of films, which he started in 1962 with “The Treasure of Silver Lake”. It was originally planned to give George the lead role of the farmer son Fred Engel, but this plan was abandoned when Lex Barker was hired to play the role of Old Shatterhand. George performed all stunts himself, even in his lead role as sheriff in “The Man Called Gringo” in 1965 and “Frontier Hellcat (1964) as Martin Baumann, Jr. and “The Halfbreed” (1966) as Jeff Brown.
 
In the 1970s he turned primarily to stage roles and to television, including the many episodes of ‘Der Komissar’, ‘Tatort’, ‘Derrick’, and ‘Der Alte’ for which he would become famous. It was not until 1977 that he was cast in a prominent role again, playing Franz Lang in “Aus Einem Deutschen Leben”, a character modeled after Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höß.
 
George probably had his greatest popular success in the eighties on TV: in ‘Tatort’ episodes of the WDR, broadcast from 1981 to 1991, he portrayed proletarian police officer Horst Schimanski, who eventually became cult in German TV. In 1984 and 1987 he again won the Bambi Award as the most popular actor. The series of Schulz & Schulz movies, starting in 1989 and dealing with the issue of the German reunification, gave him the opportunity to show his talents as a comedian in a double role, as did the role of the industry consultant Morlock in the series of the same name, which is rather far removed from the roughneck charm of senior commissar Schimanski.
 
Among George's most impressive roles in the nineties were his appearances in the television movie “Der Sandmann”, in which he portrayed the alleged serial killer and writer Henry Kupfer as a cold, calculating and manipulative intellectual, and in the television movie “Die Bubi-Scholz-Story”, the trauma of an aged, broken boxer.
 
Today we celebrate Götz George’s 75^th birthday.

Django Volumes 1 & 2 DVD Review

Review by Biltmore Michael Ferguson.

This past spring a number of DVD companies rushed to take advantage of Quentin Tarantino's Oscar (R) winning Django Unchained, by releasing as much (NTSC) product as they could tie-in to the spaghetti-Django mythos. The first out of the gate was Timeless's pair of classy (LP) double bills featuring 'Django Kills Silently' & 'Django's Cut-Price Corpses' and 'A Man Called Django' & 'Django and Sartana's Showdown in the West'. Couldn't go wrong with those. Next Echo Bridge let loose a volley of spaghetti collections containing either 4, 8 12 or 20 (LP and EP) movie packs all in compressed form. Their titles are too numerous to repeat here. Then the BlueRay juggernaut 25 spaghetti's on a one-sided (EP) disk (!) entitled Westerns Unchained came forth from Millennium Entertainment. It contained a fistful of unreleased titles in English. Now we come to the latest spaghetti bonanza of essential Django movies presented in nifty double-disk 6 (LP) movie packs from a company called TGG (thegarrgroup). At first it looks like a great deal, in that it would contain a number of unreleased (NTSC) titles mixed in with older product. Once you start checking deeper you realize that the majority of their titles are available elsewhere in varying degrees of speed. All their films are presented in english with new superimposed titles that are at times confusing and border on the fraudulent. Now lets examine these two new collections. 

First up we have The Django Collection Volume 1. (011891522557 ) in LP speed. It includes Edward G. Muller's 'A Man Called Django' aka 'W Django' (see the above Timeless collection). Sergio Garrone's 'Hanging for Django' is 'No Room to Die' which appears to be new to DVD.  Since it's recorded in the LP speed, it would be better to wait for the Kino-Video blue-ray release that's coming this August. Next up is Lucio Fulci's 'Brute and the Beast' under the misleading Dutch VHS title 'Django, the Runner', with their title presented in bright red, while the actual print has washed out credits [Available from Wild East in SP]. 'Django, A Bullet for You' is not the expected retitling of Leon Klimovsy's 'Ballad of a Bounty Hunter', but his 'A Few Dollars for Django' [see Echo Bridge]. 'Return of Django' is the superimposed translation of the French title of Osvaldo Civirani's 'Son of Django' used here to fool the consumer [Also available from WildEast]. Lastly 'A Pistol for Django' is Paolo Solvay's 'Django's Cut-Price Corpses' under the translation of the film's Spanish title [Again see the Timeless release]. 

Next we have The Django Collection Volume 2. (011891522656) in LP speed which is the better of the two. It includes Romolo Guerrieri's '10,000 Dollars For Django' aka '10,000 Dollars Blood Money' [which is available from Timeless in the EP speed as '10,000 Dollars For A Massacre']. 'Django Defies Sartana' is not Pasquale Squitieri's 'Django Challenges Sartana' [Available from Wild East] as one would expect, but Miles Deem's 'Django and Sartana's Showdown in the West'. It was previously included in the Millenium B-R collection as 'Django Defies Sartana' [Available from Timeless under its original title in one of their double bills]. Max Hunter aka Massimo Pupillo's 'Django Kills Silently' stars George Eastman [see Timeless]. 'Django, the Avenger' is not Ferdinando Baldi's 'Texas Adios', which was called 'The Avenger', upon its UK release and Django, der Rächer' in Germany, but Sergio Garrone's 'The Strangers Gundown' (again with a superimposed new title) [Available from VCI in SP]. Next up is another Garrone title 'Kill Django, Kill First' aka 'Tequila', starring Jack Stuart which is new to DVD, but was included in the above mentioned B-R collection. Lastly they have the previously unreleased Paolo Solvay film 'Django, Adios', starring Brad Harris (probably from a VHS tape with a new title over top of an optically blurred image). It has the poorest picture quality of all the above mentioned movies.

Well there you have it. It's nice that the DVD/B-R manufactures are finally taking notice of us, but it would be great if they didn't try to take advantage of us. Not since the early days of VHS tapes have so many of our film's titles been misleadingly retitled and or recorded in the cheapest speeds as possible.
 
Reviewed by Biltmore Michael Ferguson ©.

Who Are Those Gys - Dominique Bettenfeld

 

Dominque Bettenfeld is a French actor who has appeared in over 25 movies since he first started acting in 1990. Bettenfeld is well known for performances in “Les Redoutables” (2000), “L'Amour Aux Trousses” (2004), and “Nui Blanche” (2010). He’s also appeared on stage and in television.

 
Bettenfeld was first used by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet [1953-    ] in several of his films and then more recently by Jan Kounen [1964- ].
 
Bettenfeld has appeared in only one Euro-western so far in his career that being “Blueberry” (aka “Renegade”) in 2002 playing the role of Scarecrow.

BETTENFELD, Dominique (aka Dominique) [French] – stage, TV actor.
Renegade – 2002 (Scarecrow)