RIP Elmar Wepper

 

German voice actor and dubber Elmar Wepper died in Munich, Germany on October 30^th from heart failure. He was 79. Wepper was a titan of the silver screen, with a career that spanned over six decades. He lit up living rooms across the globe with his portrayal of Inspector Harry Klein in the popular TV series ‘Der Kommissar’, which aired from 1969 to 1976. His performance as the dedicated and intelligent police inspector became an iconic benchmark in the annals of television history. Elmar was born in Augsburg on April 16, 1944, and grew up in Munich. He studied German language and literature and theatre studies. He was also known for dubbing Mel Gibson's voice since the 1980s. Wepper was the German voice of Paul Hover in 1969’s “The Leatherstocking Tales” (Adventures in Ontario), Alberto Dell’Acqua’s voice in “Trinity & Sartana Those Sons of Bitches” and Robert Woods’ voice on 1975’s “White Fang and the Hunter”.

Spaghetti Western English Speaking Voice Actor - Michael Tor

Michael Tor was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 19, 1917. Tor was another of the classic voices with an "Anglo-Saxon" accent in Italian dubbing, who specialized in giving a voice to English or American characters - tourists, ambassadors, Yankee gangsters, etc. Michael was above all one of the nicest Italian voices of Sylvester the Cat in the Warner Bros cartoons (and one of the favorites of many fans of the cartoons, even if few of them, unfortunately, knew that it was his voice...): Tor dubbed Sylvester with a curious Anglo-Saxon accent (which was indeed his, and therefore was not simulated!).

There a few records of his voice dubbing credits but we do know he was the English speaking voice of Fernando Sancho in “Killer Kid” (1967), “Turn I’ll Kill You” (1967), “Vengeance is Mine” (1967) and “And the Crows Will Dig Your Grave” (1971)

Tor died in Milan, Lombardy, Italy on February 1, 2009.

Who Are Those Guys? ~ Arnaldo Dell’Acqua

 

Arnaldo was the oldest of the Dell’Acqua brothers. Like the others he came from a circus background and was a trained acrobat. He started his career in 1962 performing stunts in “Odio mortale” (The Black Invaders) directed by Franco Montemurro and starring Amedeo Nazzari, Danielle DeMetz and Renato Baldini. This was the tail end of the Sword and Sandal craze so many of these strongmen films were now adventure films which quickly developed into the Spagheti western phenomenon. Alberto’s first credited acting roll was in 1964’s “Maciste nelle miniere del re Salomone” (Maciste in King Solomon's Mines) directed by Piero Regnoli and starring Reg Park, Wandisa Guida and Bruno Piergentilli.

Arnaldo’s first western was as a henchman in 1966’s “La morte non conta i dollari” (Death at Owell Rock) directed by Riccardo Freda and starring Mark Damon and Stephen Forsyth. This was followed by 39 more films as either an actor or stuntman.

Alberto was sometimes credited as Aldo Dell’Acqua.

As time passed Arnaldo became a stunt coordinator and a master of arms until his retirement five years ago at the age of 80.

Dell ACQUA, Arnaldo (aka Aldo Dell’Acqua, Aldo dell'Acqua) [7/14/1938, Campobasso, Molise, Italy -     ] – circus acrobat, stunt coordinator, stuntman, film, TV actor, son of circus owners  Fausto Dell'Acqua, Giovanna Huesca, brother of stuntman, film, TV actor Alberto Dell’Acqua [1937-    ], stuntwoman, actress Fern Water (Fernanda Dell'Acqua) [1941-    ], stuntman, film, TV actor Alberto Dell’Acqua [1937-    ], stuntman, actor Roberto Dell'Acqua [1946-2019], stuntman, actor  Ottaviano Dell'Acqua [1955-    ].

Death at Owell Rock – 1966 (Lester henchman)

Days of Vengeance – 1967 (soldier)

Poker With Pistols – 1967 (guard at Masters’ ranch)

7 Pistols for a Massacre – 1967 (drummer) [as Aldo Dell’Acqua]

Turn… I’ll Kill You – 1967 (Davis brother)

Two R-R-Ringos from Texas – 1967 (Sentenza Jane henchman)

Wanted – 1967 (saloon patron)

The Man Who Cried for Revenge – 1968 (Jack’s henchman [as Aldo Dell’ Acqua]

No Graves on Boot Hill – 1968 (Fletcher henchman)

Boot Hill – 1969 (Fisher henchmen) [as Aldo Dell’ Acqua]

Death on High Mountain – 1969 (brawler)

Sartana the Gravedigger – 1969 (Baxter Red henchman)

The Stranger’s Gundown – 1969 (dynamite game player)

The Unholy Four – 1969 (saloon brawler)

Shango – 1970 (rebel soldier)

They Call Me Trinity – 1970 (Mormon)

The Ballad of Ben and Charlie – 1971 (brawler)

Bullet for a Stranger – 1971 (brawler)

Django… Adios! – 1971 (Holy Ghost/Spirito Santo henchman)

Guns for Dollars – 1971 – (laundry worker)

Trinity is STILL My Name – 1971 (saloon patron) [as Aldo Dell’Acqua] [stunts]

Alleluia and Sartana, Sons of God – 1972 (McGregor brother) [as Aldo Dell’ Acqua]

Man of the East – 1972 (saloon brawler) [as Aldo Dell’ Acqua]

They Call Me Providence – 1972 (James’ henchman)

Trinity & Sartana Those Sons of Bitches – 1972 (Joe) [as Aldo Dell’Acqua]

Another Try, Eh Providence? – 1973 (saloon patron) [as Aldo Dell’ Acqua]

Chino – 1973 (cowboy)

Karate, Fists and Beans – 1973 (duck hunter)

The Man Called Invincible – 1973 (monk)

The Crazy Adventures of Len and Coby – 1974 (bandit)

Red Coat – 1974 (trapper)

The White, the Yellow, the Black – 1974 (soldier) [as Aldo Dell'Acqua]

Keoma – 1975 (Caldwell henchman)

Zorro – 1975 (Huerta guard)

California – 1977 (soldier shot by Whitaker)

A Man Called Blade – 1977 (Valler henchman)

Silver Saddle – 1977 (saloon employee)

Buddy Goes West – 1981 (Colorado Slim henchmen) [stunts] [as Aldo Dell’Acqua]

Django Strikes Again – 1987 [stunt coordinator]

Buck at the Edge of Heaven – 1991 (Cotton)

Halloween 2023

 

31 Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Walter Battistelli

[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.]

Walter Batistelli was an Italian child film actor born sometime in the 1960s. Unlike most child actors Walter later worked behind the scenes as a set designer and in special effects. His film career consisted of three films from 1973-1975. Two of those films were Spaghetti westerns “Kid il monello del west” (Bad Kids of the West) in 1973 directed by Tonino Ricci starring Andrea Ballestri and “L'ostaggio” (Young Guns Go West) in 1975 directed by Luigi Valanzano starring Claudio Aponte and Aldo Ballanti.  Walter played ‘The Left-Handed Kid’. He was slated to appear in another Spaghetti western “Zorro the Kid” in 1978 but the film was never made.

The last mention of him was in 1982 where he worked on special effects on “1990: I guerrieri del Bronx” (1990: The Bronx Warriors) directed by Enzo Castellari and starring Mark Gregory and as set designer on “ Sangraal, la spada di fuoco” (The Sword of the Barbarians) directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini which starred Pietro Torissi, Yvonne Fraschetti and Mario Novelli.

BATTISTELLI, Walter [Italian] – SFX, film actor.

Bad Kids of the West – 1973

Young Guns Go West – 1975 (The Left-Handed Kid)

Zorro the Kid – 1978 [Film was never made.]

Covarrubias bets on housing the legacy of Simi and Sad Hill

 The City Council and the family of the Italian set designer, author, among others, of the design of the cemetery of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly', take the first steps to create a museum where his work can be exhibited

Diario de Burgos

October 18, 2023

[Guiditta has seen first-hand the space in which work is being done to house this collection with the help of the municipal architect, Javier Sánchez, and the councillor Yolanda Cuevas.]

The Sad Hill cemetery travelled, and continues to do, the Arlanza region around the world through The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. A film set that Carlo Simi designed more than half a century ago and that hosted the filming of one of the most iconic scenes in the history of cinema, not only of the western genre. Although it is perhaps one of his best-known works, the Italian architect and artistic director had a long career creating and drawing sets, costumes and props for directors such as Sergio Leone, Corbucci and Sollima in numerous films. An interesting and valuable material that could have as its final destination Covarrubias, where steps have begun to be taken to create a museum to house his legacy.

After some of these documents were exhibited in cities such as Los Angeles, Rome and Paris, the family discovered the public's interest in Simi's work and began to consider the possibility of creating a permanent exhibition with all of it. The destination was clear to them, the Arlanza region, partly thanks to the trust generated in them by the people who have worked on the recovery of the cemetery.

Fate, as Guiditta, Simi's daughter, cited, has made Covarrubias the place where this museum could be. "I also have a special bond with this town, since I was conceived at the Hotel Arlanza in the summer of filming," joked the woman, who has been able to see first-hand the space in which work is being done to house this collection, the so-called San Tomás square, a disused building next to the church of the same name and whose cession for the next 100 years has been requested from the Archbishopric by the of the City Council.

[Carlo Simi’s daughter, Guiditta, and Joseba del Valle, one of the protagonists of the documentary “Unearthing Sad Hill”.]

With the help of the municipal architect, Javier Sánchez and the councillor Yolanda Cuevas, he toured the building, structurally in good condition, with stone walls and wooden beams that offer a very western aesthetic, but which needs a good reform. "Nice molto," he said almost at every turn, worrying about what the lighting would be like and whether the plans and drawings could be hung on the stone walls. Also photographs of the filming or those that Simi previously took of the locations to later make the designs.

Between cinema and reality. The most advanced aspect of the project is the design of the building, as the architect later presented, enthusiastic about this museum that could be named Simi-Sad Hill. The access to it would be through a garden and it is intended that the silhouette of Clint Eastwood welcomes visitors, who would then literally walk between steel tombstones (converted into information panels) and that would simulate the famous cemetery.

The ground floor would be a kind of subterranean world, a darker space, like a kind of cemetery. When you enter the first floor there will be more light and from there you will go up to a second floor. "There will be the real knowledge of cinema, an area of library, film library and documentation and research room."

Dynamic. The large amount of material available has led to the suggestion that it will be mainly the one related to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly that will be part of the permanent exhibition, although there could also be other films. "Later, temporary exhibitions could be made with other material, so people who have visited it will do it again because it has different content," explained Joseba del Valle, one of the protagonists of the documentary Unearthing Sad Hill and involved with the implementation of this project, for which the idea of a dynamic museum is being worked on. that hosts screenings or presentations, and the form of management could be as a Living Museum.

The rear outer area, the Garden of God, will also be important. A landscaped place, with steps placed in a semicircle reminiscent of Sad Hill and which will also be adapted, among others, with the planting of junipers, so that it resembles the original even more.

The first site that was thought of as the headquarters of Carlo Simi's museum was San Pedro de Arlanza. However, the idea had to be scrapped because part of it was committed to the Park House and there was not enough space. At that time, the City Council of Covarrubias took a step forward "because the opportunity that this collection was not in the region could not be missed".

A project of 300,000 euros that the Board is already aware of. Once the predisposition of the family and the City Council of Covarrubias to make the project a reality is clear, other steps have begun to be taken. The initiative has already been brought to the attention of organizations such as the City Council of Burgos or the University of Burgos, as well as verbally by Agalsa. They have all shown their intention to collaborate with her. The latest institutional breakthrough was made yesterday through a meeting between staff from the General Directorate of Cultural Policies of the Junta de Castilla y León and the architect Javier Sancho; Councilwoman Yolanda Cuevas; the daughter of Simi and Joseba del Valle. "The feelings behind it are very positive, as they found it a very interesting proposal," explained the latter.

The promoters of the museum explained that they are considering an investment of close to 300,000 euros to adapt the building, as long as it is ceded by the Archbishopric, in addition to everything that its musealization entails. To do this, they will try to apply for different lines of aid. The agreement between the Simi family and the City Council of Covarrubias to address the use and management of the material has also yet to be finalized.

Why One of the Best Spaghetti Westerns Ever Was Never Released in the States

 This 1960s Spaghetti Western subverted every genre trope, and U.S. distributors were not happy.

Collider

By Aled Owen

October 7, 2023

While Sergio Leone's "Man With No Name" trilogy climaxed in the mid-1960s with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, another Spaghetti Western director was experiencing his own international success story. 1966's Django made such a huge splash for director Sergio Corbucci that nearly 40 other Spaghetti Westerns set to release in the following years were renamed to include the name "Django" and ride on the coattails of Corbucci's success. Of course, it also went on to inspire 2012's Django Unchained written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, and the 2023 series from Sky/Canal+. In 1987, Corbucci would eventually direct the only official sequel, Django Strikes Again, but his true follow-up came only two years after Django when he made Il Grande Silenzio — also known as The Great Silence.

The '60s were a time of great change worldwide, both culturally and politically. As such, Hollywood's long line of conservative Westerns (a la John Ford and John Wayne) were oppressed by the gritty reality of "mud and blood", as Corbucci himself put it. Shot largely in Italy, the Spaghetti Western's disassociation with the real American West setting gave it the perspective to tell its stories in an unadulterated warts-and-all manner. Although Corbucci expressed disdain for the hippie culture of the '60s, he was an undeniable leftist and anti-authoritarian. His films explored his politics but were largely consumed by conservatives, making for the perfect Trojan Horse for his ideas. However, with The Great Silence, its pessimistic ending was too much, and the film was not released in the United States until the new millennium.

From the very opening of The Great Silence, Sergio Corbucci flips the script. In an era when bounty killers became the only conceivable way of policing the great frontiers, groups of innocent "outlaws" hid in the wild, weathering the elements in the hopes of evading the bloodthirsty, money-hungry men paid to kill them for profit (led by Klaus Kinski's Loco). That's where our hero comes in, a mute known only as Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant). As a killer of killers, Silence becomes a symbol, striking fear into the hearts of those who make money from senselessly killing men and women without a trial. From the very start, the film swaps the traditional archetypes, showing us a world much grayer than the black-and-white world of '50s Westerns, and the poignancy of this idea continues to this day.

According to Repo Man director and Corbucci historian Alex Cox, "Corbucci apparently was moved, not by the more celebrated murders of Robert Kennedy or Dr. Martin Luther King, but by the deaths of Che Guevara and Malcolm X. He was something of a leftist, and he apparently made Grande Silenzio as a tribute to those two revolutionary fighters." Shot in the Italian Alps (doubling for 1899 Utah), the story also sees Silence fall in love with the widow of one of Loco's victims, a strong-willed African-American woman named Pauline (Vonetta McGee). Their interracial romance alluded to the ongoing Civil Rights movement in the United States, but that wasn't what made 20th Century Fox refuse to release The Great Silence in the States.

The U.S. distribution rights were bought by 20th Century Fox as a gift for actor Clint Eastwood whose success in Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns made him Hollywood's go-to gunslinger and a successor to the aging John Wayne. The idea was for Eastwood to star in an English-language remake of Il Grande Silenzio in the role of the mute gunfighter. 20th Century Fox's Darryl Francis Zanuck was shown a screening of the Italian original and was offended by its cynical ending in which the wounded Silence tries and fails to save the innocent outlaws and is killed alongside his lover at the hand of the brutal and unstoppable bounty killers.

"He swallowed his cigar and said, '20th Century Fox would never release this picture!'" stated Cox, who went on to reveal that Corbucci had expected this and shot two alternate endings for the film, as seen in the Blu-ray release. One sees the hero effortlessly kill all his enemies and liberate the bounties, making for an unearned happy ending "of such cynical and bizarre proportions that it's unbelievable." The second alternate ending feels somewhere in-between, with Silence being shot and one of Loco's men leaving the building calmly. This bittersweet ending is vague and bizarre. As a result, Fox released the film in foreign territories but not in the States. As for Eastwood, the project was developed into a completely unrelated movie called, Joe Kidd.

For decades, the film endured, being passed around during its second life on home video, and even garnered a cult following. It became a legendary film, sought out by cinephiles and collectors until 2012, the year of Tarantino's Spaghetti Western part revival, part homage Django Unchained. With Spaghetti Westerns back in the zeitgeist and audiences hungry for the original movies that inspired the new Tarantino film, the demand for The Great Silence was prevalent. Under license from Beta Film, the film experienced its first U.S. theatrical release, when an English-dubbed 35mm print was toured around the country. Tarantino's follow-up The Hateful Eight would take lots of direct inspiration from The Great Silence specifically, with Little White Lies reporting, "With its snowed-in setting, homicidal bounty hunters and original Ennio Morricone score, [it] bears a striking resemblance to Italian director Sergio Corbucci’s blood-soaked Spaghetti Western from 1968."

The Great Silence subverted every trope established by the genre before it, stripping it down to reveal what truly matters in the genre. It exchanges the great Western desert plains for the snowy wasteland of the 1899 blizzard. It swaps the roles of the traditional law enforcers and the man in black. It gave its female heroine a three-dimensional character. And of course, most shockingly, it subverts expectations by having the villains win and the hero loses. How then can this possibly be part of the Western genre if it breaks almost all its rules? Because, in short, it's only by deconstructing the genre that we are able to truly define it, and in the case of The Great Silence, Corbucci makes it clear that all a Western needs is a character with a moral view of right and wrong who lives and dies by that code... even if it's not to 20th Century Fox's liking!