Savage Guns – Four Classic Westerns (1968-1975) A Quartet of Bleak and Gritty Late Period Spaghetti Westerns (Review)

Four of the Italian western’s hardest, cruelest, bloodiest classics are released to Blu-ray this week in Arrow’s ongoing limited edition series of Spaghetti Western boxsets. Under the umbrella title Savage Guns, this third volume brings four unsung classics of the genre aficionados of heavily dubbed, violent and sun-baked horse operas: Paolo Bianchini’s 1968 film I Want Him Dead; 1969’s El Puro from director Edoardo Mulargia; Mario Camus’ Wrath of the Wind from 1970; and lastly, Lucio Fulci’s Four of the Apocalypse from 1975. Each film is arguably from the tail end of the Spaghetti Western boom, and each is unified by their deeply pessimistic tones, as the revolutionary optimism of the 1960s gave way to the sobering realities of bloody cynicism and despair.

What many Western fans may cite as a strength in the genre is its familiarity, as a good Western is like a comfortable item of clothing – something you can literally just slip into and be content with its formulaic storytelling. Bainchini’s I Want Him Dead fits much of this pattern, depicting two familiar plotlines that ultimately converge upon one another. The film stars American Craig Hill as our hero, Clayton – a former Confederate scout looking for the quiet life who’s suddenly compelled to take up arms once more. He seeks revenge upon a band of outlaws responsible for the rape and murder of his sister Mercedes (the former Miss Italy of 1967, Cristina Businari), led by the aptly named Jack Blood (Jose Manuel Martin).

To that end, the movie is reminiscent of one of the major plots in Sergio Leone’s 1965 classic For a Few Dollars More, which saw Lee Van Cleef’s bounty hunter, Colonel Mortimer, on the hunt for Gian Maria Volonté’s notorious outlaw, El Indio, after he too discovers his sister raped and murdered. Another fond narrative trope of the Spaghetti Western is the political machinations of the American Civil War, and this too raises its head here as its revealed that Blood is in the employ of a ruthless capitalist called Mellek (Andrea Bosic), who stands to gain considerably from a prolonged and bloody civil war. When Mellek learns of a top secret peace conference, he gives Blood the mission to assassinate both the Confederate and Union generals in attendance, and with Clayton on his tail, both storylines converge and the stakes are raised.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Bianchini and his screenwriter Carlos Sarabia mesh the two narratives together satisfyingly, and while this isn’t a bad film per se, it’s an underwhelming start to the boxset. In its favour, Craig Hill gives a good performance as our hero, but he’s often outshone by the real acting chops of Lea Massari (an actress better known for more high-brow movies such as Antonioni’s L’Avventura or Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli), as a vulnerable but defiant captive servant girl. The framing and composition work by Bianchini and his director of photography Ricardo Andreu is really strong – with a genuine feel for the Almerian landscape – and the soundtrack from Nico Fidenco is arguably the most memorable take-home of the whole experience.

Extras for I Want Him Dead include a new audio commentary by critics Adrian J. Smith and David Flint, a new interview with Bianchini, a new interview with editor Eugenio Alabiso, an archival interview with Nico Fidenco, a trailer and an image gallery.

If a good Western is like an item of clothing you immediately feel at home in, that’s not to say that there’s no merit in one you feel you have to try out and grow accustomed to – Edoardo Mulargia’s El Puro is one such movie that can linger long in the memory after you’ve witnessed it. This 1969 film is a strange affair as, on the surface at least, it tells a relatively straightforward and familiar story of a gunman suffering a crisis of confidence in the face of an impending threat – a greater-numbered enemy who are heading his way. So far, so Robert Vaughn in The Magnificent Seven, you might say.

The decision to have our titular hero (played by American Robert Woods), hide himself in the bottom of a whisky bottle affords the movie the opportunity to use trippy effects while leaning heavily into the notion of existentialism. In many respects El Puro is something of an ‘Acid Western’ – a subgenre of films that the Spaghetti’s first dallied with in 1967’s Django Kill … If You Live, Shoot!, and would surface in Hollywood with the likes of Peter Fonda’s 1971 movie The Hired Hand. This ‘out there’ atmosphere is enhanced by Woods’ own admission that he not only lent a hand in writing the movie (along with co-star Marco Fiorini who plays the psychopathic gang leader Gypsy), but that the pair were also indulging in recreational drugs during the shoot and discussing weighty philosophies like Zen and Buddhism.

Far be it from me to condone drug use, but it’s arguably this that elevates El Puro into something more interesting than the basic screenplay and character motivations. Mulargia clearly followed his two actors lead, and there are some sequences in the film in which the landscape takes on an unnaturally blue or green hue – very trippy indeed.

El Puro is a deeply meditative, slow-paced, and ultimately gloomy film that operates to the beat of its own drum, but it’s enlivened abruptly by one of the most shocking moments of violence ever committed to the genre. If I Want Him Dead‘s merciless gang rape, murder, and graphic two-fisted attacks on Craig Hill were hard to stomach, then nothing can prepare you for the brutal beating to death that is the fate of El Puro’s protector, saloon girl Rosie (Rosalba Neri), at the hands of outlaw Cassidy (Aldo Berti), as Gypsy watches with sadistic delight. It’s a memorable moment of misogynistic violence, but it’s a moment that has been surprisingly overshadowed by what happens immediately after it.

Homosexuality had long been implied in the Spaghetti Western genre, often in a coded way to denote the deviancy of its villains (a contemporary headache that is a whole can of worms to unpack), but it’s explicitly presented for the first time here as, immediately after Rosie is killed, Gypsy strides forward and kisses Cassidy fully on the lips – the implication being that he has been sexually aroused by the murder. It’s a moment that wasn’t found in the film’s original shooting script, instead being a serendipitous bit of inspiration between Fiorini and bisexual actor Berti. So seminal has that moment become amongst Italian cult movie fans that, when Brokeback Mountain premiered in the country, many pointed at El Puro to imply it had already been done many years before!

One thing that El Puro doesn’t get the jump on however, is the score by Alessandro Alessandroni – which is heavily reminiscent of Morricone’s work on the Dollars trilogy. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but clearly the composer didn’t get the memo from Woods and Fiorini that they were trying something new here.

Extras for El Puro include a new commentary by Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson, a new interview with Robert Woods, a new in-depth appreciation of the soundtrack and its composer by musician and disc collector Lovely Jon, and two versions of the film: the 98-minute cut, presented in Italian and English; and the longer 108-minute version, presented with a hybrid English/Italian mix.

The third film in this boxset is something of an ugly duckling. Directed by Mario Camus, Wrath of the Wind stars Terence Hill, who had just enjoyed his first international box office success alongside screen partner Bud Spencer in the light-hearted film They Call Me Trinity, but Wrath of the Wind isn’t actually a Spaghetti Western. Instead, it’s a political drama based on the true story of an uprising of campesinos (peasant farmers and day labourers), against their exploitative, rich, landowning masters in turn of the century Spain. Where it gets confusing is that, thanks to Hill’s success, some territories misleadingly marketed it as a Trinity film, Trinity Voit Rouge, Revenge of Trinity or Trinity Sees Red to be exact.

Wrath of the Wind gets by in the boxset because its plot and temperament shares some similarities with your average Spaghetti, or more specifically a Zapata Western, and because it’s a good film in its own right. The Zapatas, or Tortilla Westerns, were often more explicitly political and often detailed the events of the Mexican Revolution, with many of them focusing on an outsider figure (often an anti-hero), who comes amongst the peasants and agitates them into revolutionary action. Think of Franco Nero as the Polish gun-for-hire Kowalski in 1968’s The Mercenary, and as the arms dealer Peterson in 1970’s Compañeros, or James Coburn’s Irish revolutionary in Leone’s Duck, You Sucker from 1971, and you get the picture.

Wrath of the Wind follows a similar trajectory, presenting Terence Hill as the tight-lipped and enigmatic killer Marcos who, along with his more impulsive younger brother Jacobo (Mario Pardo), ride into town tasked with the mission to assassinate the anarchists leading the peasants rebellion. It’s only when Hill gets to see first-hand how the town operates that he develops a change of heart, though the allure of the comely Soledad (Maria Grazia Buccella), may have something to do with that too. Now Marcos takes up the mantle of the men he has killed, encouraging and advising the impoverished peasants how best to get the upper hand of their nemesis, Don Antonio – portrayed by The French Connection‘s Fernando Rey. There’s just one small problem – Jacobo hasn’t had the same change of heart as his older brother.

Religion goes hand in hand with the revolution in Camus’ movie, as it often did in Italian cinema of the ’60s and ’70s. The scenes in which Hill’s target (an itinerant wise man known only as ‘the Agitator’, played by Carlo Alberta Cortina), delivers his speeches to the peasants are shot in ways that intentionally evoke comparisons to Christ’s sermon on the mount. He’s even referred to as “a new Jesus” as he preaches that the land and its natural resources cannot be owned by one man alone. It’s such similarities that convince audiences that Camus had a much more serious and politically charged movie in mind, but it appears that the quasi-Spaghetti elements were subsequently imposed on him by producers who were already alarmed by the lengthy production process.

The blue-eyed and pleasant Hill is rather miscast as a stoney-faced, deadly serious man of few words – his chemistry with Buccella practically non-existent. Aside from having the latest, biggest star of the genre thrust upon Camus, I suspect Augusto Martelli’s ill-fitting score was also delivered at the behest of the producers – along with the ominous sounds of howling winds that are repeatedly intruding upon the action. These are more evocative of deserted frontier towns moments before a decisive gunfight than they are the lush agricultural heartlands being fought over here, to say nothing of labouring the metaphor of the film’s title.

Extras for Wrath of the Wind include a new audio commentary from critic and author Howard Hughes, a new interview with camera operator Roberto D’Ettorre Piazzoli, and a 2022 short film homage to the Spaghetti Western genre from Franciso Lacerda entitled They Call It … Red Cemetery!. Also included are the alternative title sequence for the Revenge of Trinity cut, an image gallery, and an alternate 106-minute Spanish-language version of the film featuring additional and extended scenes not found in the Italian or English versions.

The final film in the boxset is from Lucio Fulci, now perhaps best known for the gore-splattered Zombi 2. His 1975 movie Four of the Apocalypse tells the story of four ne’er-do-wells operating on, or cast out to, the margins of mainstream society. Written by Ennio De Concini, it’s credited as an adaptation of a short story by American writer Bret Harte and, as I haven’t read Harte’s work, I can’t say how faithful De Concini’s screenplay is – but I suspect that it isn’t all that much, and I imagine that the religious undertones have a lot to do with Roman Catholicism.

The eponymous four in question are Fabio Testi as Stubby Peterson – a travelling cardsharp, Lynne Frederick (the future wife of both Peter Sellers and David Frost), as Emanuelle ‘Bunny’ O’Neill – a pregnant teenaged sex worker, Michael J. Pollard as Clem – a drunk, and Guyanese-British actor Harry Baird as Bud Wilson – a disturbed but gentle black man (although the film expresses this in a much more derogatory way). These misfits are granted a reprieve by the sheriff of Salt Flat, Utah, when a white-hooded, puritanical vigilante group decides to rid the town of undesirables in a bloody massacre and lynching. Making their escape, our four protagonists cross the arid terrain in search of a place to call home – meeting first a wagon train of Swiss Amish with a similar mission, and then a seemingly helpful itinerant traveller.

Now as the Doors once sang, “There’s a killer on the road, his brain is squirming like a toad”, and that’s very much the template for the enigmatic stranger Chaco, played by Tomas Milian, who quickly reveals himself to be a psychotic, Mansonesque, long haired and beaded hippie when he shoots down a hunting party, skinning them alive before offering the four some peyote. In their tripping state, Milian ties the men up and proceeds to rape Frederick before taking his leave, shooting Pollard in the leg along the way. The four struggle to reach a mining town where Frederick gives birth to a child, but fate befalls them – depleting their number once more. The menfolk of the town decide to adopt the baby as a symbol of hope, while Testi rides out to settle a score once and for all with Milian.

If this all sounds rather strange, that’s because it is because, apart from the biblical references, Fulci’s film is, like El Puro, much more of an Acid Western. It takes the psychedelic tropes of the late ’60s, but has a negative view on the peace and love vibes, mindful of the fate of Sharon Tate who died on the instruction of the very man Milian bears a striking similarity to. This was the last Western to feature Milian, who had come to be a very big box office draw in Italy’s latest filoni boom, the Poliziotteschi. It’s rather fitting that his long haired, bearded physicality, once depicted as messianic in Django Kill, has now become wholly satanic here. It’s Milian that gives the film the trademark grisly violence you’d expect from a Fulci picture, specifically the notorious skinning alive sequence that puts all the violence seen across this boxset thus far into the nursery.

Four of the Apocalypse is a lyrical yet mean-spirited film, as befits the ’70s comedown from the failed vision of peace and love that existed in the previous decade. The film’s hippie pedigree continues in the soundtrack from Fulci regulars Franco Bixio, Fabio Frizzi and Vince Tempera, who produce a real Laurel Canyon, marshmallow-soft, adult-oriented rock vibe – specifically with the near yacht rock signature theme ‘Moving On‘

Extras for Four of the Apocalypse include a new audio commentary from author and producer Kat Ellinger, a new appreciation of the film by author, critic and Lucio Fulci scholar Stephen Thrower, a new appreciation of the soundtrack and its composers by Lovely Jon, a previously unreleased interview with production manager Roberto Sbarigia, and a newly restored trailer and image gallery.

Each film is presented with the option to hear the dialogue in its original Italian mix or the English dub and are presented in 2K HD restoration from the original 35mm prints, as well as being prefaced with an introduction by journalist and critic Fabio Melelli. The set comes complete with an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by author and critic Howard Hughes, and a fold-out double-sided poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranck. The set also includes limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring original artwork, and a slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vrancx.

Mark’s Archive – Savage Guns