Alive or preferably Dead Review
From The Spaghetti Western Database
< Vivi o, preferibilmente, morti
- 1969
- Dir: Ducio Tessari
- Cast: Giuliano Gemma, Nino Benvenuti, Sydne Rome, Chris Huerta, Antonio Casas, Georges Rigaud
- Music: Gianni Ferrio
Like 1965, 1969 was a transitional year for the Italian western. The glory years of the spaghetti western seemed over and the year was marked by a noticeable decline in the number of westerns in production. For this reason film makers started looking for ways to breathe new life into the genre. The Sartana and Sabata movies are often called the spaghetti western’s answer to the Bond movies, Alive or preferably Dead was suppose to launch the acting career of Italian boxing champion Nino Benvenuti, the man who had become a national legend by winning a gold medal on the 1960 Olympics in Rome. From the beginning it was a plagued production: Producer Turo Vasile confessed he had bought a mere idea for a movie without paying much attention to it, because he had been fascinated by the wonderful title, and as soon as shooting started, it became clear that good old Nino had no acting talents at all.
Giuliano Gemma was cast alongside Benvenuti; this seemed a good idea since Gemma had done some boxing during his military service. Actually it turned out that the two men had met in the gym when doing their military service without knowing each other. On the set the soon became friends (for life), but Nino’s boxing skills almost turned out to be a bigger problem than his lack of thespian talents. Gemma in an interview: “Professional boxers have punches that are so quick and close to the body that they’re almost invisible, so we had to instruct him to slow down a little and to throw his punches wider. We also asked him to act and react more theatrically, and of course to hit in the right, that is the wrong place, otherwise he would have knocked everybody out with the first punch!” Gemma was reunited with director Duccio Tessari, with whom he had made the two Ringo movies in ’65 ; like the first Ringo movie, A Pistol for Ringo, Alive or preferably Dead is a blend of action and humour, but the emphasis is more on the bright side this time. Actually, the affair is so feather light that the tougher, more serious scenes feel completely alien to the movie. The story is as follows: two estranged brothers, the first a fashionable city gambler (Gemma), the second a farmer living out West (Benvenuti), inherit a fortune from their late uncle, on the condition that they manage to life together (like their mother would always have wanted) for six months. When Gemma arrives at his brother’s place, he insults the local bully (Huerta), who burns down Benvenuti’s house out of rage. The two brothers are now forced to do all kind of stupid things to make a living (and pass the time), such as robbing a bank (but the bank uses them to ‘rob’ the insurance company) and kidnap the corrupt banker’s daughter (but he’s glad to get rid of her for a while). Eventually their ‘inheritance’ will be completely different from what they were hoping for, but by then they have become inseparable. All’s well that ends well.
Expectations were very high and despite the bad comments the film did pretty well at the box-office (but it ruined Nino's acting career, he would only make one more film). The opening scene, set in turn of the century New York (quite a unique setting for a spaghetti western opening I'd say), it nice and some of the jokes aren’t bad, but Tessari never manages to integrate them into the script, more a collection of vignettes than anything else. Sydne Rome (replacing Elke Sommer, the first choice for the part) is sexy, and has a nice bathing scene with the two brothers approaching her from different sides, but she’s been given some of the stupidest lines in film history. Both Chris Huerta and Antonio Casas (as the brothers’ ally during their criminal activities) seem to enjoy themselves rather well, but they pop in and out of the movie like the birds of a cuckoo clock, performing their act every ten minutes or so. Gemma has a few inspired moments (and shows some new tricks, like shooting from behind his back when his hands are tied), but most of the time he is too busy coaching Benvenuti. All I can say about Gianni Ferrio’s bizarre score is that it fits the movie well. And so does the silly title that was given to the movie in several countries: Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid, obviously in an attempt to capitalize on another movie.
Somehow a better movie keeps shimmering through and I guess Enzo Barboni would have worked miracles with this material. As it is, it’s not completely unlikable, but only recommendable to undiscriminating fans of comedy spaghettis or kids, and for them (the kids that is) some of the more violent scenes (like Huerta’s men throwing red-hot charcoal on the brothers’ bare chests) are cut from some versions. Alive or preferably Dead is perfectly forgettable nonsense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nino_Benvenuti
--By Scherpschuttter
