User:Scherpschutter

Chicago was the most fashionable cinema of Eindhoven. Most blockbusters premiered here. The cinema was build in 1913 but renovated several times; the most important renovation took place in 1945, immediately after the war, when the theatre got a new façade, a very high one without windows. This façade was used as some kind of giant advertising pillar. On the other side of the shopping street was a warehouse with a restaurant on the third or fourth floor. Once they had attached a gigantic 007 to the façade and from my seat near the window I looked him right in the eye. The name of the movie was written (in Dutch) above his head: You only live Twice. I asked my mother what this was supposed to mean. Did you live twice? Only twice? She had no idea. Remarkably, the theatre was composed of two separate buildings, one with the ticket office and the entrance hall, and another where the films were actually shown; they were connected by a long corridor with a foyer, a small bar and a series of show windows with info on films that were expected to be on the program soon. Walking through this beautiful corridor gave you the idea you were part of the beau monde. It had 833 (very comfortable) seats. It wasn’t the largest cinema in town, nor was the one with the largest screen. But it was the first cinema in Holland with stereo sound (guess why) and until 1980, when the second building (where the films where shown) was completely destroyed in a fire, it was known as one of Holland’s finest cinemas and the one with the best sound. Westerns were a rarity in the Chicago Theatre, still I saw my first western here: Mackenna’s Gold. I guess it was during a Christmas or Easter holiday, since the cinema was loaded with boys of my age, and a Titanic scale agitation broke out when Julie Newmar took off her clothes and jumped into the water. I also saw my first spaghetti western in this theatre, the chopped-up version of Once upon a Time in the West.

Rembrandt Theatre Eindhoven

The Rembrandt theatre was, so to speak, the direct opposite of the Chicago theatre: the most ‘popular’ cinema of Eindhoven. It was also the largest: it had 1300 seats, but they were far less comfortable than the seats in Chicago. Still it always felt good to watch a movie here. There were no attendants telling you to be quiet or to put out your cigarette. Not that I ever smoked, a true fan won’t ever do that in cinema, but you really had the idea everybody was welcome here. I saw Return of Ringo, my second spaghetti western, and For a Few Dollars More in this theatre, along with several other spaghetti and non-spaghetti westerns. The cinema was known for their rather flashy painted boards above the entrance, showing scenes of the movie. I remember Death rides a Horse was shown here, and when I close my eyes I still see the enormous painting with the Dutch title ‘De Dood kwam te Paard’, which sounded, like the English title, quite bizarre, but was therefore the most beautiful title of a movie I had ever heard of. The problem was I wasn’t allowed to see it: it had an ’18 rating’ and I was only thirteen or fourteen years old. In 1960 the owner bought the adjacent premises (the building right of the theatre on the photo) for a second cinema. This cinema was smaller but offered more comfort, and was called ‘Select’. It was intended for art house movies and European (mainly Italian and French) mainstream cinema, but occasionally a western was shown here. I saw both The Wild Bunch and The Mercenary in the Select theatre in the early seventies (both must have been reruns because I was too young for them when they were first released), and the uncut version of Once upon a Time in the West was also shown for the first time in Eindhoven in this theatre. Both Rembrandt and Select were transformed in a multiplex cinema in the mid-seventies. This complex was closed down thirty years later and replaced by apartment building. The world is falling apart.

Cinema Parisien Eindhoven

Like the Select theatre, this Dutch Cinema with a French name (it means ‘Parisian Cinema’) was intended for commercially less interesting films, but it was used for this purpose only for a brief period and soon became a typical ‘popular cinema’, which exclusively programmed comedies and action movies. In spite of all this it still had attendants in uniform who showed you to your place and became very angry when someone dared to take another (more expensive) seat after the film had started. It was in this cinema that I witnessed how the operator stopped the movie because one of the visitors refused to put his cigarette out. I think the movie was A Few Dollars for Django, but I’m not sure. I remember the incident better than the movie. I saw only a handful of spaghettis in this theatre during their regular program, but among them are Vamos a Matar, Compañeros (my first Corbucci) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Still this is the theatre I identify most with the genre because of their midnight showings of spaghetti westerns in the 70s. I must have seen more than twenty spaghettis during these showings, which also offered me the chance to pick up movies I wasn’t allowed to see ten years before, such as Death rides a Horse. There were nearly always a few drunks in the audience, and occasionally the atmosphere was as heated among them as it was on the screen. Cinema Parisien was rather small, it had only 350 seats. On the photo you can see the façade in the middle on the right, somewhere between the elephant (a toyshop) and Tik Tak (a bar). The photo was taken in 1977. When you look left of 'the elephant', you can spot the modern multiplex Rembrandt building, openened shortly before. Cinema Parisien was one of the last ancient cinemas that resisted the modern plague: like many old timers it was renovated in the 70s (the number of seats was brought back to 271) but while other cinemas underwent a complete metamorphosis, Cinema Parisien more or less kept his old classic style. It was finally closed in 1998.

Metropole Theater Eindhoven

The Metropole theatre belonged to a different, family-owned corporation, the City group. They owned three cinemas: Plaza (blue movies), Studio M (arthouse) and Metropole, their largest theatre, always struggling to rival Chicago, and never really successful in that aspect: people simply seemed to prefer Chicago to Metropole, probably because it was located in a more inviting part of town. Metropole was located near the train station, where the town centre virtually ended. The small shop next to the cinema (on the right, under the Telegraaf publicity sign) was a sex shop, which also might have hurt the cinema’s prestige. The Metrople theatre had 1194 seats, had the largest wall-to-wall screen in town, and boasted with a sound system that was told to be more powerful than the prestigious sound system of the Chicago theatre. It was definitely louder. Watching a movie in Metropole was quite an experience. In the seventies they were on the national News when a few lamps were vibrated loose during the showing of the sensurround movie Earthquake (luckily it wasn’t a very popular movie, so nobody was hurt). Metropole showed a variety of movies, ranging from mainstream European cinema to Hollywood classics and action movies. My first experience with the loudness of the theatre was Spartacus. I saw two Leone movies here: A Fistful of Dollars and (on another rerun) Once Upon a Time in the West. I also saw (on yet another rerun) The Wild Bunch in all it’s thunderous wall-to-wall bloody glory. The Metropole was build in 1958 (previously the Otten family had owned another cinema, called City, hence the name of the corporation) and closed its doors in 1986, but the building was only demolished in 1993. Today a modern multiplex building called Pathé has taken its place. A few years ago I watched Once upon a Time in the West in one of their cinemas on a Tuesday night.

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< La Spina Dorsale del Diavolo

1970

Director: Burt Kennedy
Cast: Bekim Fehmiu, Richard Crenna, John Huston, Chuck Connors, Ian Bannen, Woody Strode, Brandon De Wilde, Ricardo Montalban, Slim Pickens, Mimo Palmara, Patrick Wayne, Lucio Rosato, Fuasto Tozzi
Music: Piero Piccioni

When Hollywood went to Almeria to shoot Italianate American westerns, the Italians, ironically, started looking at Hollywood for new inspiration. Directed by a Hollywood veteran, starring a variety of stalwarts from Hollywood westerns, but produced by Dino de Laurentiis, and shot in Italy, Yugoslavia and Spain, The Deserter almost feels like a compromise movie. It’s part revenge movie, part men-with-a-mission movie, a sort of spaghetti western meets Major Dundee meets The Dirty Dozen. What sets it apart among the bulk of Indian westerns made in the late sixties and early seventies (both in Europe and the US), is the total lack of understanding of the awkward situation of the red man. The Indians are not shown as victims of the white man’s greed or thoughtlessness, nor are their cruelties excused, or merely explained, by similar acts of the other side. They are simply shown as an obstacle, as a threat to civilization that must me neutralized with a pre-emptive strike. “If we don’t attack them, we’ll all get killed.”

In the opening scene, a young cavalry officer, Victor Kaleb, finds his woman in agony: she has been skinned alive by the Apaches. To save her from further sufferings, he ends her life with a bullet from his own gun. Kaleb blames the army for not protecting the outpost were she was tortured, so he becomes a deserter and an avenger. Dressed like an Indian, he stalks the Apaches and shoots them without warning. The non-conformist general Miles thinks Kaleb is the ideal leader of an illegal search-and-destroy mission across the border, against the the Apache stronghold defended by chief Durango and his marauding troops. Kaleb accepts the general’s offer because he presumes the mission will offer him the chance to kill all Apaches …

Set on both sides of the border, with the American commander organizing an illegal search-and-destroy party (‘to avoid worse’) because the rules of engagement prevent him from starting an official military campaign, the equations with the Vietnam war seem obvious. Most probably the reactionary overtones were the main reason for the lukewarm reception of the movie, both in Europe and in the US. Political incorrectness anno 1970. Note that the Italian title, La Spina Dorsale del Diavolo, the Devil’s Backbone, refers to the base of the Apaches in the mountains, south of the border. Note also that Al-Qa’eda means base. It’s of course purely coincidental, just like Fehmiu’s red bandana, that makes him look like Rambo, but it will be clear that the film has aged quite well. Some will even say it was far ahead of its time…

Serbian actor Fehmiu had risen to stardom in his home country before Dino the Laurentiis cast him, in 1968, as Odysseus in a successful four part mini-series. It was his second appearance in an major international production, following the disastrous The Adventurers (1970, Lewis Gilbert). Most contemporary critics called his performance wooden, probably because many of them were still rather unfamiliar with the typical unflinching spaghetti western anti-hero (unless he was played by Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson). To me his performance seems spot-on. Fehmiu is seconded by a motley crew of familiar faces, such as (among many others) Slim Pickens, Richard Crenna and John Huston. Some of them had made their appearance in one or more spaghetti westerns, most notably Woody Strode and Chuck Connors, while Huston had directed a bible movie (the book was definitely better) for De Laurentiis a few years earlier. Surprise appearances are made by Patrick ‘son of’ Wayne and Brandon de Wilde, once the young boy from Shane, here an adult with chubby cheeks. Ian Bannon has a nice cameo as a British observer, who’s making a report for her Majesty the Queen (he seems a late descendant of the comic-relief character Lord Castlepool from the Karl May movies). The Indians are played by either Latin-Americans (Montalban) or Italians (Palmara). Somehow it seems to make sense. We're in Europe, so they are the natives.

I watched the film with low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised. It's violent and a bit nasty, the way most of us like their westerns. Somehow those reactionary overtones are refreshing. The first half hour is particularly strong; afterwards – as soon as the ‘mission part’ starts – it falls into a more familiar and predictable pattern, but it remains entertaining throughout. Kennedy’s direction is more than adequate, still you ask yourself what a Peckinpah or an Aldrich would’ve done with this material. They probably would have developed some of the characters better – and skipped others. Especially Conners’ Father Dynamite (a chaplain who is at the same time an explosives experts) is unnecessary gear for an already overloaded script.Fairly good use has been made of the locations, especially those in Spain. For the movie a fort, ‘Fort Bowie’ was built, that was used again several times afterwards (1). The finale, the eventual attack on the Devil’s Backbone, is a bit of a letdown. It feels rushed and is set at night, probably to detract viewers’ attention from a few unrealistic sets. According to Mimo Palmara, the sequence was not filmed on location but in Rome, in the De Laurentiis studios, during the terribly cold December month of ’69 (2). Palmera played Chief Durango with a naked upper body. This was definitely not a pro-Indian western.(3)

How to watch it – There’s no DVD available apart from an Australian R4 DVD, which is said to be fullscreen and of poor picture quality. There’s a Dutch VHS release by Esselte CIC Video. Image quality is good, but fullscreen. The cassette was also released, with similar cover design, in several Scandivanian countries. I watched a fansub version, created by hocico for cinemageddon. It’s in about 2,20:1. It’s far from great, but it’s watchable, and it seems to be the only widescreen version available.

Notes:

(1) http://www.western-locations-spain.com/andalucia/almeria/fort_bowie/index.htm

(2) Marco Giusti, Dizionario dell Western all’Italiana

(3) Several sources list Niska Fulgosi as co-director, but the (Italian) actors interviewed by Giusti for his book, only remember Kennedy. He might have done some scenes shot in Yugoslavia. Some think he re-cut and re-edited some of the material shot by Kennedy to create the ‘European’ (shorter) cut of the movie, which is, by the way, the only one available today. It runs, including end credits, 99 minutes. The official American version runs, according to most sources, 105 minutes, but seems to lack an early scene with Fehmiu shooting two unarmed Indians sitting around a camp fire

--By Scherpschutter

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From The Spaghetti Western Database

Contents

THE CINEMAS OF MY YOUTH

Chicago Theatre – Eindhoven

Rembrandt Theatre Eindhoven

Cinema Parisien Eindhoven

Metropole Theater Eindhoven

MY LATEST REVIEW

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