Adiós Sabata Review

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Sabata (1969) | Adios Sabata (1970) | Return of Sabata (1971)

Dir: Giancarlo Parolini - Cast: Yul Brynner, Dean Reed, Ignazio Spalla, Gerard Herter, Sal Borgese, Franco Fantasia, Joseph P. Persaud, Rick Boyd, Bruno Corazzari - Music: Bruno Nicolai

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In the Italian language version, the character played by Yul Brynner is called Indio Black, but for the international market he was renamed Sabata. Several viewers have noticed that Brynner is called "Sabata" (not "Indio") by those actors who mouth their lines in English. Apparently the rebaptism took place while the film was still being shot. According to Alex Cox, Lee van Cleef, the original Sabata, rejected the offer to star in it because the producers didn’t want to pay the fee Lee was asking (1). For the sake of symmetry, it has also been suggested that Lee preferred to star in The Magnificent Seven Ride, a false sequel to The Magnificent Seven, in which he played a character originally played by Yul Brynner (2). Yul playing Lee, Lee playing Yul. It sounds great, but The Magnificent Seven Ride was released two years after Adios Sabata, so it’s very unlikely that they were shot simultaneously.

There’s no good reason, other than the presence of Brynner, to deny this one a place in the Sabata trilogy. It tells a story that is very close in structure to the original movie, with several actors in identical roles (and a few other actors in similar roles), while it’s not too difficult to imagine van Cleef in the Brynner part, be it Sabata or Indio Black. He wears a fringy uniform instead of a black cloak, but the character is roughly the same, a mysterious gunman spiraling his way through a labyrinthine plot populated with foes who may be friends, and friends who may be foes. The story is set in Mexico, in Maximilian times. Sabata is asked, by a guerilla leader, to rob a wagon load of gold from the Austrian army with the help of a small group of revolutionaries. When they manage to obtain the wagon, it’s not filled with gold, but with sand. Behind all this, is the evil Colonel Skimmel of the occupying forces, who wants the gold for himself. Sabata plans to steal the gold back from Skimmel, and finally gets the better of the Austrian, but is then outmanoeuvred by one of his associates …

Sabata’s side-kick (the inevitable Spalla) screams a revolutionary battle-cry every now and then, but this can hardly be called a Zapata western. Basically it’s the story from the first movie in a new setting, with a few additional ideas, taken from Robert Aldrich' Vera Cruz (1954). Skimmel, the monocle-wearing dandy who likes to shoot Mexican prisoners in Major Jackson style, is a replacement for the homosexual sadist Stengel from the previous movie, Dean Reed’s piano playing Ballantine is an ersatz Banjo, and instead of Alley Cat (not a great loss) we get Sal Borgese as a sort of Diego Maradona avant la lettre, who fires tiny cannonballs with his feet.

While some of the characters are even more eccentric than their counterparts, the film itself is more straightforward than its predecessor; it’s gimmick-ridden, but less concerned with the typical postmodern playfulness about reality versus show that had marked the first Sabata (and would mark the third). There are no false duels here, and if the plot is confusing, the confusion seems accidental, not intentional. Even the ambiguity of Dean Reed’s Ballantine is of a transparent nature. In the end, the postmodern jokes in relation to "identity", are more related to objects than characters. Sal Borgese’s mini cannonballs have already been mentioned. They’re echoed in what is probably the film’s luckiest strike, a model ship with mini cannons firing real cannonballs, as lethal as they are small.

Opinions about Brynner’s performance differ. Donald Guarisco of All Movie thinks “he brings a brooding, ominous undercurrent to the role that gives the film an added bit of tension” (3) . This might be true, but to me his granite face and monolithic stature would have suited a Leone western better (he would have been a good Harmonica). Apparently he behaved like an enormous pain in the a... on the set. To begin with he refused to say a word to Reed, who was a communist, and had torn the American flag in reaction to the country's foreign policy (in relation to South America). He also refused to look smaller than Reed, who was in fact several inches taller, so Parolini had to “level” the two actors for every scene they had in common. To make things worse, Brynner suffered from arthritis in his fingers, and had trouble handling that bizarre weapon of his, a lever action rifle with the horizontal magazine carrying seven cartridges and one cigar (4).

Generations of fullscreen and truncated versions have jeopardized the reputation of this movie. Watched in its full length and widescreen beauty it’s a remarkably enjoyable spaghetti western, on a par with the first Sabata. The violence is quite strong, notably during the scene with Skimmel shooting the Mexicans. There had been scenes of bandits shooting defenseless peons in films as varied as A Pistol for Ringo and Django, but none had been as provocative as this one; Giusti draws a parallel with a similar scene in Schindler’s List, with Joseph Fiennes shooting Jewish prisoners (5). I have never been a fan of Reed, maybe because of his hair, that doesn’t seem to fit in a western, but he turns in a decent performance here, and so does Borgese. Even Spalla is (more or less) endurable. Bruno Nicolai's score is highlighted by a whistling theme reminiscent of a the famous whistling theme of Roberto Pregadio’s score for The Forgotten Pistolero. This is a mighty fine genre example. Of course, it's a Parolini movie, so occasionally it glides off into his circus world, but overall it's the real thing. MGM offers excellent releases in both regions 1 & 2 for almost no money at all. Get one before it’s too late.

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Notes:

• (1) Alex Cox, 10.000 Ways to Die, pag. 277
• (2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi%C3%B3s,_Sabata
• (3) http://www.allmovie.com/work/83133
• (4) (5) Marco Giusti, Dizionario del Western all’Italiano

--By Scherpschutter

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