Alive or preferably Dead Review
Director:
- Duccio Tessari
Cast:
- Giuliano Gemma
- Nino Benvenuti
- Sydne Rome
- Cris Huerta
- Antonio Casas
- Georges Rigaud
- Julio Peña
- Nello Pazzafini
- Dan van Husen
- Duccio Tessari
Music:
- Gianni Ferrio
Alive, or preferably Dead (Vivi, o, preferibilmente, morti) / View Database Page
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. Alive or preferably Dead was supposed to launch the acting career of Italian boxing champion Nino Benvenuti. 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 Benvenuti was one of the greatest middleweight boxers in history, but not one the greatest actors.
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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 they 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, this movie 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 out of place. 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 live 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, such as robbing a bank (but the bank uses them to ‘rob’ the insurance company) and kidnap the corrupt banker’s daughter (but the banker'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.
The opening scene, set in turn of the century New York (quite a unique setting for a spaghetti western), is nice and some of the jokes aren’t bad, but the script is more a series 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 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. Gianni Ferrio’s bizarre score fits the movie well.
In some countries it was called Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid, obviously in an attempt to capitalize on another movie. Alive or preferably Dead is not completely unlikable, but it seems mainly aimed at kids, while some of the more violent scenes (like Huerta’s men throwing red-hot charcoal on the brothers’ bare chests) may be a bit too scary for small children.
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Nino Benvenuti
Giovanni ‘Nino’ Benvenuti became a national hero when he won the welterweight Gold Medal on the Olympics in Rome 1960. He is considered by many to be the greatest Italian boxer in history. After winning the Olympic title, he became a professional. He won all possible titles in the light middleweight division, but lost the world title in 1966 in South Korea, in a fight against a local boxer. Benvenuti thought the result was unjustified and was so appalled that he rejected the offer of a rematch. Instead he decided to concentrate on the more lucrative middleweight division. He had three legendary fights against Emile Griffith (he lost one and won two) which owed him the middleweight championship title of the world. He lost the title in 1970 to that other middleweight legend from the period, Argentine Carlos Monzon. After he had also lost the rematch, in 1971, he decided to retire.
His acting career was brief but he became a successful businessman. The man with the lethal punch is known to be a very gentle person in daily life; not only did he become good friends with Giuliano Gemma, but also with his two greatest rivals in the ring, Griffith and Monzon. After Monzon had been convicted for murdering his wife, Nino remained loyal to his old pal and paid him several visits in his Argentine jail.
