I came, I saw, I shot review
* UNDER CONSTRUCTION *
Vado, vedo e sparo
This movie is often called a sequel to Any Gun can play, but apart from some similarities on script level, Castellari’s direction is the only link between the two movies. If Any Gun can play had successfully smuggled a touch of self-parody into the genre, this movie plays more like comedy of errors; it adopts the familiar spaghetti western promise of the motley threesome vying for a large sum of money, but instead of developing a storyline, it offers a collection of churlish and crude jokes, including a false suitcase (not holding the money but an old man's picnic lunch) and a young lady hiding the loot under her dress and faking a pregnancy.
The motley crew consists of Edwin Kean (Wolff), a master of disguise and expert in pyrotechnics, Moses Lang (Sabàto), the kind of guy who has another sweetheart in every other town, and Clay Watson (Saxon), a dandy card player who wins a fortune on a single night and hides a small Derringer in his inner pocket. The plot is no more than a semi-interminable series of changing alliances and double-crosses, evolving around the $ 400.000 Kean and Lang have stolen from the Springfield bank, after Lang had frustrated Kean’s plans to rob the stagecoach. As soon as one is in possession of the loot, the other two are hot on his heals.
The film begins quite promising with Wollf impersonating a priest in order to plant a stack of bibles - containing dynamite connected to a timer mechanism - onto the stagecoach. Sabàto’s first appearance as the ever-smiling scoundrel with four guns (who ruins a stagecoach robbery by robbing the stagecoach!) is also entertaining. Actually the first forty minutes are quite enjoyable, with a swift succession of unexpected encounters and fast getaways, but then it goes astray, with and endless series of acrobatic stunts, resulting in a sort of waterpolo game, the three leads, still fighting, throwing the suitcase with the money to each other. For bad measure, a large scale massacre (involving Mexican bandits and the US army) is thrown in, adding to the confusion. At the same time the movie remains more enjoyable than most comedy westerns made in the seventies (including Castellari’s own).
All in all the actors do well, although their endeavors (like most other things) tend to get lost in the shenanigans. Fiore is beautiful and Anchoriz performs his usual assortment of tricks as the Mexican gang leader. Castellari further develops his preference for odd compositions and camera angles, and Alejandro Ulloa’s fine cinematography does them proud. If anything, this is a good-looking movie. Carlo Rustichelli’s score offers a collection of tunes you rather expect to hear on a fairy ground than in a spaghetti western, be it one of the comedy type. The theme played over the flashy credits, actually reminded me of the finale of Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, with the merry-go-round spinning out of control.
The original title of the project, Pago con Piombo (I’ll pay you in lead), seems to indicate a more serious spaghetti western, but the original plans were altered before Castellari joined the project and he didn’t take the trouble to rewrite the script with the help of, let’s say, Tito Carpi, who had rendered him such a good service for Any Gun can play. The working title, Vado, vedo e sparo (a wink at Caesar’s Vini, vidi vici) was finally changed into I Tre che sconvolsero il West, meaning The Three who destroyed the West. Some will say that’s exactly what these type of movies would do in the near future: destroy the Italian West(ern). Very little is known about the original plans, other than that Jack Palance was supposed to star in it, next to Sabàto. Some also think this is the project that was offered by Castellari to Charles Bronson over a game of arms-wrestling when the two had met in Cannes. Anyway, Chuck never showed up and Enzo had to settle for Antonio, John and Frank. Some scenes, shot on the set, were shown in the documentary Western Italian style (1968); we see a young Enzo giving instructions to his actors how to knock somebody down. He also talks – in English – to the camera, explaining his love for westerns with both action and humor.
