Today It's Me... Tomorrow It's You Review
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Today It's Me... Tomorrow It's You (Oggi a me... domani a te!)
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Often presented as a "Spencer-without-Hill" comedy, this film must have created a lot of frustration among fans of the Trinity movies. There are a few hints at comedy, but they're of minor importance. Today it's me ... tomorrow it's you! is a typical revenge western, bloody and violent, in the best tradition of the Italian western, with a few winks at Hollywood as well. It uses the Leone technique to illustrate the central conflict by means of a flashback (filmed in black and white), while the avenger Bill Kiowa (Brett Halsey) assembles a small army of specialists in true Hollywood tradition (The Magnificent Seven) before marching up against his arch enemy Elfego (Kurusawa actor Nakadai) who has surrounded himself with Comancheros, half-breeds of Comanche and Mexican descent.
We understand very soon who is the avenger and who is the villain in the picture, but the explanation of what exactly causes Kiowa to seek revenge on Elfego is postponed, like in For a Few Dollars More. The first half hour, in which Kiowa assembles his gang, is rather dreary but once we've found out what crime Kiowa was framed for by Elfego, the film takes its real start. Elfego once again tries to frame Kiowa for a crime but this time the latter is saved by his gang members. The two gangs finally meet in a forest, in the film's protracted and violent finale. Before Kiowa and Elfego meet each other face to face, Elfego's men, stalked by Kiowa and his associates, are killed one by one, in rather gruesome fashion. It was one of those spaghetti westerns that met with censorship; in most versions one scene that was cut during the flashback is still missing. You'll notice the cut easily and will understand why it was made.
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Today it's me ... tomorrow it's You! is the only spaghetti western directed by producer Tonino Cervi, who also co-wrote the script with Dario Argento. Most outdoor scenes were shot in the (cold and wet) autumn of 1967, in La Caldara di Manziana, northwest of Rome. It was shot by Sergio D'Offizi, who was asked to do the movie by Cervi and Argento because they were impressed by his cinematography of Ognuno per se (1). Italian cinematographers were often blamed for having little eye for scenic beauty, but D'Offizi makes the best of the gorgeous landscape and the film really looks marvelously with its rich autumnal colors. He also went looking for odd angles when shooting the town scenes in the Elios studios, in order to make the town scenes look different.
The slow thirty minutes put aside, the script is very serviceable; Angelo F. Lavagnino's score isn't exactly memorable, but it's at least different, combining typical Italian and American influences. Because of this autumnal colors, the movie is often bracketed together with a couple of melancholic spaghettis made towards the end of the golden years of the genre, and foreboding the Twilight Spaghettis of a decade later, such as Ciakmull - L'uomo della vendetta or Il Pistolero dell'Ave Maria, but I don't see it that way. There are no Freudian overtones nor are there any influences from Classic (Greek) literature. It's a rather straightforward spaghetti western, with a western dressed like Django and several direct references to Leone, most notably a scene in a gun shop with Halsey chosing a gun in Tuco style. Apart from home made and Hollywood westerns, Cervi also seems to have been inspired by Samurai movies and film noir (just look at the clothes and fedora hats in the black & white flashback).
The supporting cast is first rate, with Berger outstanding as a homosexual, card-playing gunslinger. Halsey (playing as Montgomery Ford) has a rather laid-back acting style, while Nakadai lends a certain melancholic aspect to his downright perverted and sadistic character: a rare and interesting combination. But there's a problem concerning this character: is he supposed to be Japanese or Mexican? His name is usually written as 'Elfego', which doesn't mean anything in Spanish as far as I know. If it's read as 'El Fuego' it would mean 'The Fire', but this villain does not burn his victims to death, but uses a sword instead. This sword is however not a samurai sword like some critics have maintained, but a machete. Maybe the man is a half-breed too, like his men and probably even his opponent: the name Bill Kiowa seems to indicate a mixed descent too (2).
La Caldara di Manziana
In 1988 la Caldara was declared a Monumento Naturale (Natural Monument). It's located inside the National Park of Bracciano-Martignano Lakes, about forty kilometers northwest of Rome. The hills are dominated by centuries old trees, mainly maquis and oak trees. An exception is la boschetta della betulla bianca with its remarkable stands of white birch trees (very rare in this far south). D'Offizzi shot a couple of wonderful scenes in the boschetta. The hills border vast plains marked by marshes and even some small geysers (sulfer springs of gas and water, the water having a temperature of about 20°C). The finale was probably shot in the nearby Bosco di Manziana, one of the greenest areas in the centre of Italy, and more often used for spaghetti western with a 'green' setting, among others Un Dolaro Bucato and California.
Corresponding Page:
- Brett Halsey Interview - Interview with the actor by Phil H
Notes:
- (1) Marco Giusti Dizionario del western all'italiana
- (2) Chris Casey, who speaks Japanese and is far more familiar with its culture than I am, told me one facebook that there's a Japanese tradition of Japanese actors playing Mexicans, so maybe the part is a reference to this tradition. Bret Halsey also thinks the character was supposed to be Mexican (see the interview).
--By Scherpschutter
