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Revision as of 13:57, 1 October 2010

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My Reviews:

Hannie Caulder

Quintana

DVD Reviews:

Other articles:

Giuliano Gemma

Fernando Sancho

Nicoletta Machiavelli

Gianni Garko

Introduction (with Lindberg)

Essays

GHOSTS AND AVENGERS, from Shakespeare & Leone, to Eastwood & Garrone

Johnny Hamlet (Shakespearian Review)

A Man called Trinity

Tony Anthony - A Stranger at Home


From left to right: Sergio Leone - Sergio Corbucci - Ennio Morricone - Claudia Cardinale - Lee van Cleef - Bud Spencer & Terence Hill - Tomas Milian

THE CINEMAS OF MY YOUTH

Chicago Theatre – Eindhoven

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 out his cigarette. 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.

My Latest Review

Corbucci’s Last Hurrah as a western director opens with a delicious soliloquy, spoken by a vexed sheriff’s wife, consisting of a series of film titles, and names of directors and characters from spaghetti westerns. It’s the best part of an otherwise indifferent movie, basically a spoof, but only occasionally funny, starring Eli Wallach as a grumpy old sheriff, Tomas Milian as a would-be samurai, and Guiliano Gemma as a Swiss version of himself.

The title and the story seem a homage to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; there’s a sort of treasure hunt, only this time the three men from the title are not after a large sum of money, hidden in an unknown grave on an unknown cemetery. In fact, they carry a large sum of money with them, in a box with three keyholes, one black, one yellow, one white. Only one keyhole will serve to open the box, the other two will send anybody using them sky high, thanks to a load of TNT. The box is given to sheriff Edward ‘Black Jack’ Gideon, who’s supposed to retrieve a valuable pony that was stolen, during a train robbery, by a group of renegade Indians. The pony was a special gift from the Japanese Ambassador to the president of the United States, and the samurai escorting the present, was killed during the hold-up, because his stupid and clumsy assistant had stolen his sword to do some practice while his master was sleeping.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is not the only film that was ripped (or paid homage to). The theme of the stolen present and the samurai trying to redeem himself, by either retrieving the present or committing suicide, is lifted from Red Sun. There are numerous hints at Corbucci’s own westerns, and the film’s narrative more or less reflects the history of the genre, as if it was supposed to be the final movie of its kind. There’s the corrupt businessman from the early Karl May movies, who wants to provoke an Indian war because he’s after the natural resources of their land; a scatological joke, with the would-be samurai trying to identify to stolen pony by its farts, is a nice nod at the farting baby of the second Trinity movie. As for the Corbucci references, Gemma is trailing a coffin through a desert landscape, Milian is buried to his neck in the sand, there’s a mad Renegade southern officer, still in uniform, and there’s a bridge out of Hades and a churchyard just out of town. Fans will of course recognize them all (and find a few others not mentioned here).

That’s all very nice, but once were passed this lovely opening monologue (lovely only in Italian, the English dubs lacks the film titles), the affair soon runs out of steam. If it still occasionally works, it’s mainly due to the actors or a few witty lines in the script. Milian has a funny scene when he’s chasing a buzzing fly with his samurai sword, and there are a few inspired moments on dialogue level; most of them imply Milian’s misuse of the English language and Wallach’s corrections. Milian: “Most Americans are prostitutes.” Wallach: “Protestants, Sakura, protestants!” The opposite is applied (successfully) when Wallach corrupts the line ‘No more hara-kiri!’ (Milian has threatened to kill himself) to “No more Harry Carey!”.

All in all the actors do well. Wallach turns in a remarkably keen performance as the grumpy sheriff - for once refraining from his Tuco antics when on spaghetti territory - and both Milian and Gemma seem to enjoy themselves very well as, respectively, the mumbling would-be Samurai and the Swiss called Blanc de Blanc (actually he’s from mixed Swiss-Italian descent and also speaks some French). It’s Corbucci who lets us down. There are a few isolated sparks of brilliance, such as a well-handled musical interlude with the three actors as drag queens, and a vintage Corbucci moment with Gemma and Milian before a firing squad, saved in the last minute by the cavalry (the horse-soldiers shot in their place!). But overall Corbucci’s Last Hurrah is no triumph.

The Soliloquy

“Per un pugno di dollari, per un miserabile pugno di dollari, che non sono nemmeno tuoi, devi già ripartire? Almeno lo facessi per qualche dollaro in più!, e invece, vamos a matar compañeros, sempre in giro con il buono, il brutto e il cattivo tempo (to one of her her sons, who’s washing his hair:) Giù la testa, caro… Sei alla resa dei conti, ormai. Chi sono io, per te? Nessuno, ecco, il mio nome è nessuno. Tu devi metterti faccia a faccia con le tue responsabilità. Per queste creature ti danno un dollaro a testa, sei il mercenario peggio pagato del Texas, cangaceiro!, e noi siamo il mucchio selvaggio…Ma tu non vali nemmeno un dollaro bucato, e prima o poi finirai come quel bounty killer del Minnesota, Clay era il suo nome, ma poi lo chiamarono il magnifico… però ricordatelo, c’era una volta il west che dicevi tu: oggi, anche gli angeli mangiano fagioli, ma sì, corri uomo, corri! Altrimenti, ci arrabbiamo sul serio, e se Dio perdona, io no, perciò datti da fare, capito? (She slams one of the other boys) E tu smettila di fare il bestione! (turns back to her husband:) Vergognati, vergognati di fare vivere i tuoi bambini come dei barboni. Leone, questo devi diventare, se vuoi fare la rivoluzione nel mondo del west».

(The sheriff:): «Ma che c’entriamo noi con la rivoluzione?”

I’ve stayed as close to the text as possible, translating the original Italian film titles instead of using the English titles, but in a few isolated cases, a literal translation was not possible.

“For a fistful of dollars, for a miserable fistful of dollars that aren’t even yours, you must leave again? If only you did it for a few dollars more! But instead it’s let’s go and kill, compañeros, always on the road in the good, the bad and the ugly weather (to one of her sons, who’s washing his hair:) Head down, dear … you must finally settle the accounts. Who am I to you? Nobody, my name is nobody. You have to get face to face with your responsibilities: For these creatures they only pay you one dollar a head, you are the mercenary with the lowest fee of all Texas, cangaçeiro! And we, we are the wild bunch … and you, you’re not even worth a dollar with a hole in it, and sooner or later you’ll end up like that bounty killer from Minnesota, Clay was his name, but we started to call him the magnificent … once upon a time in the west, but admit it, today even the angels eat beans, so yes, run man, run! Otherwise we become angry, really angry, and if God forgives, I don’t, so you’d better do something, understood? (slams one of the other boys) And you, stop behaving like a pig! (turns back to her husband:) Shame on you, shame on you, for letting your children live like tramps. A lion, that’s what you must be if you want make a revolution is the Far West.

(The sheriff:) But hey, what have we got to do with the revolution?

@@ Line 234: / Line 234: @@
-{| style="border:2px solid gray;padding:5px;margin:2px;" |
+{| align="right" style="border:2px solid gray;padding:5px;margin:2px;" |
 |-
 | [[File:Biancof.jpg|250px]]
 |-
 |}
+----
+Corbucci’s Last Hurrah as a western director opens with a delicious soliloquy, spoken by a vexed sheriff’s wife, consisting of a series of film titles, and names of directors and characters from spaghetti westerns. It’s the best part of an otherwise indifferent movie, basically a spoof, but only occasionally funny, starring Eli Wallach as a grumpy old sheriff, Tomas Milian as a would-be samurai, and Guiliano Gemma as a Swiss version of himself.
+The title and the story seem a homage to [[Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il|The Good, the Bad and the Ugly]]; there’s a sort of treasure hunt, only this time the three men from the title are not after a large sum of money, hidden in an unknown grave on an unknown cemetery. In fact, they carry a large sum of money with them, in a box with three keyholes, one black, one yellow, one white. Only one keyhole will serve to open the box, the other two will send anybody using them sky high, thanks to a load of TNT. The box is given to sheriff Edward ‘Black Jack’ Gideon, who’s supposed to retrieve a valuable pony that was stolen, during a train robbery, by a group of renegade Indians. The pony was a special gift from the Japanese Ambassador to the president of the United States, and the samurai escorting the present, was killed during the hold-up, because his stupid and clumsy assistant had stolen his sword to do some practice while his master was sleeping.
+''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' is not the only film that was ripped (or paid homage to). The theme of the stolen present and the samurai trying to redeem himself, by either retrieving the present or committing suicide, is lifted from [[Soleil Rouge|Red Sun]]. There are numerous hints at Corbucci’s own westerns, and the film’s narrative more or less reflects the history of the genre, as if it was supposed to be the final movie of its kind. There’s the corrupt businessman from the early Karl May movies, who wants to provoke an Indian war because he’s after the natural resources of their land; a scatological joke, with the would-be samurai trying to identify to stolen pony by its farts, is a nice nod at the farting baby of the second Trinity movie. As for the Corbucci references, Gemma is trailing a coffin through a desert landscape, Milian is buried to his neck in the sand, there’s a mad Renegade southern officer, still in uniform, and there’s a bridge out of Hades and a churchyard just out of town. Fans will of course recognize them all (and find a few others not mentioned here).
+That’s all very nice, but once were passed this lovely opening monologue (lovely only in Italian, the English dubs lacks the film titles), the affair soon runs out of steam. If it still occasionally works, it’s mainly due to the actors or a few witty lines in the script. Milian has a funny scene when he’s chasing a buzzing fly with his samurai sword, and there are a few inspired moments on dialogue level; most of them imply Milian’s misuse of the English language and Wallach’s corrections. Milian: ''“Most Americans are prostitutes.”'' Wallach: ''“Protestants, Sakura, protestants!”'' The opposite is applied (successfully) when Wallach corrupts the line ‘No more hara-kiri!’ (Milian has threatened to kill himself) to ''“No more Harry Carey!”''.
+All in all the actors do well. Wallach turns in a remarkably keen performance as the grumpy sheriff - for once refraining from his Tuco antics when on spaghetti territory - and both Milian and Gemma seem to enjoy themselves very well as, respectively, the mumbling would-be Samurai and the Swiss called Blanc de Blanc (actually he’s from mixed Swiss-Italian descent and also speaks some French). It’s Corbucci who lets us down. There are a few isolated sparks of brilliance, such as a well-handled musical interlude with the three actors as drag queens, and a vintage Corbucci moment with Gemma and Milian before a firing squad, saved in the last minute by the cavalry (the horse-soldiers shot in their place!). But overall Corbucci’s Last Hurrah is no triumph.
+==The Soliloquy==
+''“Per un pugno di dollari, per un miserabile pugno di dollari, che non sono nemmeno tuoi, devi già ripartire? Almeno lo facessi per qualche dollaro in più!, e invece, vamos a matar compañeros, sempre in giro con il buono, il brutto e il cattivo tempo (to one of her her sons, who’s washing his hair:) Giù la testa, caro… Sei alla resa dei conti, ormai. Chi sono io, per te? Nessuno, ecco, il mio nome è nessuno. Tu devi metterti faccia a faccia con le tue responsabilità. Per queste creature ti danno un dollaro a testa, sei il mercenario peggio pagato del Texas, cangaceiro!, e noi siamo il mucchio selvaggio…Ma tu non vali nemmeno un dollaro bucato, e prima o poi finirai come quel bounty killer del Minnesota, Clay era il suo nome, ma poi lo chiamarono il magnifico… però ricordatelo, c’era una volta il west che dicevi tu: oggi, anche gli angeli mangiano fagioli, ma sì, corri uomo, corri! Altrimenti, ci arrabbiamo sul serio, e se Dio perdona, io no, perciò datti da fare, capito? (She slams one of the other boys) E tu smettila di fare il bestione! (turns back to her husband:) Vergognati, vergognati di fare vivere i tuoi bambini come dei barboni.
+Leone, questo devi diventare, se vuoi fare la rivoluzione nel mondo'' del west».
+(The sheriff:): «Ma che c’entriamo noi con la rivoluzione?”
+I’ve stayed as close to the text as possible, translating the original Italian film titles instead of using the English titles, but in a few isolated cases, a literal translation was not possible.
+''“For a fistful of dollars, for a miserable fistful of dollars that aren’t even yours, you must leave again? If only you did it for a few dollars more! But instead it’s let’s go and kill, compañeros, always on the road in the good, the bad and the ugly weather (to one of her sons, who’s washing his hair:) Head down, dear … you must finally settle the accounts. Who am I to you? Nobody, my name is nobody. You have to get face to face with your responsibilities: For these creatures they only pay you one dollar a head, you are the mercenary with the lowest fee of all Texas, cangaçeiro! And we, we are the wild bunch … and you, you’re not even worth a dollar with a hole in it, and sooner or later you’ll end up like that bounty killer from Minnesota, Clay was his name, but we started to call him the magnificent … once upon a time in the west, but admit it, today even the angels eat beans, so yes, run man, run! Otherwise we become angry, really angry, and if God forgives, I don’t, so you’d better do something, understood? (slams one of the other boys) And you, stop behaving like a pig! (turns back to her husband:) Shame on you, shame on you, for letting your children live like tramps.
+A lion, that’s what you must be if you want make a revolution is the Far West.
+(The sheriff:)  But hey, what have we got to do with the revolution?
+''