In short: Durango Is Coming, Pay or Die (1971)

Original title: Arriva Durango… paga o muori

We’re back in the Italian West. Gunman Durango (Brad Harris, making for a fun western hero) – inevitably called Django in the dub of the version of the film I’ve seen – works as a roaming debt and money collector. Bandits have stolen your cows? Get them back for ten percent of their worth! A thug owes you money? Durango takes care of it for his ten percent! He’s rather popular too, for it is clear our hero prefers selling his services to the working poor and the down-trodden. In fact, when Durango wanders into a town dominated by evil banker, loan shark and all around crazy asshole Ferguson (Gino Lavagetto) he somewhat disgustedly declines to work for him.

Ironically, stumbling upon the aftermath of a coach robbery, making short process of the Mexican bandits responsible and arresting their eccentric leader El Tuerto (José Torres), Durango sort of does work for Ferguson. At least, he’s getting him a whole lot of money back. Ferguson isn’t happy with Durango insisting on his usual ten percent instead of the pennies he wants to give him, and only pays our protagonist under Duress. Later, some of his thugs ambush Durango on and take the money back.

Of course, Durango ambushes right back a night or so later but instead of just letting the gunman ride away with his now hard-earned bit of money, Ferguson decides to double down, frames Durango for a murder and starts making a list with the jury members he prefers to find Durango guilty. Obviously, Durango will escape and take vengeance on the banker.

Roberto Bianchi Montero’s Durango Is Coming turned out to be a pleasant surprise for this long-time spaghetti western fan, seeing as I’m pretty sure I’ve reached the bottom of the barrel of the genre by now when it comes to films in it I haven’t seen. And sure, Durango isn’t a particularly deep or complex example of the genre, but it is a sprightly and entertaining film that uses clichés and well-worn plot elements with excitement and charm. And who can resist a film whose main villain is as realistic as they come – a crazy, greedy banker? Lavagetto gets a handful of good scenes too, with his insane bout of laughter about the usefulness of dead men for financial transactions certainly the high point there.

Montero’s direction isn’t particularly stylish but it’s generally visually interesting enough to keep one interested, while the action is staged with competence. This is one of the friendlier films of the sub-genre, and while it has quite the body count, it does lack the nasty streak of a lot of its genre companions, clearly on purpose, for where many a film of the genre shoots for angry political subtexts of varying kind or a generally bitter or cynical view of the world, this one’s really escapist entertainment at its heart. Which isn’t a bad thing at all, obviously, at least as long as a film is good escapist entertainment. Durango Is Coming surely is that.

In short: So Sweet, So Dead (1972)

Original title: Rivelazioni di un maniaco sessuale al capo della squadra mobile

A provincial town in Italy is hit by a series of murders. All victims are women from the upper rungs of the bourgeoisie, all of them were married and all are found surrounded by photos showing them having sex with men who clearly aren't their husbands. Because he's polite and something of an overachiever, the killer scratches the men's faces off the photos, which makes the life of the investigating cop, Inspector Capuana (Farley Granger, in a subtle and complex performance mostly based on looks instead of facial impressions) that decisive bit more difficult by helping potential witnesses who have reasons of their own not to want to talk to him avoid answering unpleasant questions.

Capuana's investigation is difficult enough as it is, for the town's upper class may be great at committing adultery, but most of its members do not like to talk about their hobbies to the police, and sure are influential enough to get special treatment from the police. Given the miserable state of evidence in the cases, it'll take a long line of victims (Femi Benussi, Krista Nell, Susan Scott - it's half of Italy's giallo actresses for the price of one) until Capuana will be able to get his man. And even then, he might just learn something about his own wife (Sylva Koscina) that'll make him act in a manner morally much worse than adultery could ever be.

So Sweet, So Dead is one of the small group of movies that try to cross the Italian style "ripped from the headlines" police procedural with the giallo; unlike many other films making that attempt, Roberto Bianchi Montero's is actually successful at doing what it sets out to achieve. Many films with the same idea as So Sweet (and isn't it interesting how the film's Italian title emphasises the film's identity as a police procedural while the English language one identifies it as a giallo?) suffer from the peculiar choices their director make when deciding what element from which genre to take, often leading to movies combining the least interesting and the most annoying elements of both genres. Sadly, this has resulted in more than one movie about bored looking men sitting in drab rooms talking police procedural stuff while crawling through a plot that is confusing but equally drab.

Montero goes about his business a bit more intelligently, making the murder and sex scenes, as well as identity and motivation of the killer, stylistically and in their content part of the giallo genre, while the social commentary, the central cop character and the cynical ending are coming right from the police procedural. One could argue that Montero uses the copious scenes of nudity of a minor who is who of Italian genre actresses and the sexy, sleazy violence to make his semi-realist observations about the life of the upper classes more interesting to a rather jaded audience. The director succeeds in this project rather well, especially because he seems to be stylistically at home in both genres (which does not come as too big a surprise seeing as Montero worked in any film genre you might care to name), making the giallo parts suspenseful, their violence disquietingly enticing, and the police procedural parts' observations about the mental state of provincial Italy 1972 believable and human.

There is, alas, a real possibility that the director agrees with the killer about the adulterous women being "whores" who deserve to die, although there's an equally large possibility that position is part of the bourgeois hypocrisy he is trying to criticize. In good exploitation film tradition, you can base an argument for both positions on So Sweet, So Dead.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,giallo,crime,roberto bianchi montero,farley granger,sylva koscina,susan scott,krista nell,femi benussi,in short

In short: The Sewer Rats (1974)

The car belonging to a man with a crippled leg (Richard Harrison; throughout the film only identified as "Cripple") breaks down in the muddiest part of nowhere. The only thing amounting to civilization close by is a muddy conglomerate of hovels populated by a handful of men (among them Gordon Mitchell) of dubious sanity and clearly lacking morality. Oh, and there's a single woman, Rita (Dagmar Lassander), the wife of one of the men. While everyone is busy keeping dangerous secrets and looking for gold in an old abandoned mine, she spends her time sleeping around with most  of the men, and laughing maniacally.

Although he has been greeted without enthusiasm, the nameless man decides to stay around for a while, sending everyone around him scuttling to find out what his hidden reason for staying might be. Is it after one of them? There are so many secrets going around that it's hard for the men to decide. Rita for her part tries her best to add the stranger to her collection of trophies, but he's a hard sell, driving the poor woman into provoking the other men even more.

It will just need a little more effort until everyone will be at each other's throats completely.

The Sewer Rats is a nice, grimy and decidedly muddy thriller that has ambitions on being a neo noir. Everyone here is basically a sleazier variation of one noir character type or the other, mixed up by throwing the more Spaghetti Western hero-like Harrison into the fray with them. The men (and the woman) are all decidedly unpleasant, but the film isn't as cynical as it could be - a few of them get slightly redeeming qualities, which proves helpful when the time of the big violent denouement comes and the viewer should care about what happens to them. Between the sleaze and the grime, the film shows some humanist strains - mostly in the way Harrison treats some of the other characters - that I found thoroughly surprising and quite satisfying.

A film like this always risks to become just a bit too cynical and falling a bit too much in love with wallowing in the mud (figurative and non-figurative). For me, films that go too far into that direction sometimes tend to lose the punch they are supposed to have. When everyone is an irredeemable bastard, I find it hard to care about anyone.

The Sewer Rats' Director Roberto Bianchi Montero avoids that pitfall more or less. While especially everything to do with Rita is as sleazy and exploitative as possible (and can well be read as quite misogynist), there are also moments of unexpected compassion for her, and it is this compassion that makes the downbeat tendencies of the film work all the better for me.

 

Technorati-Tags: italian movies,thriller,gordon mitchell,richard harrison,dagmar lassander,in short,roberto bianchi montero