Sep 13 2007
A Man Called Apocalypse Joe (L’Uomo Chiamato Apocalisse Joe)
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Another Anthony Steffen spaghetti western that offers nothing new to the genre, and is an excercise in mediocrity.
Tag Archive 'anthony steffen'
May 15 2007
Django the Bastard (Django Il Bastardo, The Stranger’s Gundown)
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Anthony Steffen as “Django the Bastard”
My spaghetti western library recently expanded by about thirty movies, thanks to BitTorrent. Apparently, if you look around there are lots on there that you simply can’t get in the U.S., and if you get em on eBay, it’s been my experience that the quality is either inconsistent or you’re getting someone’s cd-r of it anyways, so I’m not going to get into the ethical issues here. I’m just glad to have more to watch. Also, expect a full-blown Spaghetti Western site by the end of the summer.
Anyways, today it’s “Django the Bastard” (1968), directed by yet another Sergio, this one being Sergio Garrone, and starring and co-written by Anthony Steffen (Antonio De Teffè). Steffen made quite a career in Italian westerns, starring in at least 25 of them. Now, let’s be clear about this one - it’s most definitely a C-grade film, and although there is much to laugh at, there’s also much to enjoy in terms of style, and this film is thoroughly watchable to fans of the genre. Continue Reading »
Oct 27 2006
W Django!
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Time for another spaghetti western, 1972’s W Django! (also called ‘A Man Called Django’). Now, you might remember in my review of Corbucci’s Django that due to the success of that film and the tendency of Italian cinema to milk a formula to death, there were over 20 or 30 films afterwards that had ‘Django’ in the title, with nothing else to do with the original. This is one of those films.
This film, directed by someone named Edward Mueller, stars Anthony Steffen (Antonio De Teffe) as Django, in the typical spag western revenge plot, as he hunts down a gang responsible for raping and killing his wife. Steffen looks like he could be the laboratory offspring of Peter and Henry Fonda and David Carradine.
This one falls strictly into B-movie territory here. Nothing unique or even quirky to set it appart from the pack, and very little artistry to be seen, although the sets and scenery look great. It seems to steal a few Leone-isms, such as Django’s music box with his wife’s picture, which seems eerily reminicent of Colonel Mortimer’s pocket watch from ‘For A Few Dollars More’. And Django’s Mexican bandit sidekick, Carranza (Stelio Candelli) is like a knock-off of Eli Wallach’s Tuco in ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’, going so far as to have the same plot device of Django turning him in for reward money and then shooting the rope just before he is about to be hanged, exactly what happened with Blondie and Tuco in TGTBTU.
The soundtrack is typical spag western fare, acoustic guitars and trumpets, and the DVD quality itself is fair. There was no restoration done to it; the film looks dirty and scratchy at times, and the sound has a lot of hiss and background noise.
The best I can say about it is it reminds me almost of a low-budget American no-name western that you might see late at night. It wasn’t horrible by any means, and unlike Sabata, I was able to watch the whole thing. I wouldn’t put it on my ‘must-see list’ either.
If you’re just getting into the genre, there’s nothing in here that would further your interest in it. As always, watch the Sergio Leone films first.
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