'DUCCIO TESSARI PULLS A ROGER CORMAN' DOUBLE FEATURE!
A PISTOL FOR RINGO (1965) THE RETURN OF RINGO (1966, ARROW BLU-RAY... BOTH STREAMING ON TUBI)
Though lesser known than the "Django" and "Man Without a Name" series, Duccio Tessari's two official "Ringo" westerns were popular/good enough to spawn their own wave of imitators. Giuliano Gemma (billed in the credits as Montgomery Wood) makes an appealing leading man, both movies have narratives/supporting casts that build interesting cinematic worlds around Ringo (action/shootouts are secondary to complicated plots that take the entire narrative to unravel), and both feature generic Ennio Morricone scores/songs. When watched back-to-back these "Ringo" features make the most out of the tried-and-true practice by its Spanish/Italian producers of squeezing an extra movie from existing sets/contracted actors. Sometimes the fun is in the remixing.
"A Pistol for Ringo" finds our gunslinger-with-a-code in the jail of sheriff Ben (Jorge Martín) awaiting trial for his self-defense gunning down of four men. A daring bank robbery by a gang of Mexican bandits that crossed over from the border ends with a hostage standoff at the hacienda of a wealthy Boston colonel (Francisco Sanz) and his daughter Ruby (Lorella De Luca), who happens to be the sheriff's fiancé. Since the leader of the bandits (Fernando Sancho, hamming it up like a pro) is a bloodthirsty maniac and Army reinforcements are days away, Ben and the town's bosses decide to let Ringo infiltrate the ranch in exchange for a percentage of the bank loot. Once on the inside Ringo goes back-and-forth between Sancho and Ben trying to score a better deal for himself. Set on the eve and during Christmas Day, "APFR" has fun upending spaghetti genre tropes. The old colonel putting the moves on Sancho's squeeze (Nieves Navarro, whose Dolores is more than just a pretty face) is an interesting charm offensive, dynamite goes 'boom' in a picturesque escape canyon and an epic fist fight between Ringo and r@pey henchman Pedro (José Manuel Martín) is the pic's action highlight. Fun times. 3.85 SUN-REFLECTED MIRROR SIGNALS... AT 11PM?! (out of five).
Bearing no continuity with its predecessor and moving cast members around (though Fernando Sancho and Lorella De Luca were too good as main baddie and damsel in distress/love interest to not return in similar roles), "The Return of Ringo" benefits from Fernando Di Leo co-writing the script alongside Tessari. Decorated Union Capt. Montgomery 'Ringo' Brown (Gemma) returns after the Civil War and goes undercover as a Mexican peasant (in brown face make-up, which looks as troubling as it sounds) in his frontier hometown that's been taken over by the Fuentes clan. Attending his own funeral and getting the lay of the land from the terrorized locals (including series comic relief Pajarito, whose short stature and goofy face stick out), Ringo gets the crap beaten out of him (and his good shooting hand mauled, ala "Django") but holds up because of his woman's impending forced marriage.
It takes an hour of set-up before Ringo turns the tables on his torturers, but the final 36 minutes are the epic payoff western fans yearn for. If you can get past the not-insignificant hurdle of brown face being prominent for two thirds of its running time "TROR" makes a great double bill with its "Pistol" prequel. Both are worth seeing just to have fun with the cast switcheroo. 3.75 'MONTERREY' BRANDED GATLING GUNS (out of five).
An Eastwood western gap for me. Outstanding picture!!! Also yet another bingo-card sploitation flick as it covers: Westerns, War Films, Revenge, Siege, and more. It uses a pretty standard revenge-for-murdered family starting scene but then for most of the run time plays out like a roadtrip movie. Wales meets and befriends a diverse cast of characters. Lots of beautiful old west set pieces and locations. Great action pieces throughout. Loads of tension as Wales is improperly made a man most wanted and has countless run ins with those looking to snag the reward. Finally the writing is realllllly good with consistently quoteable scenes!
Wales: "You dont have to do this, boy" Bounty Hunter: "Mans gotta make a livin" Wales: "Dyin aint much of a livin, boy"
My first western when l was old-enough (10 in '83 when it premiered on local TV) to "get" what a Clint Eastwood-starring western movie meant beyond good guys versus villains. Made me want to masticate and spit tobbaco juice (didn't last 🥵🤢).
Jane Fonda is an educated woman who comes back to her frontier town to be a schoolteacher, but cruel fate and the corruption of men forces her to become an outlaw instead. The movie is nowhere near as serious as that sounds, though. It’s a lighthearted, frequently goofy western comedy with Lee Marvin hamming it up all over the place in a dual role and Fonda being indescribably, incomparably adorable as the leader of her little gang of doofuses. Fun times in the west!
Nic Cage is my favorite actor. What he's doing in this movie made me laugh a lot. Aside from that this movie is unwatchable. Amateurish, terribly made, and abysmal to look at. The worst thing I've seen this month by a long margin. Real, real bad.
THE PHANTOM RANCHER (1940) In this Lone Ranger/Zorro ripoff, a landowner dons a black mask and cape to defeat a crooked gang in town. But there’s not a lot of masked gunfighter action. It’s overly talky, with various characters plotting against each other. It’s so dry and dull that I was left to amuse myself by marveling at the gigantic cowboy hats everyone’s wearing. These hats contain every drop of those ten gallons.
30 days of Georges Melies, day 21: A MOONLIGHT SERENADE (1903) Now we’re deep into French film territory where an old-timey clown wants to sing to his beloved, only to be shut out of her building. Then a magical woman appears in the moon to give him a chance. I’m kind of not sure what the story is, actually. But this was cute, with more fun transforming moon effects from Melies.
Of all the genres featured in Junesploitation, the western may the most intimidating when it comes down to choice. There are thousands of films to draw from. Today I chose Randolph Scott, one of the genre's biggest American stars, as a theme make the choice easier.
TALL MAN RIDING (1955, dir. Lesley Selander)
An action-oriented western starring Randolph Scott as a chivalrous cowboy and gunman. Returning to the town that he was run out of years earlier, Larry Madden (Scott) discovers that corruption runs deep while he pursues his revenge against the landowner who humiliated him. Soon he is in the middle of a conflict with every faction around town. The plot goes by very fast in Tall Man Riding, and there is almost too much of to keep track of. There are shootouts, fisticuffs, chases, and barroom songs to keep to keep the viewer amused. Tall Man Riding is, at best, mildly entertaining. Like many westerns of the period, there is some nice location shooting to admire. With the outdoor locations, props, and numerous extras to deal with, westerns like this do look easy to make.
TRAIL STREET (1947)
It is farmers versus cattlemen in this old-fashioned western. Randolph Scott is lawman Bat Masterson coming to a Kansas town to bring law and order. The land agent there with a dream of turning Kansas into a farmer’s paradise is played by Robert Ryan. That pairing is, honestly, what drew me to this particular film. Trail Street is a western that takes a simplistic moralistic slant to civilizing the West; much of the story is presented in black and white terms of good and evil. The cattlemen and people profiting from them are ruthless -as much as they were allowed to be in the 1940s- in their pursuit of making the cow the dominant feature of the Kansas plains. The heroes are unambiguously righteous, resisting any attempt to persuade - or bribe- them over the other side. I tend not to like this kind of western much, but there was a lot to enjoy in Trail Street. Scott and Ryan are a duo who bring a lot of energy the film. Though frequently corny, the comedy lightens up the tone, and there are a couple of songs (being the 1940s) to add to the entertainment. Trail Street held my interest all the way through.
LAW AND ORDER (1953, Nathan Juran) First-time watch, Shout Factory Blu-ray, 7/10) I thought I'd never seen a Ronald Reagan movie, but I forgot about Don Siegel's THE KILLERS, in which he wasn't really the star, anyway. Cowboy Ronnie opts for early retirement from the marshal business but the town he moves to is "a sinkhole of violence & evil". How bad must things get before he dons the badge again? No wagon wheels are reinvented, but this technicolor western was too easy to like on a summery Saturday afternoon. Dorothy Malone is the love interest, Barry Kelley is the paid-for sheriff & Gilligan's Professor is the headstrong younger brother.
The Outlaws a.k.a. 5 Outlaws and a Saddlebag (2024, dir. Joey Palmroos & Austen Paul)
Wild Bill Higgins and his three compatriots rob a train and ride off into the woods with a saddlebag full of gold to meet up with Bill's father, a legendary outlaw. But as the morning comes, the loot is gone and everyone starts pointing fingers.
I really wanted to like this because it was co-written and co-directed by a young Finn trying to break into the movie business. Alas, it's pretty poor. The story is simple but told in an overly complicated way, with constant unnecessary flashbacks and even Clue-style "here's how it could've happened" diversions. The ever-present, omnicient narrator spells out everything, I guess to balance the otherwise confused storytelling, and the dialogue is really trying to be clever but rarely succeeds. It looks pretty good for a low-budget effort, though.
I guess Eric Roberts will take any job he's offered.
'DUCCIO TESSARI PULLS A ROGER CORMAN' DOUBLE FEATURE!
ReplyDeleteA PISTOL FOR RINGO (1965)
THE RETURN OF RINGO (1966, ARROW BLU-RAY... BOTH STREAMING ON TUBI)
Though lesser known than the "Django" and "Man Without a Name" series, Duccio Tessari's two official "Ringo" westerns were popular/good enough to spawn their own wave of imitators. Giuliano Gemma (billed in the credits as Montgomery Wood) makes an appealing leading man, both movies have narratives/supporting casts that build interesting cinematic worlds around Ringo (action/shootouts are secondary to complicated plots that take the entire narrative to unravel), and both feature generic Ennio Morricone scores/songs. When watched back-to-back these "Ringo" features make the most out of the tried-and-true practice by its Spanish/Italian producers of squeezing an extra movie from existing sets/contracted actors. Sometimes the fun is in the remixing.
"A Pistol for Ringo" finds our gunslinger-with-a-code in the jail of sheriff Ben (Jorge Martín) awaiting trial for his self-defense gunning down of four men. A daring bank robbery by a gang of Mexican bandits that crossed over from the border ends with a hostage standoff at the hacienda of a wealthy Boston colonel (Francisco Sanz) and his daughter Ruby (Lorella De Luca), who happens to be the sheriff's fiancé. Since the leader of the bandits (Fernando Sancho, hamming it up like a pro) is a bloodthirsty maniac and Army reinforcements are days away, Ben and the town's bosses decide to let Ringo infiltrate the ranch in exchange for a percentage of the bank loot. Once on the inside Ringo goes back-and-forth between Sancho and Ben trying to score a better deal for himself. Set on the eve and during Christmas Day, "APFR" has fun upending spaghetti genre tropes. The old colonel putting the moves on Sancho's squeeze (Nieves Navarro, whose Dolores is more than just a pretty face) is an interesting charm offensive, dynamite goes 'boom' in a picturesque escape canyon and an epic fist fight between Ringo and r@pey henchman Pedro (José Manuel Martín) is the pic's action highlight. Fun times. 3.85 SUN-REFLECTED MIRROR SIGNALS... AT 11PM?! (out of five).
Bearing no continuity with its predecessor and moving cast members around (though Fernando Sancho and Lorella De Luca were too good as main baddie and damsel in distress/love interest to not return in similar roles), "The Return of Ringo" benefits from Fernando Di Leo co-writing the script alongside Tessari. Decorated Union Capt. Montgomery 'Ringo' Brown (Gemma) returns after the Civil War and goes undercover as a Mexican peasant (in brown face make-up, which looks as troubling as it sounds) in his frontier hometown that's been taken over by the Fuentes clan. Attending his own funeral and getting the lay of the land from the terrorized locals (including series comic relief Pajarito, whose short stature and goofy face stick out), Ringo gets the crap beaten out of him (and his good shooting hand mauled, ala "Django") but holds up because of his woman's impending forced marriage.
It takes an hour of set-up before Ringo turns the tables on his torturers, but the final 36 minutes are the epic payoff western fans yearn for. If you can get past the not-insignificant hurdle of brown face being prominent for two thirds of its running time "TROR" makes a great double bill with its "Pistol" prequel. Both are worth seeing just to have fun with the cast switcheroo. 3.75 'MONTERREY' BRANDED GATLING GUNS (out of five).
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
ReplyDeleteAn Eastwood western gap for me. Outstanding picture!!! Also yet another bingo-card sploitation flick as it covers: Westerns, War Films, Revenge, Siege, and more. It uses a pretty standard revenge-for-murdered family starting scene but then for most of the run time plays out like a roadtrip movie. Wales meets and befriends a diverse cast of characters. Lots of beautiful old west set pieces and locations. Great action pieces throughout. Loads of tension as Wales is improperly made a man most wanted and has countless run ins with those looking to snag the reward. Finally the writing is realllllly good with consistently quoteable scenes!
Wales: "You dont have to do this, boy"
Bounty Hunter: "Mans gotta make a livin"
Wales: "Dyin aint much of a livin, boy"
Great one!
DeleteMy first western when l was old-enough (10 in '83 when it premiered on local TV) to "get" what a Clint Eastwood-starring western movie meant beyond good guys versus villains. Made me want to masticate and spit tobbaco juice (didn't last 🥵🤢).
DeleteCat Ballou (1965)
ReplyDeleteJane Fonda is an educated woman who comes back to her frontier town to be a schoolteacher, but cruel fate and the corruption of men forces her to become an outlaw instead. The movie is nowhere near as serious as that sounds, though. It’s a lighthearted, frequently goofy western comedy with Lee Marvin hamming it up all over the place in a dual role and Fonda being indescribably, incomparably adorable as the leader of her little gang of doofuses. Fun times in the west!
And Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole singing up a storm. "Oh, Cat Balloooooooooo..."
DeleteGunslingers (2025, dir. Brian Skiba)
ReplyDeleteNic Cage is my favorite actor. What he's doing in this movie made me laugh a lot. Aside from that this movie is unwatchable. Amateurish, terribly made, and abysmal to look at. The worst thing I've seen this month by a long margin. Real, real bad.
THE PHANTOM RANCHER (1940)
ReplyDeleteIn this Lone Ranger/Zorro ripoff, a landowner dons a black mask and cape to defeat a crooked gang in town. But there’s not a lot of masked gunfighter action. It’s overly talky, with various characters plotting against each other. It’s so dry and dull that I was left to amuse myself by marveling at the gigantic cowboy hats everyone’s wearing. These hats contain every drop of those ten gallons.
30 days of Georges Melies, day 21: A MOONLIGHT SERENADE (1903)
Now we’re deep into French film territory where an old-timey clown wants to sing to his beloved, only to be shut out of her building. Then a magical woman appears in the moon to give him a chance. I’m kind of not sure what the story is, actually. But this was cute, with more fun transforming moon effects from Melies.
Of all the genres featured in Junesploitation, the western may the most intimidating when it comes down to choice. There are thousands of films to draw from. Today I chose Randolph Scott, one of the genre's biggest American stars, as a theme make the choice easier.
ReplyDeleteTALL MAN RIDING (1955, dir. Lesley Selander)
An action-oriented western starring Randolph Scott as a chivalrous cowboy and gunman. Returning to the town that he was run out of years earlier, Larry Madden (Scott) discovers that corruption runs deep while he pursues his revenge against the landowner who humiliated him. Soon he is in the middle of a conflict with every faction around town. The plot goes by very fast in Tall Man Riding, and there is almost too much of to keep track of. There are shootouts, fisticuffs, chases, and barroom songs to keep to keep the viewer amused. Tall Man Riding is, at best, mildly entertaining. Like many westerns of the period, there is some nice location shooting to admire. With the outdoor locations, props, and numerous extras to deal with, westerns like this do look easy to make.
TRAIL STREET (1947)
It is farmers versus cattlemen in this old-fashioned western. Randolph Scott is lawman Bat Masterson coming to a Kansas town to bring law and order. The land agent there with a dream of turning Kansas into a farmer’s paradise is played by Robert Ryan. That pairing is, honestly, what drew me to this particular film. Trail Street is a western that takes a simplistic moralistic slant to civilizing the West; much of the story is presented in black and white terms of good and evil. The cattlemen and people profiting from them are ruthless -as much as they were allowed to be in the 1940s- in their pursuit of making the cow the dominant feature of the Kansas plains. The heroes are unambiguously righteous, resisting any attempt to persuade - or bribe- them over the other side. I tend not to like this kind of western much, but there was a lot to enjoy in Trail Street. Scott and Ryan are a duo who bring a lot of energy the film. Though frequently corny, the comedy lightens up the tone, and there are a couple of songs (being the 1940s) to add to the entertainment. Trail Street held my interest all the way through.
The HTML went a little awry. Oh well.
DeleteLAW AND ORDER (1953, Nathan Juran)
ReplyDeleteFirst-time watch, Shout Factory Blu-ray, 7/10)
I thought I'd never seen a Ronald Reagan movie, but I forgot about Don Siegel's THE KILLERS, in which he wasn't really the star, anyway. Cowboy Ronnie opts for early retirement from the marshal business but the town he moves to is "a sinkhole of violence & evil". How bad must things get before he dons the badge again? No wagon wheels are reinvented, but this technicolor western was too easy to like on a summery Saturday afternoon. Dorothy Malone is the love interest, Barry Kelley is the paid-for sheriff & Gilligan's Professor is the headstrong younger brother.
The Outlaws a.k.a. 5 Outlaws and a Saddlebag (2024, dir. Joey Palmroos & Austen Paul)
ReplyDeleteWild Bill Higgins and his three compatriots rob a train and ride off into the woods with a saddlebag full of gold to meet up with Bill's father, a legendary outlaw. But as the morning comes, the loot is gone and everyone starts pointing fingers.
I really wanted to like this because it was co-written and co-directed by a young Finn trying to break into the movie business. Alas, it's pretty poor. The story is simple but told in an overly complicated way, with constant unnecessary flashbacks and even Clue-style "here's how it could've happened" diversions. The ever-present, omnicient narrator spells out everything, I guess to balance the otherwise confused storytelling, and the dialogue is really trying to be clever but rarely succeeds. It looks pretty good for a low-budget effort, though.
I guess Eric Roberts will take any job he's offered.