A Professional Gun
A Professional Gun (aka The Mercenary) is a fairly subdued film by Corbucci's usual standards; compared to the comic book grotesquery of Django (1966) and sadistic nihilism of The Great Silence (1968) it's downright subtle. It's a colorful, action-filled "Zapata Western" with little original in the way of plot or characterization, but the execution makes it an entertaining film.
Mexico is on the verge of revolution, and a group of silver miners revolt against their oppressive overseers. The desperate mine bosses hire Sergei Kowalski (Franco Nero), a Polish gun-for-hire, to transport silver north to America, but Kowalski finds himself reluctantly siding with the miners, led by Paco (Tony Musante). Local tough Curly (Jack Palance) and his gang of henchmen team up with Federales to try and kill Paco, who has gone from uneducated peasant to revolutionary hero; but even as the final showdown nears, Kowalski's loyalty is always in question.
Take an ignorant Mexican peon, a shady foreign mercenary with ulterior motives, throw them in the middle of the Mexican Revolution of 1913, let the sparks, bullets and double-crosses fly, and you've got the model for the so-called "Zapata Western". Damiano Damiani's atrocious A Bullet for the General (1966), inexplicably considered among the genre's best works, was the main basis for this subgenre; as most early Spaghettis shamelessly plagarized Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964), so filmmakers flocked to Damiani's banner, mixing bloody mayhem with sophomoric left-wing politics ("Divide the bread equally!") in a series of derivative films. Leone himself would critique this sub-subgenre pointedly in Duck, You Sucker!, mocking the sophomoric Marxism which pervaded these films with a nihilistic depiction of Revolution. In A Professional Gun, however, the politics aren't what matters; the movie's primary goal is blood-splattered, shoot-'em-up entertainment. On this level, Corbucci undoubtedly delivers.
The movie's plot is pretty much standard Zapata fare, but Corbucci executes it with breezy, stylish confidence. The movie has the usual broadly drawn characters, head-turning betrayals and paper-thin plot inimical to the genre. As usual, modern technology - machine-guns, airplanes, artillery - are used to ratchet up the body count to Sam Peckinpah levels. Such politics as the film displays aren't really worth discussion; it's crude Marxism at its most basic. One shouldn't come to this film for an insightful political polemic, but rather a lot of fast-paced shoot-'em-ups.
Corbucci handles the action scenes with his usual flare, and fills the film with his usual grotesque touches: people eating live lizards and a pair of dice, a pitchfork murder, a duel in a bullfighting arena, a carnation spurting blood. Ennio Morricone contributes a lively Mexican-flavored score - not his best work, but memorable nonetheless. The cast is pretty good: Franco Nero is at his stoic best, and Tony Musante does a nice job with the layered character of Paco. Jack Palance is flamboyantly over-the-top as the villainous Curly, though he suffers from relative lack of screen time. Giovanna Ralli is fiery and gorgeous as Paco's love interest.
A Professional Gun is an entertaining, colorful Western that's certainly worth a look. Like most Spaghettis though, it's lacking that special something to make it a truly great film.
Face to Face
Last Monday, I posited Sergio Sollima's The Big Gundown (1966) as the best Spaghetti Western not directed by Sergio Leone. Just over a week later, Sollima trumps his own work with his second Western. In its thematic depth and rich characterization, Face to Face is on a whole other level from pretty much every Spaghetti, with a genuinely disquieting subject matter and a striking lead performance.
New England Professor Brad Fletcher (Gian Maria Volonte) embarks to Texas to recuperate from tuberculosis. Shortly after his arrival, Fletcher is kidnapped by "Beauregard" Bennett (Tomas Milan), a much-feared bandit. Fletcher is initially horrified by Bennett's violent amorality, but soon finds himself seduced by it and actively joins Bennett's gang. The balance of power quickly shifts to Fletcher, who balances his intelligence with newfound bloodlust and takes control of the gang. Further complications ensue when undercover Pinkerton agent Charlie Siringo (William Berger) joins the gang, causing a bank heist to turn into a bloodbath. Siringo and the powers-that-be recruit a huge posse to destroy Fletcher, who has set himself up as a warlord in a small local town - while Bennett arrives to settle his own account with Fletcher.
Sollima explores the affects and appeal of violence in a strikingly contemporary way. He shows Fletcher as an intellectual both fascinated and repulsed by Beauregard's amorality; a weak man with literally nothing to live for, suddenly he has an opportunity to be alive - but his own intellect warps into a private fascism, where killing, mayhem and power are their own reward. The film stages a community square dance a la Ford and brutally subverts it; it is here that Fletcher's nascent fascism begins to emerge, and where later, drunk with power, he will effectively create his own fiefdom, which he will drive to destruction. Beauregard's transformation to a civilized, moral man is a bit predictable (any chance a film character will ever change without a foil?) but equally convincing. Some of the movie's speeches on are a bit too on the nose, but for the most part the movie makes its points with a subtlety and thoughtfulness beyond most any other Spaghetti (and with a fine screenplay by Sollima and Sergio Donati, mercifully lacking the usual dubbing-induced awkwardness). While Corbucci uses politics for atmosphere and setting, Sollima uses it to make a point - and he makes it very well indeed.
There are many genuinely beautiful shots to rival Leone's work throughout the film; Sollima shows a beautiful eye, with gorgeous camera work capturing the beauty of the Almerian desert. The film is replete with brilliant set pieces: the recruiting of the posse, deliberately shot to resemble a Nazi rally, the botched bank heist, the near-surreal final showdown. Morricone again scores, with a fairly subdued soundtrack that makes great use of Edda dell'Orso's gorgeous soprano voice (used to her fullest in Morricone's Once Upon a Time in the West score).
Gian Maria Volonte (of Leone's Dollars films) gives a towering lead performance. He portrays Fletcher's chilling transformation from meek intellectual to bloodthirsty killer perfectly without overplaying the part. Tomas Milian gives a subdued, thoughtful performance miles away from his over-the-top clowning in The Big Gundown, and Spaghetti veteran William Berger (Sabata) is quite good as the third-wheel Siringo, given enough screen time to register as a character rather than a plot device.
Face to Face is something else entirely in the Spaghetti subgenre; it's pretty close to a masterpiece. I can only hope Sollima's other efforts are as good as these two; he may then establish himself as Leone's legitimate rival.
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