Sabata shifts the Spaghetti Western away from its gritty roots towards live action cartoon. It's tempting to see Sabata as a riff on Van Cleef's Colonel Mortimer from For a Few Dollars More, with an even snazzier arsenal and higher body count. Parolini matches this fantasy gun play with bizarre style choices and outlandish characters (circus performers, booby traps, burlesque humor) like a B-movie Fellini. The trilogy plays like a mix of Wild, Wild West and Roger Moore's James Bond flicks.
Like all Spaghettis, Sabata is an acquired taste. Those attuned to this quirky sub-genre should find plenty to enjoy.
Sabata (1969)
Sabata was my first non-Leone Spaghetti Western. Inured to that director's operatic, sprawling style, I wasn't prepared for Sabata's offbeat goofiness. Ten years and dozens of Spaghettis later, I'm better placed to judge. In many ways it's an essential genre work: violent, overwrought, tongue-in-cheek - and deliriously entertaining.
One night in Daugherty City, several criminals rob an Army payroll. Black-clad gunslinger Sabata (Lee Van Cleef) kills the robbers and returns the loot, but discovers there's more to the robbery. Turns out local businessman Stengel (Franco Ressel) arranged the robbery as part of a complicated land-grabbing scheme. Sabata defeats a seemingly endless parade of henchmen, forcing Stengel to turn to Banjo (William Berger). Banjo's an old friend of Sabata, but his motives are in doubt until the last reel.
Parolini (credited as "Frank Kramer") adopts the same approach as Sartana: a gunfight every five minutes, a thin plot full of treachery and backstabbing, eccentric villains and a black clad hero sporting a deadly arsenal. One character even calls Sabata a pallbearer, presumably a dig at Addobbati and Co. Besides the catchy title tune, Marcello Gambioni's music evinces an improbable meld of styles: bluegrass, fuzz guitar, harpsichords, even calypso! It's ridiculous yet endearing.
Sabata's twisty plot is predictable enough, but Parolini delights in unconventional touches. The protagonist wields a four-barreled derringer concealing additional rounds in its stock - and a specially-made Winchester that shoots over a mile. Stengel engages rivals in a bizarre pin-hole shooting game, carrying a dart-firing cane in reserve. Banjo conceals a rifle in his instrument of choice. Numerous booby traps, acrobatic tricks and explosives contribute to the mayhem.
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| Banjo... You can try to talk, but he don't give a pluck! |
Lee Van Cleef makes an iconic Western hero. He's an intense but likeable antihero, with enough piercing glares, fancy gun-slinging and off-hand sarcasm to disarm opponents and viewers alike. It's not as meaty as his Leone characters or The Big Gundown, but perfect match for his persona.
William Berger essentially reprises his Sartana character, a trickster playing both sides. Dressed and coiffed like a hippie, he nonetheless proves a formidable rival. Less endearing is the obnoxious Ignazio Spalla, who'd play similar characters in the sequels. Franco Ressell makes an unremarkable antagonist, and the assorted minor villains die before making an impression. Some feminine allure is provided by Linda Veras, wife of director Sergio Sollima. Portly Gianni Rizzo, previously one of Sartana's foes, appeared in all three Sabata flicks.
Sabata doesn't try for the grandeur of Leone or Sollima's Westerns. It's content being an agreeably silly shoot-'em-up. The approach eventually wears thin, but Sabata's good-natured anarchy mostly works.
Adios Sabata (1970)
Parolini and Renato Izzi's story resembles the "Zapata Westerns" prevalent around that time. Sabata is a gun-for-hire dabbling in the Franco-Mexican War. He teams with Juarista leader Escudo (Ignazio Spalla) to steal a gold cache from Emperor Maximilian's troops. This brings Sabata into conflict with Austrian Colonel Skimmel (Gerard Herter), a monocled psychopath who enjoys target shooting prisoners Amon Goeth-style. The wild card is Ballatine (Dean Reed), an artist-gunslinger on Skimmel's payroll.
Adios Sabata is more serious and slow-moving than its predecessor. Parolini incorporates a few picaresque elements, like a shootout timed by a spinning weather vein and another mute acrobatic sidekick (Sal Borgese). The gadgets are relatively tame: Sabata has a clip-loaded rifle, while the mute kicks metal balls at enemy's throats! Skimmel gets the neatest one, a model ship rigged to fire live rounds. Adios at least allows for breathing room between action scenes, but the shootouts and battle scenes are rote genre stuff.
Indeed, there's little to distinguish Adios from dozens of other Spaghettis. Parolini cribs wholesale from earlier Westerns: the setting and character interplay comes from Vera Cruz; Ballatine recalls A Bullet for the General's treacherous Nino; the finale apes The Wild Bunch. The historical context doesn't amount to much: Parolini inexplicably shows Austria instead of France as Maximilian's benefactors, while Escudo's revolutionaries behave like generic banditos. It's not good when plot twists and Gatling gun massacres invite yawns.
Yul Brynner seems profoundly bored, rarely raising his voice above a mumble. He's not helped by a ludicrous fringed outfit (insert Village People joke here). Dean Reed makes a bland sidekick, a runty Robert Redford with none of the charisma. Ignazio Spalla's role is more serious, and effective, than his other Sabata pictures. Gerard Herter does an effective retread of his Teutonic sociopath from The Big Gundown. Nieves Navarro (A Pistol for Ringo) has a minor role.
As you've likely gathered, Adios Sabata shares nothing with the original film besides the title, director and a few actors. Sabata's next adventure returned the franchise to its roots, but not to its benefit.
The Return of Sabata (1971)
Sabata's now working as a marksman for a traveling circus. He drifts into another Texas town, running afoul of Joe McIntock (Giampero Albertini). McIntock and his family run the town, charging exorbitant taxes and generally pissing Sabata. Sabata also hopes to settle an old grudge with Clyde (Reiner Schoener), who runs a crooked craps game at the town casino. Inevitably the plot turns on a hidden cache of gold, which becomes a point of contention between the three antagonists.
The Return of Sabata starts with a striking set piece. Sabata stalks six gunslingers through a mist-blown funeral parlor, with several stern officials keeping score. It's a delightfully surreal sequence in its own right, cleverly sending up audience expectations and even setting up the finale. The movie ends on a high note, with a huge gun battle that entertains through sheer absurdity.
Between these scenes, however, is a dull and stupid film. The story's even thinner than the original: Sabata's rivalry/friendship with Clyde lacks the effectiveness of his interplay with Banjo. Nor is there much reason for him to fall out with McLintocks, except they're bad guys and Sabata needs bullet fodder. Anyone who's seen even one Spaghetti won't be shocked by Sabata and Clyde's tricks and betrayals. That leaves style, never wise for a movie featuring circus clowns.
Parolini's goofy self-awareness becomes a bad joke. Here Sabata gets not one but two silent acrobat sidekicks, sporting pork pie hats and long hair like Droogs out West. Among the weapons here are a crotch-fired slingshot (?), Sabata's magnetic shoe and a barrel with revolvers nailed inside. Marcello Gambioni's music seems more appropriate for a low-end Hanna Barbera cartoon (Speed Buggy perhaps?). At least the idiotic theme song provides a laugh:
It's easy to see why Parolini opted for absurdity. Between Sabata and this sequel, Enzo Barboni's parodic They Call Me Trinity (1970) became a huge hit. Now Spaghettis that weren't dabbling in revolutionary politics evinced a comic tilt. It's possible, indeed, that Return was intended as an outright comedy. Too bad it isn't funny. Everything's a matter of degree: what works in Sabata gets agonizingly overdone by Return.
Van Cleef emerges unscathed, remaining stoic and snarky amidst the silliness. Sadly, his supporting cast is pathetic. Reiner Schoener makes a poor substitute for William Berger, lacking a personality or discernible motive. Ignazio Spalla plays another obnoxious sidekick with an irritating drum-beating schtick. Jacqueline Alexandre makes a decent femme fatale, but the villains are unmemorable pushovers.
In 1979, Harry and Michael Medved named Return of Sabata one of their Fifty Worst Films of All Time. This is hyperbole; Return isn't among the fifty worst Spaghetti Westerns of all time. But if the original Sabata is a quintessential Spaghetti, Return showcases the genre's most obnoxious excesses.
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