Texas, Adios (12.)
Directed by Ferdinando Baldi. 1966
Starring Franco Nero, Cole Kitosch, Jose Suarez, Elisa Montes, Livio Lorenzon, Jose Guardiola. 93 mins. Out now on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
That this early Franco Nero Spaghetti western is being reviewed here is down to the influence of a fine friend of mine named Phil. He's a western fanatic. You go to his home and there is a whole wall of shelves covered in cowboy blueys and divvies and books about westerns. Well, it's a hobby and as good as any other I guess, but the last time I saw him he told me he had just ordered a box set of the complete Little House on the Praire. Not even second hand, but brand new off Amazon. He said it was a good deal because it worked out at just over £1 a disc. I said: "It's the Little House on the Prairie: you're never ever going to sit down and watch them." I'm wondering if its time for an intervention.
Anyway. On hearing that this title was in line for an Arrow Video release he suggested I watch it because he said it was “interesting.” “Interesting” is a word heard many times in the commentaries and documentaries on this disc. I would've prefered to hear "brilliant," "marvellous" or even just "good" but interesting is what we've got. Texas, Adios is interesting because it was made straight after Django, the film that made Nero's name. Indeed in some territories, it was rebranded as Django The Avenger. It is also interesting as it was made just as the spaghetti floodgates were about to open. It's after the Dollars films A Fistful Of and A Few More but before Good, Bad and Ugly. It is often considered to be more like an American western than most of the Italian ones. Nero himself says that at the start of the interview with him on the disc. It is interesting in that you can see the form trying to work out what route it should take to build on the successes of the early films. As Spaghetti Western scholar (now there's a thing to be) Austin Fisher describes it in his appreciation, the film is "a document of industrial conditions, a document of a particular market, at a particular time and a particular place," which is a quote that would grace any movie poster.
(There's an “interesting” political aspect to the film in terms of how it treats the Mexican Revolution but you can buy the damn disc if you want to know about that.)
Even before you sit down to watch Texas, Adios, it is unlike other spaghetti western in having a 12A rating. Nero is a Texas marshall who heads south down Mexico way with his younger brother (Kitosch or Alberto Dell'Acqua as his mother knows him) in search of the man who killed their father, Cisco Delgado (Suarez.) Once there, the trail of vengeance has many bodies but you couldn't call it a bloodbath because red hardly figures in the film's colour scheme. Everybody wears white shirts, everybody gets shot and nobody bleeds. This bloodlessness is indicative of a film that is way milder than the typical spaghetti western. There's a slightly sadistic execution scene near the beginning and women folk have a tough old time of it if they dare to open their mouths but it is nowhere near as nasty as these things usually are. Perhaps that's why it is considered to be more American: it's a bit bland. The music is straightforward and unmemorable and though Almería, Spain provides some decent wild west locations, a lot of it looks like a High Chaparral episode. I'd call it a Pizza Hut Western with a thick crust and substitute flavours.
Even by Spaghetti standards, the dubbing is bad. I started watching it in English, flipped to subtitled Italian and concluded with spoken English and the subtitles from the Italian soundtrack which rarely corresponded. I was searching for a medium that would best convey what is the plot and characterisation because the later was apt to switch at a moment's notice. One snivelling sadist from the first half finds him redeemed by the end for no great reason.
Nero though is a constant. His gunslinging prowess is superhuman and he wields his pistol like Harry Potter flaps his wand around: he just has to waft it in the direction of a foe for them to fall down dead. It seems terribly unfair as nobody else seems able to shoot straight.
So, overall no great enthusiasm from me for this but I'm not a Western fanatic – anything outside of Clint, Leone and Peckinpah usually loses me. Phil's critique is that the film is rather cartoonish but, "enjoyable for what it is," and, as ever, Arrow have done a fine job of presenting it.
Extras
New restoration from a 2K scan from the original camera negative by Arrow Films
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM audio
• Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
• Audio commentary for by spaghetti western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke
• Newly filmed interview with star Franco Nero
• Newly filmed interview with co-star Alberto Dell'Acqua
• Newly filmed interview with co-writer Franco Rossetti
• Hello Texas!, newly filmed appreciation by Spaghetti Westerns scholar Austin Fisher
• Gallery of original promotional images from the Mike Siegel Archive
• Original trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin
FIRST PRESSING ONLY:
Fully illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing by Howard Hughes, and original reviews
Directed by Ferdinando Baldi. 1966
Starring Franco Nero, Cole Kitosch, Jose Suarez, Elisa Montes, Livio Lorenzon, Jose Guardiola. 93 mins. Out now on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
That this early Franco Nero Spaghetti western is being reviewed here is down to the influence of a fine friend of mine named Phil. He's a western fanatic. You go to his home and there is a whole wall of shelves covered in cowboy blueys and divvies and books about westerns. Well, it's a hobby and as good as any other I guess, but the last time I saw him he told me he had just ordered a box set of the complete Little House on the Praire. Not even second hand, but brand new off Amazon. He said it was a good deal because it worked out at just over £1 a disc. I said: "It's the Little House on the Prairie: you're never ever going to sit down and watch them." I'm wondering if its time for an intervention.
Anyway. On hearing that this title was in line for an Arrow Video release he suggested I watch it because he said it was “interesting.” “Interesting” is a word heard many times in the commentaries and documentaries on this disc. I would've prefered to hear "brilliant," "marvellous" or even just "good" but interesting is what we've got. Texas, Adios is interesting because it was made straight after Django, the film that made Nero's name. Indeed in some territories, it was rebranded as Django The Avenger. It is also interesting as it was made just as the spaghetti floodgates were about to open. It's after the Dollars films A Fistful Of and A Few More but before Good, Bad and Ugly. It is often considered to be more like an American western than most of the Italian ones. Nero himself says that at the start of the interview with him on the disc. It is interesting in that you can see the form trying to work out what route it should take to build on the successes of the early films. As Spaghetti Western scholar (now there's a thing to be) Austin Fisher describes it in his appreciation, the film is "a document of industrial conditions, a document of a particular market, at a particular time and a particular place," which is a quote that would grace any movie poster.
(There's an “interesting” political aspect to the film in terms of how it treats the Mexican Revolution but you can buy the damn disc if you want to know about that.)
Even before you sit down to watch Texas, Adios, it is unlike other spaghetti western in having a 12A rating. Nero is a Texas marshall who heads south down Mexico way with his younger brother (Kitosch or Alberto Dell'Acqua as his mother knows him) in search of the man who killed their father, Cisco Delgado (Suarez.) Once there, the trail of vengeance has many bodies but you couldn't call it a bloodbath because red hardly figures in the film's colour scheme. Everybody wears white shirts, everybody gets shot and nobody bleeds. This bloodlessness is indicative of a film that is way milder than the typical spaghetti western. There's a slightly sadistic execution scene near the beginning and women folk have a tough old time of it if they dare to open their mouths but it is nowhere near as nasty as these things usually are. Perhaps that's why it is considered to be more American: it's a bit bland. The music is straightforward and unmemorable and though Almería, Spain provides some decent wild west locations, a lot of it looks like a High Chaparral episode. I'd call it a Pizza Hut Western with a thick crust and substitute flavours.
Even by Spaghetti standards, the dubbing is bad. I started watching it in English, flipped to subtitled Italian and concluded with spoken English and the subtitles from the Italian soundtrack which rarely corresponded. I was searching for a medium that would best convey what is the plot and characterisation because the later was apt to switch at a moment's notice. One snivelling sadist from the first half finds him redeemed by the end for no great reason.
Nero though is a constant. His gunslinging prowess is superhuman and he wields his pistol like Harry Potter flaps his wand around: he just has to waft it in the direction of a foe for them to fall down dead. It seems terribly unfair as nobody else seems able to shoot straight.
So, overall no great enthusiasm from me for this but I'm not a Western fanatic – anything outside of Clint, Leone and Peckinpah usually loses me. Phil's critique is that the film is rather cartoonish but, "enjoyable for what it is," and, as ever, Arrow have done a fine job of presenting it.
Extras
New restoration from a 2K scan from the original camera negative by Arrow Films
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM audio
• Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
• Audio commentary for by spaghetti western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke
• Newly filmed interview with star Franco Nero
• Newly filmed interview with co-star Alberto Dell'Acqua
• Newly filmed interview with co-writer Franco Rossetti
• Hello Texas!, newly filmed appreciation by Spaghetti Westerns scholar Austin Fisher
• Gallery of original promotional images from the Mike Siegel Archive
• Original trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin
FIRST PRESSING ONLY:
Fully illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing by Howard Hughes, and original reviews
