The Specialists. (15.)
Directed by Sergio Corbucci.
Starring Johnny Hallyday, Gastone Moschin, Françoise Fabian. In French or Italian with subtitles, or a partial English dubbed version. Out on Blu-ray/ DVD from Eureka!
Come and join us on a Western Hallyday, gunfights and mayhem for an hour or two. Like the English with football, the French have a proprietary interest in cinema, because they invented it and can't quite accept that anyone else is any good at it. So having seen the Italians recreate the Westerns, they, of course, had to barge in and throw their weight around. This Garlic/ Spaghetti hybrid western, features the French Elvis, Johnny Halliday, as Hud..
So, Allyday is Ud, (if you watch in the French dub,) a notorious gunslinger who rides into the town of Blackwater looking for revenge for the lynching of his brother after a bank robbery. A simple set up but after that the plot wanders off all over the place. The working out of a dying man's clue to the location of hidden money is beyond preposterous, and the scheme by the villain to escape with the money makes no sense at all. Also, thrown into the mix are a group of four sexually ambiguous hippy types, hanging around for no clear purpose and looking like they might have wandered in off a Pasolini set, or Satyricon.
It's not a classic but it's enjoyable and has a weird, kinky ending. The landscapes look terrific. Spaghetti westerns are generally dried up, arid affairs but this was shot in the Italian Dolomites, with spectacular mountain range backdrops that really convince as America.
Extras
Feature-length audio commentary by filmmaker Alex Cox
Directed by Sergio Corbucci.
Starring Johnny Hallyday, Gastone Moschin, Françoise Fabian. In French or Italian with subtitles, or a partial English dubbed version. Out on Blu-ray/ DVD from Eureka!
Come and join us on a Western Hallyday, gunfights and mayhem for an hour or two. Like the English with football, the French have a proprietary interest in cinema, because they invented it and can't quite accept that anyone else is any good at it. So having seen the Italians recreate the Westerns, they, of course, had to barge in and throw their weight around. This Garlic/ Spaghetti hybrid western, features the French Elvis, Johnny Halliday, as Hud..
So, Allyday is Ud, (if you watch in the French dub,) a notorious gunslinger who rides into the town of Blackwater looking for revenge for the lynching of his brother after a bank robbery. A simple set up but after that the plot wanders off all over the place. The working out of a dying man's clue to the location of hidden money is beyond preposterous, and the scheme by the villain to escape with the money makes no sense at all. Also, thrown into the mix are a group of four sexually ambiguous hippy types, hanging around for no clear purpose and looking like they might have wandered in off a Pasolini set, or Satyricon.
It's not a classic but it's enjoyable and has a weird, kinky ending. The landscapes look terrific. Spaghetti westerns are generally dried up, arid affairs but this was shot in the Italian Dolomites, with spectacular mountain range backdrops that really convince as America.
Extras
Feature-length audio commentary by filmmaker Alex Cox
- A brand new and exclusive interview with Austin Fisher, author of Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western: Politics, Violence and Popular Italian Cinema
- Trailer
- A LIMITED EDITION collector’s booklet featuring new writing by western authority Howard Hughes on both the film, and the “French-western” sub-genre
