Barquero (1970)

[dave jenkins]

French and Indian War? Joe, this is a hundred years later and the setting is Texas or some such (near the Mexican border, anyway). You don't move across the West without learning how to cross rivers. Maybe not everbody, but like I say, Remy's gang is big (about 30 guys). Anyway, even if they can't swim, there's plenty of material about the town they can use to float across. They eventually make the two battle barges to cross with anyway: why didn't they just come up with simpler vessels earlier to get some men across for a commando-style raid?

[cigar joe]

I just made that reference because it was the earliest, but I'm sure that it was true up through most of the 19th century. Not until swimming was taught to kids on a regular basis.

[titoli]

Why move the raft?

Because that would prevent interference from strangers while they're waiting for the gang. On the other side of the river they only have LVC to take care of (or so they think) and they have absolute control of the river-crossing.

[dave jenkins]

But then they have to bring the raft back across for the gang. But they don't know exactly when the gang will arrive. It is better to have the raft properly positioned and ready to go when Oates and the boys arrive. Nobody can use the raft without LVC (he's the owner/operator) so just taking him out will prevent any of the civilians from trying to cross (the 3 goons can put a sign up that says LVC will be back later, or whatever). The point is, the men need the raft where it sits from the beginning. It is foolish to move it (or allow it to be moved). What they want to do is kill (or incapacitate) LVC, and they can do that without moving the raft.

[The Firecracker]

Its not that far fetched, reading a lot of historical journals from the French & Indian War when I was doing research most soldiers/civilians couldn't swim and any body of water was a real obstacle back then.

The reason I figure a lot of these people born and raised in the west couldn't swim was because bodies of water were just not accessible to them for learning purposes.
Of course that really depends on which part of "the west" we're talking about.


P.S. did DJ like the movie, or not?

[dave jenkins]

I like the first 40 minutes a lot. Once the stand-off sets in, however, the whole thing stalls, and even the moderately interesting finale can't save it. In future, I'm only ever going to re-watch the beginning.

[The Firecracker]

This is on OnDemand right now if anybody is interested.

[The Firecracker]

Maybe Remy has some kind of weird superstition about not letting himself or any of his men touch large amounts of water. That would tie in well with the bathtub motif that runs through the film.

Doesn't Remy shoot the water at some point?

[O'Cangaceiro]

Hopefully, it will be a much better version than the one I have.

Well, I watched the new version and it is definitely much better than my Spanish DVD. The picture quality and the sound are excellent, but the movie lasted 105 minutes versus the full 115 minutes listed in the IMDB (still 5 minutes longer than mine). It would appear, however, that either the IMDB is wrong or there is an international extended version around, as the NYT review dated September 4, 1970 described the movie as lasting 104 minutes.

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E07E3DD1F3EE336A05757C0A96F9C946190D6CF

Another interesting thing I noticed is that the picture has been cropped at the top and the bottom to give the 1:85:1 aspect.

All in all, the new version is far more watchable than the one I had before, so I will change my initial rating of "complete waste of time" to 7/10.

[Dust Devil]

Finally watched Barquero and was a little disappointed. I caught different parts of it on TV before and it seemed better. The story is actually very interesting, but without focused direction it turns into a bunch of funny episodes dancing around a huge hole in the plot. Too many interesting faces-characters don't get used properly as the cross-not cross mind game advances further at apparently no purpose at all. Even Lee Van Cleef doesn't seem to benefit from his screen time, although his character is pretty interesting. He always seems to be somewhere behind, ''in the rear with the gear'', and the ladies (good for him). If it wasn't for them I doubt many here could remember what exactly was he doing throughout the whole movie. Mountain Phil (Forrest Tucker) steals the (shaky) show.

(around) 6/10

[drinkanddestroy]

I just re-read parts of Frayling's book "Spaghetti Westerns," and he absolutely trashes Barquero. It was in the section of the book where Frayling discusses AW's that were released after the Spag craze started and were trying to copy Spags, and in all his examples, I think he reserves the harshest language for Barquero! Surprised to read that; while this isn't the best movie in the world, I didn't think it was that bad either.

LVC is certainly not used properly. One of the greatest Western gunslingers is stuck operating a ferry? Come on, man! (It would be like they made Dirty Harry with Eastwood as the police radio dispatcher!)