I recently got Vol. 1 & 3 of the Spaghetti Western Bible. Vol. 1 sucks balls(except Viva Django, that was worth the $14 in my opinion. I'd love to watch a Viva Django/Django double feature someday!), but 2 is very entertaining. Movies that I had no interest in at all were fun to discover and opened my mind to some awesome ass kick. Bounty Killer with Tomas Milian is my idea of how a low budget western could be great
because of its low budget.
Viva Django was a masterpiece of a western but the first ten minutes feels like a stain on its greatness. I can't help but think that the first ten minutes 'doesn't count' because of this. It really gets to me!
I thought the story couldn't be topped, and I watched Blindman with no expectations at all... and now it(Blindman) is one of my top westerns. TA's Blindman is now one of my top movie characters and performances. I know a blind woman and it was amazing how well he acted the part because the way he talked and his body language reminded me of her.
On the production side of things it feels like a real, lived in west, with no 'make-up' or sterile sets and I love the hell out of that. The lighting is realistic, the acting is perfect, and it doesn't feel like it had to 'salvage' anything from the inventory of SW locations, actors, setpieces, cliches, etc. to make up for a lack of creativity. Even the two Leone locations feel like they're unique to the Blindman world and not "That place we've seen a million times," even though I haven't seen them in other westerns besides Leone's. The irony in what I discovered was that it's also the least cheesy western I've seen, and yet the idea behind the film seems like the most gimmicky SW idea I've heard. It never relies on coincedence to make up for writer's block, everything that happens is driven by character action and I think that's something that you rarely find in almost
any movie or story. Blindman's line about a blind man with no money being a bitch, in my opinion, saved the second half from being what could've been a failure, and yet it was done in a way that didn't seem like exposition at all. I even find it unique that the music was more pop-rock than most SW and didn't lean too much on it the same way others do.
(I didn't start this thread just to review Blindman, but I needed to get that out of the way)
I searched my memory trying to think of other non-Leone SW's that stood tall on the merits of their production & originality and the only other film I could think of was The Great Silence. TGS and BM are the only SW's I could think of that seem more like 'cousins' to Leone's films amongst the countless bastard sons and grandsons that have inherited something from Leone and SWdom in obvious ways. Even The Mercenary falls short a few feet of untouchable cinematic greatness. The make-up, unexplainable why's and how's, Zapata Western mold, it definitely didn't 'come out of nowhere', but I enjoy it, so don't take it the wrong way.
Could anyone here name SW's that really stand on their own in production standard, story/originality, avoiding redundance(same looking towns, sets), etc.? the same way TGS and BM do?
