1980 Week: The Octagon

          Unlike his friend Bruce Lee, American martial artist-turned-movie star Chuck Norris rarely used his films to explore the spiritual aspects of Asian fighting techniques. Quite to the contrary, Norris made meat-and-potatoes action pictures during his heyday, eventually complementing his signature roundhouse kicks with giant pistols and massive machine guns. Examining Norris’ most ambitious martial-arts flick, The Octagon, reveals why the strategies that worked for Lee didn’t work for Norris. Among other reasons, Norris is, was, and always will be a genuinely terrible actor, though he was able to slide through on charm and stoicism in a few projects.

          Throughout The Octagon, director Eric Karson features scenes of Norris’ character deep in thought while echo-laden recordings of Norris’ voice reverberate on the soundtrack, conveying the character’s thoughts. Thanks to the actor’s blank facial expressions and lame surfer-dude line readings, the effect is alternately dull and laughable. At his best, Lee was able to convey depth, intensity, and soulfulness. All three qualities are required to put across the concept of a philosophical warrior, and all three qualities are beyond Norris’ dramatic reach. In the star’s defense, the script for The Octagon is so episodic and turgid that even the best actor would have encountered difficulty creating a dynamic through line. So while the film is redeemed somewhat by a few cool action scenes, including the moderately stylish climax, The Octagon is a slog of a movie that only devoted fans of martial-arts cinema are likely to enjoy.

          The mechanics of the story are silly and twisty, but the main thrust is that modern-day ninja assassins have begun operating in the U.S. Professional martial artist Scott James (Norris) suspects the ninja were trained by his estranged half-brother, Sekura (Tadashi Yamashita). Convoluted intrigue ensues. Scott becomes involved with a beautiful woman, Justine (Karen Carlson), who has connections to the assassinations. Also pulled into the situation are Scott’s best friend (Art Hindle) and a mercenary (Lee Van Cleef) with whom Scott shares history. Eventually, Scott learns that Sekura has built a training camp for international killers, so he and his allies mount an assault, leading to a showdown between the half-brothers. Although the dialogue and the storytelling are as poor as Norris’ acting, cinematographer Michel Hugo gives The Octagon a polished look, and every so often, something onscreen has an adrenalized kick—the shots of the ninja scaling a hotel wall at night are creepy, and the staging of the final showdown is suitably grandiose.

The Octagon: FUNKY

The Grand Duel (1972)

          Squinty-eyed American actor Lee Van Cleef made so many spaghetti westerns in the ’60s and ’70s that the pictures are largely interchangeable. For instance, while The Grand Duel has its merits, it’s not memorable. The plot is the usual hokum about a righteous sheriff and a wrongly accused gunslinger, et cetera, and watching the movie is pleasant enough for fans of sweaty sagas about angry dudes killing each other in the desert. Furthermore, even though The Grand Duel lags considerably in the middle, the picture starts and ends well, and it provides a handful of exciting or at least vivid scenes along the way. Made in Europe in 1972 but not released in the U.S. until 1974, the picture—which is also known as The Big Showdown and Storm Rider—stars Van Cleef as Clayton, a lawman tracking down escaped convict Phillip Vermeer. (Phillip is played by handsome Italian actor Alberto Dentice, billed under the Americanized stage name “Peter O’Brien.”)

          Long story short, it seems Phillip was convicted of murdering a man known only as “Patriarch,” the overlord of a frontier town called Saxon City. Patriarch’s three sons, the Saxon Brothers, took over Saxon City after their father died, and the Saxon Brothers are convinced that Phillip was responsible for their father’s death. Clayton, however, claims to know for certain that Phillip is innocent, so after a long stretch during which it seems as if Clayton is either delivering Phillip to justice or planning to trade him for a bounty, a fragile alliance forms between the men. Meanwhile, thugs hired by the Saxons chase Clayton and Phillip through the barren wilderness until Phillip breaks from Clayton and returns to Saxon City so he can clear his name. Story-wise, nothing out of the ordinary.

          What gives The Grand Duel a modicum of zippy energy is the combination of predictable and unexpected elements. On the predictable side, Van Cleef commands attention with his man-of-few-words routine, making impossible gunshots and scaring people into retreat with his deadly stare and his vicious put-downs. Additionally, the picture has the usual spaghetti-western stylistic tropes—a histrionic score, grotesque-looking extras, wild zoom-in shots. On the unexpected side, the movie features an Old West spin on the ugly cliché of the gay psychopath, thanks to Klaus Grünberg’s gonzo performance as Adam Saxon. Wearing an all-white ensemble worthy of Truman Capote (picture a floppy hat and a flowing scarf), the Adam character seems genuinely perverse because he experiences orgasmic pleasure while mowing down a canyon full of innocent victims with a Gatling Gun. For better or worse, in the world of spaghetti westerns, wackadoodle intensity often represents an acceptable substitute for rational dramaturgy.

The Grand Duel: FUNKY

The Stranger and the Gunfighter (1974)

          Credited with having made over 1,000 features since its formation in 1958, Hong Kong production company Shaw Brothers has largely focused on domestic product, but the ’70s martial-arts craze expanded the company’s international reach. That period also found Shaw Brothers attempting co-productions with companies that were established in specific genres, hence the dizzyingly weird The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974), a kung fu/vampire mashup made with Hammer Films, and this buddy movie set in the Wild West. Coproduced by Shaw Brothers and Italy-based spaghetti-Western outfit Champion Films, the picture blends comedy, gun fights, kung fu, and a liberal sprinkling of sex. Accordingly, The Stranger and the Gunfighter begins with a truly bizarre sequence. As rootin’-tootin’ outlaw Dakota (Lee Van Cleef) breaks into a bank vault, he discovers still photographs of naked women. Close-up shots of the photographs trigger vignettes during which a Chinese gentleman named Mr. Wang tattoos artwork onto the buttocks of the women in the photographs. Keep in mind that Dakota doesn’t learn about the tattoos until later in the movie, so why the vignettes are featured in this scene is a mystery.

          Anyway, Dakota gets captured by authorities and sentenced to death. Meanwhile in China, Mr. Wang’s nephew, Ho Chiang (Lo Lieh), graduates from kung fu school, gets into a fight with a gangster, and is told he must travel to America and recover a fortune that Mr. Wang hid somewhere. Faster than you can say “plot contrivance,” Ho treks to the U.S. and rescues Dakota from the hangman’s noose. Then they’re off to find the women in the pictures, since the tattoos collectively form a treasure map. A crazed preacher chases after Dakota and Ho, intent on seizing Mr. Wang’s treasure for himself. The plot is mildly imaginative, in a farcical sort of way, and some of the culture-clash jokes generate brainless amusement. (For instance, the naïve Ho can’t understand why Dakota reacts with alarm every time Ho says, “I want to see ass!”)

          Furthermore, The Stranger and the Gunfighter moves along at a decent clip, even though the iffy dubbing common to both martial-arts films and spaghetti Westerns of the era guarantees a weird soundtrack. Similarly, the heavy use of comedic music and wacky sound effects makes action scenes feel cartoonish. On the plus side, there’s so much plot that the movie doesn’t get overly mired in fighting scenes, the ladies in the supporting cast are lovely, and the stars are cast well—Lieh blends impressive martial-arts abilities with childlike sweetness, while Van Cleef ably personifies a brute whose boastfulness often exceeds his skills. While not necessarily a standout amid the small subgenre of martial-arts Westerns (which also includes 1971’s gonzo Red Sun and the amiable Shanghai pictures of the 200s starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson), The Stranger and the Gunfighter offers a pleasant sampler platter of sensations from two popular genres.

The Stranger and the Gunfighter: FUNKY

Kid Vengeance (1977)

          Go figure that B-movie tough guy Lee Van Cleef made not one but two cheap European Westerns costarring ’70s teen idol Leif Garrett. And while Garrett was merely a supporting player in God’s Gun (1976), he’s more or less the protagonist of Kid Vengeance—despite billing suggesting that either Van Cleef or blaxploitation badass Jim Brown plays the main character. Confusion about who’s more important to the storyline notwithstanding, Kid Vengeance is on the low end of passable, but at least that means it ‘s a hell of a lot better than the abysmal God’s Gun. Among other noteworthy differences, Kid Vengeance has a plot that makes sense. At the beginning the violent story, honest prospector Isaac (Brown) trades gold for cash, thereby catching the attention of thugs including McClain (Van Cleef), who leads a posse of savage men. After his first skirmish with would-be robbers, Isaac flees into the sun-baked wilderness and encounters the salt-of-the-earth Thurston clan, including Ma and Pa plus two kids. The kids are nubile Lisa (Glynis O’Connor) and wide-eyed Tom (Garrett). Once Isaac leaves them, the Thurstons get menaced by McClain’s gang; the thugs kill Pa, rape Ma, and kidnap Lisa for sale to slavers. Tom witnesses all of this and begins picking off the baddies with his bow and arrow. Eventually, Tom hooks up with Isaac, and the two join forces.
          The first half of the picture is sluggish, even with lots of bloodshed, partially because of lax storytelling and partially because Garrett’s an ineffectual screen presence as he lurks in high rock formations and watches bad things happen. Meanwhile, Brown is mostly kept offscreen for a good 40 minutes. On the brighter side, Van Cleef renders one of his signature phoned-in performances, but he plays evil so enjoyably that his lack of commitment doesn’t really matter. As for the other key players, O’Connor brings her customary sincerity and costar Matt Clark gives good varmint, as usual. (It’s a mystery why the producers bothered hiring John Marley, who plays McClain’s second-in-command, since his voice was replaced in dubbing to make him sound Mexican.) Kid Vengeance—which is also known by the titles Vendetta and Vengeance—isn’t the worst film of its kind, but no one will ever mistake it for a quality picture. And even though Kid Vengeance is occasionally described as a sequel to a previous Brown-Van Cleef flick, Take a Hard Ride (1975), the films are unrelated.

Kid Vengeance: FUNKY

Take a Hard Ride (1975)

          Despite featuring several interesting B-movie personalities and despite having a solid story premise, the European-made Western Take a Hard Ride never realizes its potential. Part of the problem has to do with audience expectations. Since the movie features blaxploitation stars Jim Brown, Jim Kelly, and Fred Williamson—as well as spaghetti-Western stalwart Lee Van Cleef—the obvious approach would have been to combine the actors into a fighting unit for a Magnificent Seven-style flick. Alas, Take a Hard Ride is essentially a Brown-Williamson buddy picture in which Kelly and Van Cleef, among others, play supporting roles. Worse, director Antonio Margheriti employs a hacky visual style that makes every scene feel haphazard and rushed. The picture is watchable, but it gets awfully dull after a while, especially because Brown and Williamson end up playing repetitive variations on the exact same scene for most of the film’s middle hour.

          The story hook is simple enough. Black gunslinger Pike (Brown) accompanies his white boss, rancher Bob Morgan (Dana Andrews), to the end of a cattle drive, where Morgan gets paid $86,000 in cash. After Morgan has a fatal heart attack, the sterling Pike vows to return the money to Morgan’s widow. Unfortunately, once Pike sets off on his journey, various criminals get wind of his cargo and conspire to ambush him. One such outlaw, slick gambler Tyree (Williamson), saves Pike from an attacker and subsequently accompanies Pike on the trail—even though Tyree says outright that he plans to rob Pike once they reach the Mexican border. Another pursuer is Kiefer (Van Cleef), a bounty hunter who eventually gathers a small army of money-hungry varmints to chase after Pike. There’s also a subplot involving an ex-hooker, Catherine (Catherine Spaak), whom Pike and Tyree rescue from rapists—she joins Pike’s group, as does her mute Indian sidekick, Kashtok (Kelly).

          Considering that Take a Hard Ride is basically a chase movie, it’s amazing how little excitement the narrative generates. The script is filled with dull scenes of Pike and Tyree challenging each other, and the supporting characters are under-utilized; for instance, Kiefer spends most of the picture standing on ridges and squinting while other people get into fights. And speaking of the movie’s numerous battles, none is novel or surprising—think standard fire-and-duck shootouts, with the minor exception of quick bits during which Kelly takes down attackers with karate and throwing knives. If one struggles for a compliment, it could be noted that Take a Hard Ride has better production values that most movies starring Van Cleef or Williamson—but that’s not saying much.

Take a Hard Ride: FUNKY

The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972)

Continuity among sequels to The Magnificent Seven (1060) is a dodgy matter, which is probably to be expected seeing as how The Magnificent Seven was an Americanized spin on the Japanese action classic The Seven Samurai (1954)—it’s silly to complain about the lack of artistic integrity when discussing sequels to a remake. Therefore, suffice to say that by the time this fourth entry arrived, changes had been made. None of the original film’s actors is present, and the lead role of honorable gunfighter Chris Adams is occupied by Lee Van Cleef, the third actor in the series to play Adams. (Yul Brynner originated the part.) The storyline for The Magnificent Seven Ride! is, predictably, a retread of the series formula—Adams reluctantly agrees to help the citizens of a border town repel a violent invasion. To achieve this goal, Adams gathers a group of gunmen, and he enlists the citizens of the town, nearly all of whom are women, as helpers. Considering that it’s telling such a trite story, The Magnificent Seven Ride! takes quite a while to get going; the movie is nearly halfway over before preparations for the big battle get underway. Furthermore, the picture has an exceedingly ordinary visual style, looking more like an episode of a TV Western than a proper feature. Yet The Magnificent Seven Ride! is basically watchable, at least for undemanding viewers. Van Cleef’s cruel persona is compelling even in this drab context, and the reliable character actors surrounding him contribute solid work—the cast includes such familiar faces as Luke Askew, Ed Lauter, James B. Sikking, and Ralph Waite. (A young Gary Busey appears in a small role, too.) The women in the movie don’t fare as well, with Mariette Hartley disappearing quickly and Stefanie Powers pouting through her bland turn in the underdeveloped love-interest role. All in all, though, the movie is a fair trade: It promises little and delivers exactly that.

The Magnificent Seven Ride!: FUNKY

Captain Apache (1971)

Tedious in the extreme, this spaghetti Western stars the indestructible Lee Van Cleef as a half-breed lawman who spends most of his time grimacing through insults as whites call him names like “red-ass” and as Indians question his ethnic bona fides. Van Cleef snarls with his usual aplomb, and he cuts an impressive figure whether he’s fighting with his fists or his six-guns, but as in most of his second-rate spaghetti Westerns (which is to say pretty much everything except The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly), the combination of a clichéd script and Van Cleef’s paycheck-cashing indifference results in drabness. The story has something to do with Captain Apache (Van Cleef) investigating a killing and stumbling across a conspiracy, but the movie is really just a string of manly-man confrontations showcasing Captain Apache’s toughness. He intimidates weaklings into revealing information and he pretends to change his allegiances in order to sneak into the villains’ confidence, but everything is so inconsequential that it’s impossible to care how the pieces of the puzzle fit together or, really, whether Our Hero will vanquish evil at the end of the day. Since Captain Apache has all of the usual spaghetti-Western shortcomings (awkward dubbing, disjointed editing, meandering story), only the novel elements merit notice. Van Cleef talk-sings the movie’s theme song, providing some unintentional laughs, and at least one scene reaches the level of camp: When Captain Apache meets an Indian who disbelieves the hero’s racial identity, Van Cleef strips down to a loincloth (as a means of showing off his “red” skin), then performs the rest of the scene oiled like a bodybuilder and sucking in his gut. At least when Van Cleef is crooning and preening, Captain Apache offers weirdness to break the overall monotony.

Captain Apache: SQUARE

Bad Man’s River (1972)

Spaghetti Westerns kept Lee Van Cleef busy during the decade between his breakout performance in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966) and the decline of the genre in the mid-’70s, by which point he had cranked out more than a dozen Italian-made oaters. Given this assembly-line pace, it’s unsurprising most of the flicks are awful. For instance, it’s hard to muster enthusiasm for Bad Man’s River, which has some nicely staged action but is otherwise bland and directionless. (The movie also features godawful music, like the title song whose unflattering lyrics refer to Van Cleef’s “close-set beady eyes.”) Van Cleef plays a crook named Roy King, whose new bride, Alicia (Gina Lollobrigida), commits him to an insane asylum in order to steal his money. Thanks to the machinations of a laborious plot, Roy ends up in business with a revolutionary named Montero (James Mason), who happens to be Alicia’s new husband; it seems Montero is planning an elaborate scheme involving guns and money, so Alicia, who apparently expects Roy to forget their past, asks her ex-husband to ensure Montero doesn’t swindle her out of the loot she’s been promised. Or whatever. Featuring a numbing combination of clichéd characters, confusing plotting, and whiplash tonal shifts, Bad Man’s River seems like a different movie in nearly every scene. (During one sequence, the movie’s old-timey background music is supplanted by an acid-rock tune complete with Jethro Tull-style flute solos.) If the movie possessed any artistry, it might feel like the work of a mad cinematic genius, but Bad Man’s River is just chaotic junk. For instance, Mason, the venerable British actor who spent far too much of his career slumming in easy-paycheck B-movies, can’t be bothered to muster a Spanish accent for his Mexican-born character. Bad Man’s River is just plain bad.

Bad Man’s River: LAME

God’s Gun (1975)

A boring spaghetti Western arriving so late in the genre’s dubious life cycle as to lack any significance, God’s Gun pairs two of America’s favorite leather-faced B-movie stalwarts, Jack Palance and Lee Van Cleef, for a violent romp through the usual muck of religion-drenched vendettas. Produced by the notorious hacks at Golan-Globus, and co-written and directed by Sabata helmer Gianfranco Parolini (using his Americanized pseudonym “Frank Kramer”), God’s Gun doesn’t look like the usual spaghetti-Western schlock. Instead of rolling hills and parched deserts, the picture is mostly set in an ersatz Western town, complemented with overly lit soundstages that give the picture a Hollywood feel. These contrivances make God’s Gun more garish than grungy, which is not an improvement over the genre’s norm. Yet the worst aspects of spaghetti Westerns are present in full force, such as atrocious dubbing, which replaces the actors’ on-set performances with studio-recorded impersonations by substitute performers. (Why hire name actors and not use their voices?) The embalmed plot begins when a gang led by Sam Clayton (Palance) invades tiny Juno City. Since the sheriff (Richard Boone) is an ineffectual non-presence, the municipality’s real muscle is Father John (Van Cleef), a gunfighter-turned-preacher. Father John acts as a surrogate father for wide-eyed teenager Johnny (Leif Garrett), the son of a buxom saloon hostess (Sybil Danning). When Clayton’s goons kill Father John, Johnny flees into the wilderness and stumbles across his late mentor’s twin brother, Lewis (also played by Van Cleef). And so it goes from there: Lewis exacts revenge, the baddies are brought to justice, et cetera. Ineptly written, haphazardly filmed, and acted with suffocating disinterest, God’s Gun is a chore to sit through and not worth the effort. It says everything you need to know about the picture that the linchpin dramatic performance is given by the talentless Garrett, then at the beginning of his uninteresting run as a teen heartthrob.

God’s Gun: LAME

Barquero (1970)

Although its plotting is not particularly credible, the violent Western Barquero features intense performances by leading men Lee Van Cleef and Warren Oates, plus a hoot of a supporting turn by veteran character player Forrest Tucker. Combined with a few weird narrative flourishes and a dollop of sexual tension, which stems from a fraught relationship between Van Cleef’s antihero and a formidable homesteader played by Mariette Hartley, these elements give Barquero enough zing to make the whole thing quite watchable. The contrived story begins when psychotic outlaw Jake Remy (Oates) and his gang slaughter everyone in a small town during a brazen robbery. They head toward the Mexican border to make good their escape, but standing in their way is a wide river, and the only means of crossing is a barge owned by a bull-headed former soldier named Travis (Van Cleef). Prior to the arrival of Remy’s gang, Travis shuttled townsfolk from a riverbank settlement onto his side of the water, so Travis finds himself in the dangerous position of protecting both his boat and his neighbors from the marauding horde. Most of the picture comprises scenes of Jake and Travis shouting at each other across the river, threatening to kill each other’s hostages, and trying to outsmart each other. There are also vignettes on Jake’s side of the river, including flashbacks to his past humiliations at the hands of the oppressors who turned him bitter and evil, plus lots of melodrama on Travis’ side of the river. For instance, Travis has the hots for Hartley’s character, so when her husband gets captured by Jake, Travis agrees to rescue the man in exchange for sex. The best scenes involve Mountain Phil (Tucker), a wild man of Travis’ acquaintance; it’s great fun to watch the genial way he complains about having to help people. Predictably, the whole movie climaxes in a violent showdown, which is more or less satisfying. However, Travis never emerges as a noble hero, because in his moralistic way, he’s as much of a savage as Jake.

Barquero: FUNKY

The Squeeze (1978)

When it kicks off, The Squeeze—variously known by titles including Diamond Thieves and The Heist and The Rip-Off, and released sporadically through various international territories from 1978 to 1981—seems as if it might offer some kicky thrills. Craggy old Lee Van Cleef, whose occasional appearances in quality films such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) can only be seen as aberrations during a career dominated by low-budget international crap, shows up wearing a pimp-worthy white trench coat and a weird hairstyle including a bald dome, a halo of long gray hair, and a nattily trimmed beard. He looks ready to get down to some sort of nasty business, so when he’s approached by an ambitious young crook (Edward Albert) for help pulling a diamond heist, one hopes nefarious activities are in the offing. Things get even more promising when Our Lee decamps to New York City and hooks up with his favorite fence, played by the gravel-voiced bear Lionel Stander. And then it all goes to hell. The story gets lost in nonsensical double-crosses, to the point where it’s difficult to track what’s happening, and Our Lee gets sidelined with a gunshot wound, inexplicably shacking up in the apartment of a loudmouthed New Yorker (Karen Black). The movie quickly becomes an interminable death march of scenes in which nothing happens, punctuated by reiterations of the same awful jazz/funk music cue that repeats on the soundtrack, as if the producers were too cheap to commission an entire score (probably true). Van Cleef, who could thrive with good material, as seen by his bad-ass performance in Escape from New York (1981), delivers the worst kind of cash-the-paycheck acting here, reading every line with exactly the same menacing growl. As for the other actors, they barely register thanks to the story’s numbing incoherence. So, even though the ending has the tiniest amount of satisfactory zip, getting there isn’t worth the trouble.

The Squeeze: SQUARE

Adios, Sabata (1971) & Return of Sabata (1971)

          After more than a decade of playing routine roles in undistinguished features and TV shows, squint-eyed tough guy Lee Van Cleef finally found fame in a pair of Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns, For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). No fool, he seized the day by starring in a string of European-made cowboy flicks until the spaghetti-Western trend ran its course in the mid-’70s. Van Cleef’s boldest attempt at creating a gunslinger franchise all his own was Sabata (1969), a tongue-in-cheek adventure that tried to blend James Bond-style gadgetry with the usual spaghetti-Western tropes of elaborate heists, histrionic music, and unsavory supporting characters. Slight and unmemorable, the picture somehow did well enough to warrant both an ersatz sequel and legitimate follow-up.

          The fake successor came first. Originally titled Indigo Black, the film released in the US as Adios, Sabata stars Yul Brynner instead of Van Cleef—dialogue was re-recorded during editing to give Brynner’s character the same name as Van Cleef’s, presumably to cash in on a successful brand. Although helmed by the same director as the original picture, Gianfranco Parolini (billed as “Frank Kramer” on all three Sabata flicks), Adios has none of the wink-wink novelty of Sabata. Instead, it’s the usual mean-spirited formula of revenge and robbery, and the only colorful element is the prissy villain, an Austrian colonel with mutton-chop sideburns who gets orgasmic joy from murdering people with offbeat weapons. Brynner, who looks like a lost member of the Village People with his open-chested shirt and head-to-toe fringe, gives a performance that makes his later appearance as a robot in Westworld (1973) seem dynamic by comparison. Like all three pictures bearing the Sabata brand, this one is also interminably long, even though it’s only 104 minutes.

          After this bizarre detour, the real Sabata returned in, well, Return of Sabata. With Van Cleef back in his dandyish duds (a fun change of pace from the usual spaghetti-Western grunginess), Return of Sabata is the most interesting movie of the three, even though it’s terrible. What gives the picture energy is not the middling story, but rather the wall-to-wall gonzo energy of Parolini’s direction. Seemingly afflicted with the cinematic equivalent of ADD, Parolini goes overboard with whiplash zooms in all three pictures, but Return of Sabata is shot like the whole crew was jacked up on crank. The opening sequence is incredibly arch, a candy-colored shootout photographed with tricks from the Fellini playbook (clowns, fisheye lenses), and there’s some very strange business later with acrobats using slingshots and trampolines during a heist. The usual spaghetti-Western shortcomings add to the weirdness, from awkwardly dubbed dialogue to narrative leaps that suggest whole scenes were snipped during editing or simply never filmed. Wackadoodle filmmaking isn’t quite enough to make the trite script palatable, however, and Van Cleef does a lot more posturing than he does performing—but at least there’s something cooking inside Return of Sabata, which is more than can be said for the other pictures.

Adios, Sabata: LAME

Return of Sabata: FUNKY

El Condor (1970)

          South-of-the-border Western El Condor offers plenty of nasty violence, a splash of bickering-buddies humor, and a show-stopping nude scene, but the characters and storyline are so threadbare it’s impossible to feel more than lizard-brain reactions. If the preceding is enough to pique your interest, or if you dig watching former NFL star Jim Brown swagger his way through dangerous situations, then El Condor will provide an undemanding (and unrewarding) distraction. Otherwise, expect a bit of a slog. Brown plays Luke, an escaped convict who happens upon dimwitted prospector Jaroo (Lee Van Cleef). Together they contrive a plan to lead Apaches in a siege on a fortress containing a huge trove of gold bars. This puts Luke and Jaroo into conflict with the fortress’s sadistic commandant, Chavez (Patrick O’Neal). Further complications arise when Luke becomes attracted to Chavez’s comely companion, Claudine (Marianna Hill).

          Alas, everything before the spectacular climax is just foreplay. Scenes establishing the dynamic between Luke and Jaroo include such queasy vignettes as a “comedy” bit of the dudes getting tarred and feathered. And while Brown’s role basically makes sense—an outlaw with a moral code—Van Cleef’s characterization shifts from scene to scene. Sometimes he’s a master criminal, sometimes he’s a bumbling idiot, and in one eye-roll-inducing sequence, he’s a tender father figure. Yet Van Cleef has it easy compared to O’Neal and Hill. Calling O’Neal’s character one-dimensional would require exaggeration, and Hill’s character is zero-dimensional because her only consequential action defies comprehension. (Spoiler alert!) In the lead-up to the siege, Claudine inexplicably decides to distract the fortress’ soldiers by stripping naked in public view. Why? Apparently she’s intoxicated by the idea of getting intimate with Luke, which tracks with the movie’s retrograde portrayals of Apaches and Mexicans as mindless savages.

          On the plus side, the other memorable component of the siege is the imagery of Brown, Van Cleef, and the Apaches climbing fortress walls with metal claws. Moreover, Brown’s supercool vibe is always watchable, and Van Cleef is effectively squirmy and sweaty. As for behind-the-camera talent, B-movie icon Larry Cohen wrote the shooting script, so his unique style of cheerful sensationalism permeates the picture. (Actual line spoken by O’Neal to Hill: “You’re a crazy, annoying child, bitch—and I love you.”) Additionally, director John Guillermin contributes his usual elegant camerawork, giving this lurid enterprise much more gloss than it deserves.

El Condor: FUNKY