How do you follow up a fantastic trilogy of Clint Eastwood films that helped define the new genre of Spaghetti Westerns? With this! Albeit, yes, it is another Western. But it does begin another unofficial trilogy, with Duck, You Sucker! (aka A Fistful of Dynamite) and Once Upon a Time in America following. Here? Pretty damn fine. I hope this doesn’t make me start playing Red Dead Redemption II again though. It’s the only modern video game I can go back to. It’s like playing in a movie of this world. That shit’s Crazy.
Out west, America, olden times, railroad is still getting built. A station agent at Tumbleweed, Desertville has some new customers. A little boring, but then it gets rather shooty. A lot of this film gets pretty shooty, actually. Throw in the outlaw Cheyenne, a recently-made widow from New Orleans who is totally not a whooore, and one bad-ass Frank guy to keep the actions and dramas chuggin along.
This is a nicely looking film. While pacing is a bit slow here and there, it’s not bad as it takes it’s time as it’s always interesting enough to keep the flow going. Charles Bronson fortunately doesn’t talk only through his harmonica, Henry Fonda plays a good bad guy, Jason Robards does get to inject a bit of light-heartedness to the fairly grim story, and Claudia Cardinale and her smoldering eyes. That’s the only way to describe them. Pure Fire! Nice storytelling of an old west tale partially written by giallo maestro Dario Argento. Solid score by Ennio Morricone, but the banjo plucking number may be a bit much. Overall the film has some pretty sinister themes but with a few moments of good comradery worked in. Solid, what else can I say?
