Cinevision ad-line: “FIVE MEN HELD THE BALANCE OF DEATH... his revenge exploded in a massacre of hell!”
I’ll
begin with a synopsis, so those wishing to avoid spoilers might want to skip
this paragraph: The time is the 1870s. After a botched robbery at an old
fortress, halfbreed Cheyenne outlaw J. Roko – pronounced “Rocko” – Barrett (Richard
Harrison) stumbles across the remains of his friend, Richie (Alberto Dell’Acqua);
who has been horribly drawn-and-quartered by a rival gang for refusing to
reveal the whereabouts of some stolen gold. Thus, Roko seeks retribution. He
first finds Domingo (“Alan Collins”/Luciano Pigozzi), their former lookout-man,
who had made off with the gold, and Roko learns that Mendoza (Claudio Camaso),
mastermind behind the robbery, was killed while trying to escape. Roko accuses
Domingo of being in complicity with the killers. Frightened for his life,
Domingo offers up the names of three of the killers, a gringo called Yuma
(Goffredo “Freddy” Unger), a Mexican named Laredo (“Louis Santis”/Lucio de
Santis) and “The Kid” (Werner Pochath), but Roko is nonetheless forced to kill
the informant. The vengeful halfbreed then locates Yuma, a professional card
shark, killing him in self-defence following a saloon brawl. Roko subsequently
arrives in a small border town that is terrorized by Laredo and his bandits. After
pinning on a tin star, Roko imprisons Jane Mason (Sheyla Rosin), Laredo’s
recently-purchased woman. When Laredo returns to town and tries to free Jane
from jail, after an extended bandit siege of the jailhouse, Roko eliminates the
gang, followed by their leader. Moving on, Roko is shadowed by a mysterious
Pinkerton agent (“Paul Lino”/Paolo Gozlino), who is searching for the gang’s
stolen gold. Roko is soon made a prisoner and tortured by The Kid and his boys,
including an Indian named Chataw (Aysanoa Runachugua). The Kid foolishly takes
Roko into town to show off his captive prize to the recently-liberated
townsfolk, but Roko kills him during a staged duel in the bar. Realizing his
old friend and cohort Mendoza was not really killed during the robbery, Roko
catches up to him at a disused sulphur mine. A battle breaks out, with Roko methodically
killing off Mendoza’s gangmembers, leading into the final fateful – and fatal –
showdown…
Lyrics of the U.S. theme song: “No contemplating / Revenge is waiting (Vengeance!) / Who’ll be the winner? / Who’ll be the loser? (Vengeance!) / Revenge is waiting / So keep on riding / Ride on (Vengeance!) / Ride on (Vengeance!)...”
Lyrics of the U.S. theme song: “No contemplating / Revenge is waiting (Vengeance!) / Who’ll be the winner? / Who’ll be the loser? (Vengeance!) / Revenge is waiting / So keep on riding / Ride on (Vengeance!) / Ride on (Vengeance!)...”
Composer
Carlo Savina and singer Don Powell’s haunting theme prepares you for this
way-above-average 1968 spaghetti vendetta. An Italian/German co-production
directed by “Anthony Dawson”/Antonio Margheriti, VENGEANCE (whose original Italo title is JOKO INVOCA DIO... E MUORI! / “Joko, Invoke God...and Die!”) is a
violent, well-paced action yarn with a gut-wrenching opener (from the U.S.
pressbook: “Jocko [a.k.a. Roko] finds the mutilated body of his
friend and vows vengeance”). Atop a slippery carpet of mud, stunt actor
Alberto Dell’Acqua tugs and strains at the ropes attached to his extremities.
The presiding bandit (Goffredo Unger) draws a Queen of Spades and says, “Bad
luck.” American pressbook quote: When
Ricky [a.k.a. Richie] will not
talk, the marauders tie his hands, legs and neck to ropes which they hold while
mounted on their horses. They spur the animals and rip Ricky [a.k.a.
Richie] to death.
Unger
is subsequently killed when star Richard Harrison power-boots the broken neck
of a booze bottle into his throat. A bandit’s stomach is lacerated by a close
range blast from a sawed-off shotgun. When captured, Harrison is staked out
under an exploding scarlet dawn, his eyelids propped open with short twigs by reputed
authentic Aboriginal American actor Aysanoa Runachugua (“Mother Sun shine
for those she like!”). Incidentally, Giuliano Gemma had suffered a similar fate
and was temporarily afflicted with sun blindness as a result in Giorgio
Ferroni’s lively FORT YUMA GOLD
(1966), which also included a major action sequence set in a mineworking, as
here. The violent mood of the present film is often effectively perforated by
stabs of psyched-out electric guitar.Appropriately
considering its macabre horror movie-styled violence, VENGEANCE sprang from the pen of Italo fantasy film maestro
Antonio Margheriti; concerning whom author David Pirie wrote in Monthly Film Bulletin:
Judging
by this distinctive if piecemeal revenge Western, his work (which has ranged
from traditionally anglophile Italian horror to some picturesque science
fiction) deserves closer attention. VENGEANCE has a strange and colourful
Gothic flavour... visual panache and
ingenuity lift [it] out of the
Italian Western rut and lend it a flavour more commonly associated with Bava or
Freda.
Richard Harrison gettin' some VENGEANCE. |
As
a fantasist, Margheriti had often found himself obscured in the long shadows
cast by his countrymen Mario Bava (THE ROAD TO FORT ALAMO [1964]) and
Riccardo Freda (DEATH AT OWELL ROCK [1967]). All three gentlemen had by
this point tried their hands at a western, with mostly mediocre results. Here
Margheriti seated himself more squarely in the saddle at the directorial reins,
and, by besting his two rivals, earned his silver spurs...with bells on. First
off, the revenge-driven script (including such grim nuggets of dialogue as
“Right now, he’s ridin’ the Devil in Hell!”) well suits the
morally claustrophobic confines of the spaghetti western, more-so than had
Margheriti’s earlier, lighter-hearted effort DYNAMITE JOE (1966). Here
Margheriti demonstrates his ability to transfer the baroque atmosphere of the
Italian horror movie to the dusty plainscape of the western. He also better
uses his knowledge of lighting, camera setups and frame compositions to give
the entire affair an eerie timbre; including some nice usage of warm
yellow/golden hues, and in the hot flames and cold shadows licking the walls of
the sulphur mine setting. Claudio Camaso (née Volontè, Gian Maria’s
ne’er-do-well kid bro), who wears a sulphur rock around his neck as a lucky
charm, uses the booming echo chambers of his mine lair to psychologically toy
with Richard Harrison.
Blue-eyed
American lefty Harrison pulls off a strong performance as the mixed-blood
Cheyenne, who is scorned by both whiteman and Indian alike. Indicating he is a
Northern supporter despite his mixed heritage, upon deputizing himself before
liberating Laredo’s enslaved town, Harrison respectfully dusts off a portrait
of Abe Lincoln. VENGEANCE is one of
Harrison’s best western outings, ranking up there alongside his earlier starrer
$100,000 FOR RINGO (1965), directed by Alberto de Martino, and the actor
proves once again he can do the ol’ Clintsquint with the best of ’em if given
the proper vehicle to strut his stuff in. When asked why he prefers rolling his
own cigarettes to smoking cigars, Harrison curtly responds in regards to the
latter option, “I don’t like ’em!” When luckless “Alan Collins”/Luciano
Pigozzi – that perpetual doormat /whipping boy of Italo-based antiheroes! – is
ordered by Harrison to “Stay awhile!” you just know he means a real lo-o-o-ong
while (like, maybe Eternity). After killing Collins, Harrison places a short
length of the rope used to murder Richie next to the bandit’s corpse, a ritual
he obsessively repeats like a serial killer with each successive victim. The
writers make fine use of Harrison’s sinister gunhand not once but twice, as our
hero outwits his opponents: “You cheated, but you made a mistake...I’m left-handed,”
he explains to mortally wounded Werner Pochath, now feeling the tightening
clutch of the Devil’s right hand for his careless oversight. A similar error is
made by Camaso, who flicks a knife into Harrison’s wrong right hook
rather than his southpaw (“Ready ta shoot, friend?”).
Central
portion is devoted to a longish flashback – narrated ’40s noir gumshoe-fashion by Harrison and accompanied by Sheyla Rosin’s
softly-plucked guitar – detailing the robbery and events immediately following
leading up to Richie’s death and Roko’s revenge. Camaso, so memorable in Romolo
Guerrieri née Romolo Girolami’s 10,000 DOLLARS BLOOD MONEY and “Sidney Lean”/Giovanni
Fago’s VENGEANCE IS MINE
(both 1967), is here virtually thrown away in a ‘posthumous’ supporting role,
which he later reprises when revealed to be still very much alive. Working
overtime, costumer Mario Giorsi further honed the film’s look by concocting
just the right attire – piss-yellow tophat, matching long coat, kid gloves and
walking cane – to spruce up our chief bad guy, the strangely droog-like
“Professor” Camaso (in a role literally tailor-made for Brit bad boy Oliver
Reed!). Playing Kid, German actor Pochath makes for a convincing cowardly
psycho in a small but memorable role, reminding fans of his countryman
colleague, Horst Frank.
Thereon
billed under the Anglo alias of “Don Reynolds,” the film’s original story-writer
Renato Savino went on to direct Harrison’s entertaining lesser league oater HIS
NAME WAS KING (1971) – for which the star evidently wore the same hand-me-down
chamois shirt seen here – and Savino was presumably responsible for some of the
current film’s dubious translated English dialogue (Lucio de Santis to
Harrison: “You stinking Indian, come out and fight! You’re a yellow
redskin! ...What’s the matter, halfbreed? You afraid to fight a Mexican
face to face?!” [Okay, okay, enough already, amigo!]). To the memory of
his lamented segmented buddy, Harrison downs de Santis with a pistol-shot
delivered in flawless unison with twin shotgun barrels (that oughta do it).
Final image freezes on Camaso’s grinning dead face, with one eye – the Evil one
– left open, getting its own personal glimpse of the hell to which he has been
consigned.
VENGEANCE is often (arguably) cited as Richard Harrison’s best
western, but “Nick Howard”/Nick Nostro’s ONE AFTER THE OTHER – made that same year – ain’t too
shabby none neither.
Notes: Promoted in France as a faux “Django” film, and in Hispanic markets as a phony “El Rojo” outing (see: “Leo Colman”/Leopolda Savona’s EL ROJO [1966], which did at least star Harrison). VENGEANCE was included as part of Seven 7 (France) video’s DVD 5-pack that also includes Giorgio Stegani’s BEYOND THE LAW (1968) and Tonino Valerii’s DAY OF ANGER (1967), both starring Lee Van Cleef; plus Duccio Tessari’s two-pack A PISTOL FOR RINGO and its sequel The RETURN OF RINGO (both 1965), both starring Giuliano Gemma.
Notes: Promoted in France as a faux “Django” film, and in Hispanic markets as a phony “El Rojo” outing (see: “Leo Colman”/Leopolda Savona’s EL ROJO [1966], which did at least star Harrison). VENGEANCE was included as part of Seven 7 (France) video’s DVD 5-pack that also includes Giorgio Stegani’s BEYOND THE LAW (1968) and Tonino Valerii’s DAY OF ANGER (1967), both starring Lee Van Cleef; plus Duccio Tessari’s two-pack A PISTOL FOR RINGO and its sequel The RETURN OF RINGO (both 1965), both starring Giuliano Gemma.
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