EL ROJO

aka Texas El Rojo (Es), El Rocho - der Töter (WG)
1966
Italy/Spain
Director: Leopoldo Savona
Script: : Roberto Amoroso, Leopoldo Savona, Mike Mitchell, Rate Furla
Music: Benedetto Ghiglia
Photography: Aldo Giordani
Cast : Richard Harrison (El Rojo), Nieves Navarro (Consuelo), Peter Carter [Piero Lulli] (Lasky), Mirko Ellis, Jose Jaspe, Andrea Aureli (Ortega), Franco Ressel, Annie Gorassini (Flo), Rita Klein (Pamela), John Bartha, Raf Baldassare, Tom Felleghy, Furio Pellerani, Ivan Scratuglia, Piero Tordi, Gaetano Scala, Angelo Boscariel

This was Leopoldo Savona's first spaghetti western, and thoroughly enjoyable it is too. As the film opens a family of settlers appear to be murdered by Indians, who go so far as to skewer two nauseating pre-pubescents. Accompanied by stirring music, the credits roll against a backdrop of Richard Harrison striding across a characteristically imposing Almeirian landscape. He hitches a ride from a scruffy, fat person, Hank (Jose Jaspe) who conveniently enough happens to be an explosives expert. In a marvellously understated piece of dialogue, Hank comments that "you're not the talking kind" and receives the reply "...just too tired".

Yup, only five minutes into the proceedings and we already know pretty much what the storyline is going to be. Silent stranger comes into town seeking revenge for slaughtered family. In this case his victims to be are the four gentlemen who constitute the governing body of the town of Goldhill. It was these characters who had carried out the initial massacre (burnt cork on face and all), thus enabling them to steal land deeds and claim the territory as their own.

The strength with El Rojo lies not with its narrative expertise but rather with the way in which the narrative is handled. We are presented with four basic climactic scenes - the successive deaths of the villains - which become increasingly elaborate. Almost like a proto-slasher movie, this seems preoccupied with the way in which people can be killed. That is not to say that it is particularly violent, but rather that it presents death as an absurd event. People are burnt to death, shot and faced with unique and experimental weapons (courtesy of Hank). Murder here is a creative act, pointing out the similarity between the spaghetti western genre and such titles as Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (Ecologia del delitto, 71).

Despite it's reliance upon this central quartet of showdowns, Savona's film avoids the trap of intermittal tedium. This is partly due to having some interesting characters played by watchable actors. Richard Harrison is somewhat inexpressive, but this is appropriate for his vengeance driven role. Piero Lulli makes a marvellous baddie, perfectly conveying the latent madness of a superficially sane man. There is also a superb score by Benedetto Ghiglia, which is nowhere more evident that in the inevitable music hall song, a tantalising solo piano piece accompanied by startlingly bad lyrics.

The weirdness quota is upped with the appearance of Black Bart, a hired gun who wears a clay mask to cover his horribly scarred face. An entirely peripheral charter, he plays an extraordinarily minor part in the proceedings until the end, which is - to say the least - bizarre. Needless to say, all the villains are dispatched, but we are left with a sense of ambiguity that is strangely disconcerting.

In many ways, this reminded me of Antonio Margheriti's Vengeance (Joko invoca Dio... e muori, 68). There is a similar plot, similar set pieces and a similar Harrison performance - even his character's name "Rojo" is not that different to "Joko". By itself, though, it is a good looking production that both stays in the mind and never outstays it's welcome.

Matt B