BACKGROUND

I first watched this film several years ago, after consuming rather a large amount of alcohol, and woke up the following morning thoroughly convinced that I'd experienced some kind of drink-fuelled fever dream. I was wrong. This is truly one of the most deranged films I have ever seen and, quite frankly, is one of the most deranged films I ever expect to see. As such, I count it among the most essential items to feature in the Spaghetti Western canon, although those with a low tolerance for the picaresque would be well advised to steer clear: this is most certainly not a Massacre Time or a Bullet for Sandoval.

Released in 1974, it came at a time when the genre-proper had practically fizzled out, just before it was to experience a minor revival with such moody, existential items as Enzo Castellari' s Keoma (76) and Luciano Fulci 's Four of the Apocalpyse (I Quattro dell'apocalisse, 75). Director Giuliano Carnimeo had already pushed the comedy western boat about as far as it could plausibly go with They Called Him Hallelujah and The Return of Hallelujah, so here he did the only thing that an ambitious gentleman possibly could do: he pushed it out even further. Whereas both those films had at least the merest hint of a plot, this is just a barrage of outrageous slapstick, surreal sight gags and whimsical nonsense. And it's great.

STORY

George Hilton and his stylish horse in A MAN CALLED INVINCIBLE

Bambi (Chris Huerta) is settling in as the Sheriff of Apple Pie City when his old associate, Tricky Dicky (George Hilton) reappears, hired by the local banker to escort a wagon filled with gold to Dallas, a route prowled by numerous bandits. Things don't start auspiciously: a number of people seem to know more than they should about the 'secret' shipment and, even more worryingly, Tricky Dicky's vengeance-crazed nemesis, Twinkletoes (Tony Norton), is hot on their trail.

As a means of completing their mission, our two heroes come up with the novel idea of disguising themselves as travelling 'miracle cure' salesmen, a ruse that proves rather ineffective as everybody seems to know who they are anyway. Fortunately, the prospective robbers are so stupid that they prove fairly easy to handle. This, however, proves to be only the beginning of their problems: they soon discover that the gold has been replaced by bags of painted lead. Somehow, they've managed get mixed up with a smuggling ring - the gold being hidden in tasty looking pastries - and it's headed by the very banker who originally hired them (Umberto D'Orsi , playing exactly the same character as he did in The Sons of Ringo).

CRITIQUE

Starting as it means to go on, with a protracted barroom brawl (and a terrible 'false teeth' gag), A Man Called Invincible is a riot from beginning to end. Although several of the jokes don't quite work, a significant amount of them - unlike in the majority of comedy westerns - actually do. One of the more sophisticated of them finds Tricky Dicky sniffing some gold dust, cocaine style, in order to test its purity (which should give you some idea of the intellectual level Carnimeo and Co. are aiming at). One of the less sophisticated - but most amusing - features a flying wedge of cheese and big Nello (Arizona Colt (66)) Pazzafini's open mouth; well, I laughed, and Sam Raimi couldn't have done it any better. Unsurprisingly, it all ends up with a protracted food fight, although the fact that several of the participants are dressed up in pantomime devil costumes does give things a distinctly bizarre twist.

Who? Me? George Hilton in A MAN CALLED INVINCIBLE

There are numerous outrageous characters, including a trio of stupid gunmen 'The Three Speedy Fingers' - and their half-monkey father ('Mr. Orangutan') - and a gang of proto-Mafiosi (led by a gurning Sal Borgese from The Three Fantastic Supermen (I Fantastici tre supermen, 67)). Best of all, though, is Tony Norton's Twinkletoes, a black clad killer who pops up at the most inconvenient of times - accompanied by a blast of tango music - to challenge Tricky Dicky to a duel. Perpetually on the receiving end, he ends up with his clothes shot off, a bottom full of buckshot, punched by a boxing glove hidden in a jack-in-the-box and finally blown up by an explosive music-box-cum-machine-gun. Tony Norton was long assumed to be a pseudonym for erratic director Alfio Caltabaino (a regular performer in films throughout the sixties), but it would appear that he was actually an English actor, who had once been a regular in popular soap opera Crossroads. Whatever his background, he made a reasonably successful career for himself in Italy, featuring as a support performer in The Bloody Hands of the Law (La Mano spietata della legge, 73), Suppose. I Break Your Neck (Metti... che ti rompo il muso, 73) and several others.

Although undoubtedly strange enough in itself, things are made even more peculiar by some idiosyncratic dubbing. I suspect that the voice artists concerned, faced with a completely incomprehensible hour and a half of source material, simply decided to sink a few ales and, well, have a laugh. There are a huge amount of politically incorrect homosexual gags (the bandits include the 'Bent Gang' and 'the Closet Cousins'), and several characters merely simper away in the background. Furthermore, there are a number of jaw-dropping one liners and play-on-words: 'I find her a bit dykey, Dicky', 'Gold is the root of all evil. do you have any?', and so on. Several characters were rechristened for the English version (such as, groan, Mr Apple and Mr McPiedish), and there are some very strange snatches of dialogue at the end, when Twinkletoes refers to giving up his career as a crap gunfighter and returning to the White House. 'Well,' replies Tricky Dicky, you can use my name if you want. and don't let the senate push you around.' Political comment? Probably not. Another cheap gag at the expense of the delightful President Nixon? Almost certainly. And why not.