By ANTHONY LUSARDI
Sabata (1969), dir.
Gianfranco Parolini
The next spaghetti western on this list foreshadows where
the subgenre was eventually heading: comedy. This may disappoint some
enthusiasts. However, it doesn’t mean the picture isn't worth viewing.
Fresh off the set from the first Sartana movie, director
Gianfranco Parolini turned his attention to a new project. With a new lead
character, this movie capitalized on what Parolini previously achieved with
Sartana. In fact, if you take all the craziness you’ve seen in other spaghetti
westerns, enhance the dark humor, and sever the ties of realism, that’s what
you get in Sabata.
Sabata is a man of few words, but a lot of action. After
stopping a staged bank robbery, the mysterious gunman (yet again Lee Van Cleef)
seeks to bring down the powerful barons who try to steal their own money and
sell their town to a railroad company.
Sabata is told through a series of vignettes where the
antihero defends himself from multiple assassination attempts. Like Sartana,
Sabata has unique weapons, like a four-barrel derringer and a Winchester rifle
with an extended barrel. But compared to Sartana, the tight-lipped gunman seems
to possess more superhuman marksmanship skills, such as shooting bank robbers
from a 100-foot mountain cliff.
The movie is also known
for its idiosyncratic characters: a banjo-playing drifter named Banjo, a
knife-hurling war veteran whose spoken sentences usually end with an insane
laugh, a mute, acrobatic Native American, and a powdered-faced villain (Franco
Ressel, another spaghetti regular), who carries a dart gun in his cane and
reads books with titles such as “Inequality is the Basis of Society.”
Unlike Sartana, Parolini stayed on board to direct two
official Sabata sequels: Adiós, Sabata and Return of Sabata. Both sequels
feature more colorful characters, more fast action, more unique weapons and
gadgets, and more acrobats. The success of the Sabata Trilogy furthermore
spawned several imitators, using the same antihero.
Sabata contains the
cartoonish thrill rides and extraordinary characters that no one should
overlook when they’re engaging in subgenre nostalgia.
Trivia: In Adiós, Sabata,
the lead role was then played by actor Yul Brynner. Ironically, before
returning for Return of Sabata, Lee Van Cleef was busy starring as Chris Adams
in The Magnificent Seven Ride; a role which Brynner had made famous in The
Magnificent Seven.
ANTHONY LUSARDI
Lives in Rockaway Borough
He's a 2013 graduate of
Centenary College (now Centenary University) in Hackettstown, NJ
He currently work as a
freelance reporter
Anthony is an avid movie
fan, reader, and lover of arts and entertainment. I've attended and covered
music concerts, art exhibits, festivals, parades, book readings, library
lectures, and even a movie premiere in Parsippany and a movie shooting in
Roxbury.
[Continued next week]
No comments:
Post a Comment