For a poll being held on ICM for the best movies of 1968 I started to gather Spaghetti Westerns to watch from the year. Whilst gathering up the most famous Spaghetti's from the year,I stumbled on a lesser known one that I've heard about for years,which led to me joining Django for four adventures.
View on the film:
Originally written as a non-Western Giallo four part TV series,the screenplay by writer/director Mario Lanfranchi smoothly converts the eps to a Western setting,with a 20-30 minute run time for each "ep" allowing a clean sketch of each encounter to be drawn,and for the peculiar elements to grow.
Coming from a stage background, Lanfranchi makes the extended dialogue exchanges drip with dread,as the vagueness which Django keeps his background in,gives this avenging outlaw an otherworldly gloss.
Introducing Django like a mirage in the desert, director Lanfranchi & cinematographer Antonio Secchi cast an entrancing supernatural Horror atmosphere, where eclipses of the sun are scattered across the screen and stylish tracking shots round the gambling table move with Django's dance of death.
Backed by an unsettling score from Gianni Ferrio, Lanfranchi brilliantly sends Django into a surrealist nightmare. Spilling from the peculiar actions of Django that includes drinking milk by the pint instead of booze, Lanfranchi shakes the screen in waves of startling colours, via a deeply unsettling ghostly mood where over saturated colours follow Django's bullets,and lead to a thunderous final battle in a Gothic Horror church.
Although he fell out with Lanfranchi. (who is a fantastic "character" on the bonus interview) over the director being "Too intellectual" Tomas Milian gives an absolutely barking mad performance as O'Hara,who Milian sends into a quivering mess at the mere sight of a hot blonde or Django having a fistful of gold.
Becoming agitated on set after finding out that Lanfranchi had sent his girlfriend Ali MacGraw back to the US due to her endless spats with his lead, Robin Clarke gives a simmering performance as Django,via the stark calm Django shows when first meeting his next victim,being shot down by Clarke with a calculating fury,in these four tales of Django.
View on the film:
Originally written as a non-Western Giallo four part TV series,the screenplay by writer/director Mario Lanfranchi smoothly converts the eps to a Western setting,with a 20-30 minute run time for each "ep" allowing a clean sketch of each encounter to be drawn,and for the peculiar elements to grow.
Coming from a stage background, Lanfranchi makes the extended dialogue exchanges drip with dread,as the vagueness which Django keeps his background in,gives this avenging outlaw an otherworldly gloss.
Introducing Django like a mirage in the desert, director Lanfranchi & cinematographer Antonio Secchi cast an entrancing supernatural Horror atmosphere, where eclipses of the sun are scattered across the screen and stylish tracking shots round the gambling table move with Django's dance of death.
Backed by an unsettling score from Gianni Ferrio, Lanfranchi brilliantly sends Django into a surrealist nightmare. Spilling from the peculiar actions of Django that includes drinking milk by the pint instead of booze, Lanfranchi shakes the screen in waves of startling colours, via a deeply unsettling ghostly mood where over saturated colours follow Django's bullets,and lead to a thunderous final battle in a Gothic Horror church.
Although he fell out with Lanfranchi. (who is a fantastic "character" on the bonus interview) over the director being "Too intellectual" Tomas Milian gives an absolutely barking mad performance as O'Hara,who Milian sends into a quivering mess at the mere sight of a hot blonde or Django having a fistful of gold.
Becoming agitated on set after finding out that Lanfranchi had sent his girlfriend Ali MacGraw back to the US due to her endless spats with his lead, Robin Clarke gives a simmering performance as Django,via the stark calm Django shows when first meeting his next victim,being shot down by Clarke with a calculating fury,in these four tales of Django.