Movie Details
| Title: | A Stranger in Town | |
| Director: | Luigi Vanzi | |
| Year: | 1967 | |
| Genre: | Spaghetti Western | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 08.29.06 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- The Stranger Returns
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 08.29.06 | Internet | It's been a while since I've done one of these theme nights and I'm in a mood to stay in and watch movies tonight so it's gonna be Spaghetti Western night followed by an Italian crime midnight feature that's heartily recommended by not one but two trusted sources! First up though, is this movie with an imdb comment saying "Even spaghetti westerns fans will be bored." Ouch. Does it live up to that dubious honor? Well let's see. well, a little bit, yeah. That kind of comes from the story though. Since it's a Fistfull of Dollars knock, the titular stranger doesn't say much... and since no one seems to inhabit this town that the stranger is in, we get an awful lot of foley'd footsteps as he slowly walks around... and then in true man-with-no-name fashion he has to get the everloving shit kicked out of him, which takes a while... but then isntead of cutting to condensed-time sequences of him getting better, this stranger takes it upon himself to clear out all the outlaws while still bleeding internally and all that... so pretty much everything he does after that, be it climbing stairs or walking around or whatever, also takes super long. Combine all this with the traditional on-repeat Spaghetti Western theme and I can see how it's pretty slow to some (myself included). However, there are a few things to like here. I for one loved how adept the stranger was at killing people in ways that we are used to seeing other movie characters take without notice. Like the bad bartender guy in the beginning... oh you're holding a knife up to me huh? ok i'm going i'm going let me just turn around slowly and..... HIT YOU IN THE HEAD WITH THIS BOTTLE! hah! Now, for anyone else, the bartender would be knocked out right? Not the stranger. That dude is dead. Later on, he kills someone by slamming their head into the floor once. I swear the same exact thing happened to him like 8 times when he was getting his beating... I guess he just knows the secret pressure point or shakra or something. There's also a gunfight sequence played in the dark with all the lighting coming from gunblasts. It's an idea that's so simple it's probably been done thousands of times but for whatever reason I liked it here... although there's also a scene where the stranger thinks he's sneaking around in the dark but then the main heavy lights a match to reveal that he's right next to him. And then the main heavy's right hand man lights a match... and like 15 other people light matches all in a row. hilarious. And then toward the end the stranger goes into this whole Rambo sequence of taking goons out. Again, this is a standard scene but I thought it was done pretty well... maybe it's just because it was action after about an hour of him walking around, getting beaten, and then walking around some more but this time slower. So I guess this is a trilogy but I only have this one and the sequel so I hope it's good enough to enjoy but not so good that I'll want to track down the last one. we'll see! |
