Monday, July 10, 2017

Yankee (1966)

Director: Tinto Brass

Writers: Alfonso Balcazar, Tinto Brass, Gian Carlo Fusco, Alberto Silvestri

Composer:

Starring: Philippe Leroy, Adolfo Celi, Mirella Martin, Tomas Torres, Francisco Sanz, Franco De Rosa, Victor Israel, Pasquale Basile, Jacques Herlin

More info: IMDb


Plot: A man referred to only as "Yankee" rides into a dying, desolate town in frontier New Mexico which is completely controlled by a man called the "Grand Cougar." Almost immediately, a battle for dominance ensues.



My rating:  6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Our hero, Yankee, is played by French actor Philippe Leroy and he doesn't have that classic Western face.


But he does a fine job in the role so it didn't take but a few minutes to get used to that mug...that's a few minutes after they finally showed it.  It's probably twenty minutes in that we finally do see his full face as it had been partially hidden until then.  Adolfo Celi (most famous for playing the bad guy, Largo, in THUNDERBALL (1965)) is well hidden under dark makeup, big ass mustache and garb, playing a Mexican.  I didn't recognize him (and I tried to) until the end when he was smiling and in closeup.  Only then did I see the actor I knew from the Bond picture.  The movie isn't bad even though it follows a well-known formula where the nameless good guy shows up in a town run by the bad guy.  He kicks some ass for a while, gets captured, escapes to waste the bad guy.  It's often disappointing when you can smell what happens next before it happens.  Hopefully the movie will overcome the formula and deliver something different or at least fun.  This one is a little better than average and there's not much to it but it is an early film by Tinto Brass and there are some really cool shots.




The print I watched looked fantastic.  It was anamorphic widescreen and nicely dubbed in English.




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