Django Kills Softly (1967)

Sergio Corbucci's original classic spaghetti western Django (1966) sure has a lot to answer for. In fairness, it's hardly Corbucci's movie's fault that countless Italian westerns that followed in its wake decided to simply name the lead loner/drifter after the main man and pretend that it was somehow a sort of follow-up. I've seen a few of them now and the one thing I have noticed is that there is nothing that sets them apart from other spaghetti westerns whatsoever! For what it's worth, this one went out under the name Django Kills Softly, which aside from being a somewhat strange name, seems to have been an English language title – in the original the lead character seems to have been called Bill. So it appears that Italian producers must have quickly noticed that if they stuck 'Django' or 'Sartana' in their film's title then they would increase admissions by a few percentage points. Needless to say, this is another very pedestrian and not memorable at all Italian western. In it Django's seeks vengeance after his friend is murdered by a bandit leader who controls a town through violence. To be honest, with a lot of these ultra-generic spaghetti westerns, you almost feel the writers simply randomly selected staple elements from a special 'spaghetti-western-generator' (a cardboard box with a hole in the side full of bits of paper with Italian western clichés written on them) and wrote bits of exposition to join the pieces together. Even the titles sound like they have been randomly created by this high-tech machine! Whatever the case, this particular example of the genre is deeply unremarkable, yet professional enough to never fall below the level of mediocre. The one thing that does set it apart from others is in it having Django played by George Eastman (aka Luigi Montefiori), who is an actor who became known for playing very threatening villains in later 70's and 80's crime films, horrors and exploitation fare in general. He was quite well suited to these types of movie roles, so it was strange seeing him playing a western hero when he was a young guy. It's not really that much of a distinctive angle for this film to boast in fairness but it is at least something.

The director of Terror Creatures From The Grave gives us a Western…but kind of forgets to inject it with much to differentiate this from seven hundred other films that involve a lone stranger (quite a few of them called Django) getting themselves all up in to warring faction's faces.  Or in this case I should say getting all down in their faces, as Django this time is played by Six foot, nine inch tall George Eastman. Eastman is great when playing half-ape men that ruin mankind's future or huge cannibal zombies that eat the entire populations of Greek islands  or the leader of a homosexual post-apocalyptic death-cult tribe, but here he just kind of grins a lot and shoots things.  Django starts off by witnessing local Mexican thug El Santo wasting a travelling caravan (including a kid of course!) and then stops a showgirl who has escaped the local white tyrant from being raped. She of course falls in love with him but Django puts that to the side in order to play everyone off each other. I nearly forgot to mention that there's a third gang to get shot at too in the shape of gunrunners who make the mistake (as they all do) of giving Django a kicking instead of just shooting him in the head for Christ's Sake!   The white tyrant is played by Italian bad guy Luciano Rossi (seemingly doing an impression of Richard Nixon?) Luciano loves his hooker and his guns and pays El Santo to do his dirty work, but now wants El Santo out of the way. Once Django shoots one of Luciano's men, he offers Django a job! Just shoot Django man! Or get one of your men to do it!  Rather than do that, they set fire to a house while Django is inside fighting a gun runner he left alive. What's wrong with you people?.   It's an average Western, but an average one is still a good one. There's the odd bit that stands out, like Django's discovery that his mate and his entire family have been killed, or the musical number a hooker belts out in Italian because the dubbing crew couldn't  be bothered translating that bit I guess.

Clever and noble drifter gunslinger Django (a solid and engaging performance by George Eastman) arrives in a small town that's being terrorized by two hostile groups. Django decides to clean the place up by taking on both gangs. Director Massimo Pupillo, working from a compact script by Lina Caterina, Paul Farjon, and Masrcello Malvestito, relates the enjoyable story at a brisk pace, maintains a suitably gritty tone throughout (the antagonists are a pretty heinous bunch who go as far as to kill a mother and her son in the opening robbery set piece), makes excellent use of the rocky desert locations, and stages the plentiful thrilling shoot-outs with crackling verve (besides said shoot-outs, a lively barroom brawl provides another exciting highlight). It's nice to see Eastman, a hulking actor who's usually cast as scary psychos and leering heavies, play an appealing heroic lead for once. The colorful rogues' gallery of lethal bad guys adds considerably to the picture's entertainment value: Luciano Rossi as the shifty Dr. Thompson, Mimmo Maggio as ruthless Mexican bandito leader El Santo, and, most memorable of all, Frederico Boido as twitchy henchman The Nervous One. The fetching Liani Orfei fares well as sweet damsel in distress Linda, Spartaco likewise registers favorably as the helpful Miguel, and Antonio Toma contributes a sympathetic turn as browbeaten mute Pedro. Mario Parapetti's crisp cinematography boasts lots of cool shots of the sprawling landscape. Berto Pisano's robust'n'rousing score hits the stirring spirited spot. A fun flick.

Once again we have the taciturn stranger who comes into an isolated frontier town and quickly becomes involved in various feuds which, apparently, can only be resolved through violence. There's a villain, of course -- actually several villains -- and then there's a pretty girl with whom the stranger dallies. There's nothing wrong with these ingredients but this "Django" movie strings them together so routinely and with so little regard for logical plot progression that the result can best be summarized as "forgettable." George Eastman, one of the better "spaghetti western" stars, makes an adequate leading man and though, as you might expect, he has two scenes in which he's subjected to savage beatings, he has no scene in which he takes off his shirt. (Eastman's bare-chested torture scene in "Belle Starr" is a classic!) The English-dubbed tape which is the basis for this review ran about 94 minutes but some jerky editing and a few gaps in the plot indicate that the original work may have been longer.