Minnesota Clay (1966)

Sergio Corbucci's "Minnesota Clay" puts a spin on the spaghetti western genre. Here the protagonist (Cameron Mitchell) is losing his sight as he escapes jail and seeks revenge on the man who wronged him. There's a lot of the stuff that we expect to see in spaghetti westerns. To be certain, Corbucci went on to direct "Django", which inspired Quentin Tarantino's 2012 homage. But the important point is that the European* westerns - depicting a gritty, dismal Old West - were a rejection of the John Wayne mold (which made the Old West look immaculate and wholesome). I suspect that "Minnesota Clay" was a fun movie to make.*It wasn't just western Europe that made westerns. The Eastern Bloc also made them. An example was "The Sons of Great Bear" from East Germany.

Before you watch "Minnesota Clay", I have one bit of warning. Apparently, multiple versions of the film were made depending on what country showed the film. Now of course this makes sense with dubbed films, but I am talking about making the film with DIFFERENT endings depending on the country. This is the second Italian western that features a happy ending in the Italian version and a less happy American version. Now here's the rub--you get BOTH COMBINED on the DVD of "The Fast, the Saved and the Damned" (a DVD collection of four Italian westerns). So, after the film ends, the Italian happy ending is tacked on--and it's all in Italian and with no subtitles! So, up until then, it was dubbed in English and suddenly it's all Italian!! Now I did not have a hard time following what happened (and you probably won't--especially if you are familiar with Spanish or Italian)--but others might feel incredibly frustrated and wonder what is going on in the film. My advice? Ask an Italian friend to watch it with you! The film itself is an okay western--neither a standout nor a dog. Cameron Mitchell plays a man who was sent to prison--yet there WERE folks who could testify that he was innocent but they didn't! So, he escapes and goes looking for them in order to force them to tell the authorities what they know. However, being a film, you KNOW it won't go that smoothly! Decent acting, nice music but nothing much more to make it stand out from the crowd.

Wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, Minnesota Clay (Cameron Mitchell) escapes to seek revenge against the man who refused to testify at his trial. He finds that his target, Fox (Georges Riviere), has made himself sheriff of Clay's hometown. Fox and his band of thugs run the town with an iron fist and generally terrorize the citizens. To make matters worse, Clay is slowly going blind. How can Clay ever hope to get his revenge if he can't see his target? Sergio Corbucci is one of my favorite Spaghetti Western directors. If it weren't for Sergio Leone, Corbucci might be remembered as the best director the genre ever produced. Some of his movies like Django, The Great Silence, Companeros, and The Hellbenders are among my favorites. Sadly, I cannot include Minnesota Clay on this list. It's an earlier example of the genre and it shows. The movie plays more like a traditional American Western that just happens to have been filmed in Europe. It lacks a lot of the over-the-top violence that I associate with the Spaghetti Western. While there are set-pieces I enjoy (like Clay's meeting with the Mexicans or any scene with Ethel Rojo), as a whole, it never draws me in the way Corbucci's other movies do.I've always been a big fan of Cameron Mitchell. He was more than capable of giving the kind of performance that should have been perfect for one of Corbucci's Spaghetti Westerns. But like most everything else in the movie, he comes across as far too restrained. It's too bad this movie wasn't made later in the Spaghetti Western cycle. I would have really enjoyed seeing Mitchell in a Django type film.

Now Minnesota Clay is one fast guy with a gun. Possibly the fastest in the world. Unfortunately he is also slowly losing his eyesight, with his vision now so impaired that one more punch could cause complete loss of sight.The movie begins with Clay (Cameron Mitchell) escaping from imprisonment, and intent on getting revenge on the man who set him up. The man in question is Fox (George Riviere), who has appointed himself as the Sheriff of Clay's hometown and abuses this power, with the townsfolk living in terror of his gang. They had initially paid Fox to protect them from bandit Ortiz (played by the ever excellent Fernando Sancho), who himself terrorises the town. In the middle of these two waring parties is Clay's daughter, Nancy, who believes her father is dead, and thinks Clay is merely a local hero. They are reunited, but caught in the crossfire between the two gangs, co-ordinated mischievously by Estella (Ethel Rojo) who is as devious as she is beautiful (and my is she beautiful!).Minnesota Clay is one of the earliest Spaghetti Westerns, directed by a pre-Django Sergio Corbucci. Whilst it is not as captivating or as dark as the films he directed during the Spaghetti boom of 1966-1970, it is still a very enjoyable movie, with the usual sprinkling of injustice that we have come to expect within his films.Mitchell, Sancho and Riviere are captivating throughout, and Rojo could win the heart of any man with her portrayal of Estella (no wonder her character is so able to use those around her so ably). My only complaint would be the vocal overdub on the English soundtrack for the characters of Nancy (drippy) and Andy (who comes over as a Frank Spencer type character - apologies to any non-English readers that may not understand this comparison!). Once you get used to these minor grumbles about the overdub (which, honestly, does not take too long), you can really start to enjoy Minnesota Clay for the highly watchable film that it is.