Django - Die Totengräber warten schon

Two worlds collide as Italian action master Enzo G Castellari takes on English wordsmith William Q Shakespeare in a mash-up of Hamlet and Spaghetti Westerns. It's faithful up to a point I guess. Not sure if Hamlet gets crucified in the play mind you.

Johnny Hamilton has a dream in which his father's ghost visits him and tells him he's been murdered and to head home and avenge his death. The usual stuff. Johnny's been hitching along with an acting troop who just happen to be performing Hamlet, so you get the 'to be or not to be' speech right there at the start of the film, on a beach, while another does backflips! Johnny heads home and meets his friend Horace, who seems reluctant to tell him what his mother's up to, and lo and behold, she's married Johnny's Uncle, the scheming Claude (Horst Frank, great as usual). Johnny now has to avenge his father's death, find out who really killed his father, get in many punch ups (like the play, right?), and kill loads of Danish Mexicans or something.

You see, Enzo is no fool. He's got the great source material, but he's still got to deliver an action-packed Western as well, and he manages to bring them together. Johnny is Hamlet, Horace is obviously Horatio, Ross and Gill I guess are (checks spelling) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, only with guns. Ophelia's there too but played down a bit.

You've also got a high instance of the 'Enzo Factor', which includes all his usual crazy camera angles, people appearing in mirrors, camera shots very often through objects (a chair, someone's legs, a bullet hole in a sheriff's badge), hyperactive camera shots, and the action amped up to ridiculous levels. I laughed twice - once when Mexican bandit Santana rode his horse through a glass door, and then again when Ennio Girolami shot a Chinese bartender by mistake.

This is a great because all the effort Enzo put into it is up there on the screen. It appeared on YouTube about a week ago in a great print. I don't imagine it will be there long, mind you.

Now someone upload The Return of Ringo! Also, my wife and I tried to go see Hamlet performed live in a park once, but for some reason the actors decided to perform it on the top of a hill while we were all seated at the bottom of the hill. It quickly became agony to sit on the tiny stools we rented so we left at the first interval, but also took the stools with us as compensation. The kids still use them to this day.

Take that Shakespeare!

Decent Spaghetti adaptation of Hamlet with thrills , violence , shoot'em up and well set . This Ravioli Western packs violence , shootouts , high body-count and it's fast moving and some moments genuinely entertaining . On his way back from the American Civil War (1861-1865) , Johnny (Andrea Giordana) is visited in his sleep by the ghost of his father who lets him know that he has been killed and who asks him to revenge him . Back in the family mansion , Johnny aware that not only has his deceased father has been murdered but that Gerty /Gertrude (Françoise Prevost) , his mummy , has married her late husband's brother Claude Hamilton (Horst Frank) . The latter is now the proprietary of the ranch and of all the ownerships of his daddy . Santana/Polonius, a nasty Mexican outlaw , is supposed to have murdered Johnny's father. Then Johnny seeks vendetta against Santana , Claude and his underlings (Ennio Girolami , Pedro Sánchez) .

Interesting Spaghetti packs drama , thrills , action , and lots of shots and gunplay .It's an exciting western with breathtaking showdown between the protagonists and hoodlums . There is a huge shootout in the ranch and a breathtaking face off between Andrea Giordana and Horst Frank . Good cast as Andrea Giordana who starred ¨Massacre at Grand canyon¨ , "The Dirty Outlaws" and this ¨Johnny Hamlet¨ at his best . Nice acting by Gilbert Roland as Horace ; he starred some Spaghetti such as Sonora, Goldseekers , Any Gun Can Play and Between God , the devil and a Winchester . Horst Frank as a cruelly baddie role is terrific, he steals the spectacle as a crazed psychopath ; former and subsequently he would play similar characters in various oaters . Furthermore, there appears usual Macarroni secondary actors such as John Bartha ,Ennio Girolami , director's brother , and Ignazio Spalla or Pedro Sanchez who used to play similar roles to great Fernando Sancho . This widely deemed picture , unlike most conventional Spaghetti Western , contains exceptional setting , colorful images with an atmospheric cinematography by Angelo Filippini . Agreeable musical score by Francesco De Massi , Spaghetti's usual , including catching and evocative songs by Alessandro Alessandroni , usual collaborator to Ennio Morricone .

The motion picture was professionally filmed by Enzo G Castell . Director Enzo G achieved in "Johnny Hamlet " possibly one of his best works of an important career , with some memorable scenes , appropriate camera movement and descriptive close-ups . Enzo usually makes experimental editing techniques such as unbroken transitions from one scene to another and a cameo appearance in his films . Castellari often works with Guido and Maurizio De Angelis and uses to do slow motion shootouts and choreographic death scenes . Enzo is a good a craftsman working in all kind of genres , as he made Western especially . His first one was ¨Some dollars for Django¨ co-directed by Leon Klimovsky , but actually, for the most part of its filming by the disagreements arising with Klimovsky was realized by Enzo G. Castellari, which this film was his directorial debut in a sub-genre that became one of its greatest representatives ; in fact if you compare the beginning of "7 Winchester for a massacre" which would direct the next year and the end this one seem to be similar direction . After that , he went on directing ¨ Johnny Hamlet¨ , ¨Kill them everybody and came back alone¨, ¨Tedeum¨ , ¨Cipolla colt¨ and the masterpiece : ¨Keoma¨ and finally its inferior sequel ¨Jonathan of the Bears¨ also with Franco Nero . Some of them are serious , others are goofy and plenty of slapstick and slapdash . This ¨Johnny Hamlet¨ (1968) is a bewildering story , enjoyable in lots of parts and it will appeal to Spaghetti Western fans . It's an acceptable film , and better than a lot of the ulterior spaghetti western to come .

Other Spaghetti Westerns freely based on famous novels and plays are the followings : ¨Apocalypse Joe¨ by Leopoldo Savona with Anthony Steffen that takes elements from ¨Hamlet¨ and ¨Macbeth¨ of Shakespeare . Other Spaghetti freely based on notorious play by Shakespeare is ¨The Fury of Johnny Kid¨ by Gianni Puccini with Peter Lee Lawrence and Cristina Galbo from ¨Romeo and Giuletta¨ along with "Bullets and the Flesh" by Marino Girolami . Other Spaghetti based on known and classic plays and novels are : ¨The return of Ringo¨ by Duccio Tessari inspired on the ¨Odyssey¨, and ¨John Il Bastardo¨(1967) based on books from Zorrilla and Moliere ; ¨Long days of vengeance¨ by Florentano Vancini with Giuliano Gemma and Francisco Rabal , being based on classic novel titled ¨The count of Montecristo¨ written by Alexandre Dumas and ¨between God , the devil and a Winchester¨ based on Treasure island , being directed by Marino Girolami , father of Enzo G Castellari , with Richard Harrison , Gilbert Roland and Roberto Camardiel .

Based on an idea by Sergio Corbucci, Enzo Castellari directed this western adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" drama, as Django (or Johnny, depending on which dubbing you get in your country) avenges the death of his father. It is interesting to observe how the classical tragedy elements work in the context of a Mediterranean style western movie. Not yet 30 years old, Castellari was already very creative at little touches like the camera circling around Django's face in the scene at his father's grave, and should take this way further in "Keoma" a decade later.

"Quella sporca storia nel west" suffers a bit from the unconvincing cast: German actor Horst Frank with his blond hair does not look like he is a member of the same family as Gilbert Roland, the veteran actor Roland is too old to play Andrea Giordana's brother, whose mother is much too young to be the mother of any of them. But even if the audience won't buy this ensemble for a family, the cruelty of the old tragedy is working great for a tough western, and the visual qualities of the movie, also gifted with a thrilling musical score by Francesco de Masi, save the day and make it a must for the collection of every spaghetti western fan. Regrettably, Andrea Giordana did not make any westerns after this anymore, because the young man had talent.

This underrated spaghetti western, based on an idea by Sergio Corbucci and directed by Enzo Castellari of Keoma fame, sports excellent cinematography, a nice soundtrack by the recently deceased Francesco De Masi and an impressive cast. While the protagonist, played by Andrea Giordani, is the usual spaghetti 'avenging hero' fare, the highly charismatic Horst Frank and the rest of the cast do a great job. The 'Hamlet' theme injects a lot of originality into the vengeance story, the intro dream sequence being very surreal and creative. And while you will not find a deep, meaningful version of 'Hamlet' here, lots of religious metaphors are around and, along with the healthy dose of humor (which not everyone will appreciate) make this one of the more intelligent euro westerns around. Definitely recommended.

This western starts of with our hero Johnny, who sports an orange brown tan and sparkling white teeth, having a nightmare about his father (of whom we only get to see his long black cape). He soon wakes up at the beach (?) where a group of traveling performers are reciting Hamlet. Johnny shoots some people (not the actors) and gets on his horse to leave. If he had stayed to get more acquainted with "the Danish play" it could have saved him a lot of trouble.

After a rip-roaring theme song that proclaims ‘A dreamer grows wise as he opens his eyes', director Enzo G. Castellari immediately sets the tone by mixing Sergio Leone's spaghetti style with that of Sidney J. Fury's "The Appaloosa". There are countless zoom shots, a loud and eclectic musical score ranging from angelic choirs to kitchen utensil sound effects, extreme closeups, minute attention to detail (we spend some time seeing an extra tying his old fashioned cowboy laces) and just about every shot seems to have something obscuring the frame, be it a chair, a staircase or an open fire. But when Johnny arrives back home to spy on his widowed mother (nicknamed 'the Queen') and witnesses her being spanked in the bedroom by her new husband Claudio, it becomes clear as water where these characters originated.

Johnny has the habit of getting into trouble everywhere he goes, but luckily each time his Clark Gable lookalike guardian angel pal shows up to save him. This man not only looks like a 1930's matinee hero, he also acts like one, laughing in the face of danger and saying ‘hopla' when jumping down on somebody's head. He has even perfected the ‘James T. Kirk Drop kick'. There are some other additions to the original text: while looking for his fathers killer Johnny is sidetracked by a subplot involving a Mexican bandit called Santanna, and I also don't remember any crucifixion scene in Shakespeare's play.

The performing troupe from the prologue reappear to help the mystery along, but although Johnny manages to bed a red haired actress, he fails to use them in his plans to compromise Claudius. His other love interest Ophelia- I mean Laura appears too briefly to lose her mind, but still ends up all wet and tragic. The comedic gravedigger actually gets a bigger part in this version, and still manages to show up in the same place as always, albeit without Yorick.

The finale does take a bit too long, as there are at least three dramatic shootouts (with an ever decreasing number of participants). Some directors never learn that prolonging a hero's suffering is pointless as long as the audience knows he will eventually get his revenge. Besides that, Clark Gable will always be there to save Johnny at the last minute. I don't suppose the real Clark ever played the part of Horatio. That versions Hamlet might have survived to ride into the sunset too.

7 out of 10

Adieu, adieu ! Remember me.