Zwiebel-Jack räumt auf

I went in this movie with the expectation of a mediocre-mid-70s-Spagetti-Western. But what I found was a weird, little trashy western comedy with an absolut hilarious surrealism and absurdity. The juggling scene cracked me up like not much did in some time. If your looking for a silly but still lovely little movie that makes you cheer up and laugh this one will be a good choice.

Unbelievable! Where to start with this one? Well, let's start with the casting. You would think Enzo G. Castellari would have cast Terence Hill (or even Bud Spencer) in this slapstick western - after all, those are the two actors you usually think of in this particular vein. But action superstar FRANCO NERO?!? Not only that, giving him a Donald Sutherland perm? The English dubbers take it even further by giving Nero a voice that sounds like a senile Jimmy Stewart. Still, Nero is clearly game for such an atypical part, throwing himself into all the slapstick, and he's clearly having fun. He's fun to watch as a result, though what he gets to do is so goofball at times that part of you can't help but also laugh at the idea that Nero today may be regretting taking place in all this nonsense.

Actually, the bizarre casting of Nero is actually one of the saner parts of this movie. You won't believe what goes on here. A henchman in this western setting that looks and speaks like Hitler! Two kids (named Al Capone and Dutch Schultz!) who are dubbed with adult voices! A villain with a robotic hand! Nero eating onions like apples! A motorcycle gang! The death of one character shown in reverse! Speeded-up action scenes a la the Keystone Kops! And all done with what seems to have been a hefty budget!

Most people will hate this movie, simply calling it stupid. Well, maybe it is stupid. But personally I found it extremely entertaining because of its entirely bizarre nature. The movie never stops delivering wacky situations, each different from the other, and my attention was always held - I couldn't wait to see what new kind of insanity the movie would next pull out of its sleeves. If you like the antics of Terence Hill/Bud Spencer movies, and are accustomed to the unconventional tone many Italian mass-entertainment movies have, give it a look. Like it or hate it, you'll NEVER forget it!

I found this in a second-hand shop that had a VCR and TV to preview the used tapes. From the bizarre opening shot of the oil field and the director's credit, I knew this was one worth the dollar.

Franco Nero does his best Terrence Hill impression as the character Onion who arrives in town to start an onion farm on a parcel of land he's bought real cheap from a farmer. What he doesn't know is that evil oil magnate Petrus Lamb has bought/stolen all the property around the town due to the vast oil reserves under the town. Lamb has a strange mechanical hand that's serviced by Adolf Hitler! Thru a plot device out of Once Upon A Time in the West, Onion's property is still owned by the orphans of the original farmer who's been killed by Lamb's henchmen. The rest of the movie revolves around the increasingly silly attempts to steal the lease out of Onion's possession.

First of all, the film is very well directed by Enzo Castellari so that already lifts it out of the typical spaghetti western doldrums. The script is very silly with frequent forays into total surrealism. Onion fights with a gun and the many onions that he has hidden in his pants. During a duel he always asks, "Gun or Onion?" The first fight scene with Onion is right out of the first Trinity movie except it mostly done with onions. I suppose it's a parody of sorts, but how do you parody a parody? Martin Balsam is game as the evil Lamb and he seems to be having fun with the mechanical hand he's wearing. I enjoyed the movie for the most part although the overuse of sped-up footage towards the end is a let-down. The English dubbing crew had some fun with this film as they gave Onion a Jimmy Stewart voice and one orphan sounds like Bugs Bunny imitating a gangster. For some reason it works! I wonder what the Italian original sounds like.

Not the greatest but with enough bright spots that I enjoyed the film.

I'm sorry for Enzo G. Castellari. This very professional director, very able in stunt scenes and car pursuit, that sometimes in his movies lives for itself, have made this Trinità clone with Franco Nero copying Terence Hill. Is not a bad work 'cause Castellari knows his job but is excessively derivative and I think that in the career of a popular director wasn't a necessary step.

This B movie stands out among similar western comedies by the absurd, sometimes quite Pythonesque humour. Franco Nero would not be the first name that comes to mind for such a production (nor the second, or third), but he does very well as the Terrence Hill stand-in; his wide blue-eyed stare conveys both innocence and mischief, and he does fine in the slapstick sequences too. His "hero" role is complemented by a diverse bunch of side characters, not well-known but well-cast. The sets and camera-work are good, too. The music covers the complete gamut of italo-westerns and then a bit more, a little crazy like the whole movie. The pacing is quick, there's not a single boring moment in Cipolla Colt.

The only drawback to this otherwise nice comedy is the generic plot (an oil magnate trying to grab poor farmer's land); with action that absurd the movie would have deserved some crazier story, too. Apart from that, recommended for anyone not put off by absurd humour.