Texas, addio

Before watching the movie, I watched the interview with Franco Nero that's on the disc. When he said that this western is "more like an American western" than any of his other movies I began to worry since I generally don't care for American westerns.

The opening theme song of the movie is decidedly Euro-western, so that gave me some hope. Then the story began. The beginning scenes of the movie when they are in Texas are kind of hokey and corny in an American western sort of way, so I started to doubt the worth of this movie again. Fortunately this part of the movie is very short. The Sullivan brothers head off to Mexico and that's where the story unfolds and quickly becomes one hundred percent spaghetti western.

The music score is very good, with lots of spaghetti style trumpets and guitar. The theme song becomes a haunting recurring melody.

Franco Nero gives another action packed performance in this movie. His character, Burt Sullivan, has an uncanny ability with a gun that's reminiscent of Django. Jose Suarez is excellent in the role of the slimy land baron who murdered Sullivan's father, and Jose Guardiola is great as his cultured crony McLeod.

Needless to say, this movie was much better than I expected after hearing Franco Nero's comments. This is definitely not an American western! If you like your spaghetti westerns packed with action and revenge Franco Nero style, do yourself a favor and check this one out.

(aka: THE AVENGER)

Sheriff Burt Sullivan (Franco Nero) leaves his job temporarily to go down to Mexico with his kid brother Jim (Alberto Dell'Acqua) and hunt down Cisco Delgado, the man who killed their father. Only there's an added surprise complication since the Delgado is related to Sullivan in a way which I won't reveal.

I had no problem with the dubbing since it's no worse that what you find with many films in this genre, but there's some pretty sloppy editing here. For example, early in the movie Sullivan (Nero) is ambushed by a man with a rifle up in some rocks. He has a shootout with the man and eventually kills him, but he doesn't go over to investigate and find out who the man was or find some clues as to why he was after him. Instead he turns the other way and finds his brother Jim waiting down at the bottom of the hill, playing a banjo. Bizarre to say the least.

The opening title track sung by Don Powell isn't any great shakes, either. Some of the later music cues in the film sound like surf instrumentals with a slightly Spanish tinge to them. Like out of KILL BILL or something. They sound pretty cool in light of the dreary opening track.

I must say that I did like the Almeria locations that vary between desert and rocky high ground as well as beautiful canyons and a river that could pass for the Rio Grande, but that's not enough to take it over the edge, imo.

The beautiful widescreen anamorphic Anchor Bay DVD comes with a 10 minute featurette where Franco Nero discusses the making of the film and how he used stuntmen in the fight scenes to make it look more believable, and he's right. Some of the fist fights do look good.

As it is, it doesn't hold a candle to DJANGO or Nero's previous western before this, TEMPO DE MASSACRO (MASSACRE TIME) which is one of my favorites. I wish Anchor Bay would release that one since it not only stars Franco Nero, but was directed by master horror director, Lucio Fulci.

In the meantime, I consider Texas, ADDIO below average.

4 out of 10

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These days you forget what a name Nero was in the Sixties and Seventies. In 1966, the former army grunt turned physical actor starred in three westerns within six months - Django, Massacre Time and Texas Adios - before heading to Hollywood for a supporting role in Camelot, and then international stardom. It was as Django, however, that turned him into a major star in Europe; Nero as the steel-eyed Angel of Death dragging a coffin behind him personified the fashionable neo-nihilism of the Italian western and made him as iconic as the Kings of the Squint, Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef.

Texas Adios, released in 1966, was a much more deliberately American western. Franco Nero is a clear-cut moral figure as Burt Sullivan, sheriff in a Texas town who takes his younger womanizing brother Jim across the border to find their father's killer, the mysterious "Delgado". It's Adios Texas and Hola Mexico, but the country they find is more hostile than Burt imagined. It's a lawless landscape where no-one can be trusted, controlled by morally bankrupt power brokers and would-be revolutionaries, and Delgado turns out to be the most powerful land baron in Mexico who likes to play with his captives before executing them. What begins as a simple quest for revenge becomes much more ambiguous as the plot unfolds and family secrets are revealed.

Like all great Italian westerns, Texas Adios is beautifully shot by Enzo Barboni, who as "EB Clutcher" would later create his own sub-genre of Trinity movies with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. And, despite its allusions to the classic models of Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart, it's a spaghetti western at heart, and its heart is cold and cruel. "Are you tired of living (pronounced 'leeeeving')?" asks Delgado's greasy right hand man, and the answer seems to be a resounding yes: sympathetic characters are disposed of with little fanfare, and Nero's idealistic younger brother Jim played by Alberto Dell'Acqua is taught that becoming a man means becoming immune to killing.

Me, I'm already numb to the wholesale slaughter, and you will be too, as we ride the blood-soaked plains in Texas Adios.

Burt Sullivan, a rugged Texas sheriff heads to Mexico along with his raw younger brother Jim to seek revenge, by arresting the man Cisco Delgado for murdering their father quite a few years ago. When they reach a small Mexican town, they learn that everyone fears Cisco, as he has power over the people and their laws. Even with those obstacles that get in his way of finding Cisco, Burt wants his man, but a family secret he learns from Cisco when they finally meet. Turns the much-wanted revenge, into something even personal.

The ever cool, hard-ass Franco Nero appears in this customary walk-in-the park spaghetti western. There's nothing really going for it to set apart form the norm, but due to Nero's charismatically gloomy presence, fluid pacing and Enzo Barboni's terrifically panoramic and professional looking photography of the desert terrain. These things go on to shape it into a solid, if unremarkable experience. The passé premise is a simple and unassuming one with a relaxed temperament, which is broken up by excitingly fast action, brutal stabs of violence and would go onto spring one random twist midway through. Plastering the firm script is plenty of snappy dialogues, but also lazy cracks can show up and stock characters are represented. Other than Nero, the only other performance to standout was José Suárez sophisticatedly sadistic part as Cisco. The plot actually allowed a bit of development and emotional play to the Cisco character. The rest of the noble cast were more than acceptable. Director Ferdinando Baldi squeezes in some stylish lashings and energetic verve, but rather then being truly dazzling in its context and visuals, it turns out to be proficiently competent and surefooted. Nothing pretentious marks its way in. Anton Garcia Abril's exuberant music score can be dynamic and tight, but feel symmetrically staged. Don Powell opening / closing emotional car wreck of a song can be quite risible. The English dubbing is not so great either, but there's not real damage by it. It's a polished and workmanlike production, but there's few major draw-cards.

"Texas, Adios" is middling work of the sub-genre, but for the fans it diverts and breezes by in no time.

Like almost every Western starring Franco Nero after Sergio Corbucci's 1966 masterpiece "Django", "Texas, Addio" was marketed as a Django-sequel in Germany and Austria. Although it has neither anything to do with Django, nor is it anywhere near "Django" in it's value as one of the genre's highlights, Texas Addio is still a good Spaghetti Western. Besides the great Franco Nero it features typical Spaghetti Western supporting actors like Luigi Pistilli, Livio Lorenzon and Gino Pernice. When It comes to Ferdinando Baldi's Westerns, however, I would personally recommend "Blindman" way over "Texas Addio".

Along with his younger brother Jim, Burt Sullivan, a former Sheriff in Texas, leaves to Mexico to search and capture his father's murderer, Cisco Delgado, and bring him to justice...alive. Cisco, however, has in the meantime become a powerful landowner and crime boss.

Franco Nero has once said that out of all the Westerns he played in, "Texas Addio" is the only one that could also be an American Western. This is kinda true, on the one hand, since Nero's character Burt Sullivan is not the typical anti-hero, but a man who is looking to bring his father's murderer to justice alive, rather than just taking revenge. On the other hand some characters, like the grouchy and cynical Alcalde Miguel, played by Livio Lorenzo, are very typical Spaghetti-characters. Franco Nero's performance is great as always, many of the supporting actors are very good too. All things considered, "Texas Addio" is a fairly good Spaghetti Western, not one of the genre's highlights, but definitely worth watching.