Saludos, hombre

Sergio Sollima's "Corri, Uomo, Corri" aka. "Run, Man, Run!" of 1968 is a great and very funny sequel to his 1966 masterpiece "La Resa Dei Conti" aka. "The Big Gundown". As Sollimas two other Westerns, this is once again a quite political film, but unlike "The Big Gundown" and "Face To Face", it is so humorous, that it could actually be described as a Spaghetti Western Comedy.

After a dying revolutionary entrusts the hideout of a fortune to him, Mexican petty thief and excellent knife thrower Cuchillo (Tomas Milian, who already played Cuchillo in "The Big Gundown") is chased through the Mexican/Texan borderland by a gang of Mexian bandits, two French mercenaries, who work for the Mexican government, and Nathaniel Cassidy (Donal O'Brien), an American gunslinger who, although primarily interested in money, still has some of his former ideals left. Furthermore Cuchillo is constantly followed by his loving girlfriend Dolores (beautiful Chelo Alonso), who is sexy and passionate, but also very jealous and short-tempered. On his run, Chuchillo first meets, and travels with a pretty blonde Salvation Army activist called Penny (Linda Veras), much to Dolores' disfavor, and later teams up with Cassidy against their mutual enemies.

The acting in this movie is great, especially Tomas Milian (one of my favorite actors) and Donal O'Brien deliver excellent performances as the two main characters. The supporting cast is also very good, the legendary John Ireland has a small role as a the leader of a Mexican revolutionary squad. The cinematography is great, and so is the music by Bruno Nicolai and Ennio Morricone. Many scenes in movie are very memorable, some of them very funny , a Mexican bandit gang leader orders his wife to hold off on giving birth to their child for a few days for example, because he doesn't want his son to be a "Gringo" born in the US, and the French hit men played by Luciano Rossi and Marco Guglielmi are two very satirical villains.

Maybe not quite as brilliant as "The Big Gundown", but still an excellent movie, "Run, Man, Run!" is a witty, great and very entertaining Spaghetti Western, a must see for genre-fans, but also recommended to everybody else.

Hitting hard is the idealistic tone and free-flowing spirit that engraves itself in director Sergio Sollima's sprawling spaghetti western (a semi-sequel to "The Big Gundown (1966)") starring Tomas Milan as the simple, but lethal knife slinging protagonist Cuchillo. While the material is heavy on the comic banter and physical mishaps, it never loses balance of the strenuously meaningful political side of the story, as Sollima agreeably pulls it off. There's bounce, and zippy energy as it moves along quickly enough, despite its lengthy story and open-ended conclusion for another expansive adventure to begin. Rich varieties of characters (maybe too many) come and go with a lot of minor stories branching of the central premise. This leaves the story feeling loose. So pretty much something is always happening, but the resolutions and overall intentions come off cloudy in this largely chatty script. There's a lot of running, but just as much talking. Sollima skilfully directs with bold compositions and controlled precision in his grand set-pieces. His camera-work imagery and widescreen placement is professionally executed, and imaginatively snappy. The rough and scorching desolate backdrop never looked so sumptuously rich. Adding to the drama was Bruno Nicolai and Ennio Morricone's downright superb alarmingly scheming and melodic score. The performances are truly wonderful. Milan's ferret manner always amused, and Donal O'Brien brings out an intriguing performance. The passionate performances came from two fiery ladies; Linda Veras and Chelo Alonso. They were great! John Ireland has a small, but potently hearty and flavorful role as Mexican revolutionary General Santillana. Quite a fun and well-made spaghetti western, but it does take quite a lot out of you.

(aka: RUN, MAN, RUN)

Decent sequel to Sollima's great spaghetti western, THE BIG GUNDOWN (1966), this one involves the return of Cuchillo (Thomas Milian) who helps revolutionary Santillana (John Ireland in a small role) return $3,000,000 in gold from Texas back to Mexico. Cuchillo also makes a promise to an old revolutionary before he dies to also help return the gold in order to help finance the revolution and overthrow the dictator, Porfirio Diaz.

But Cuchillo also has to deal with former sheriff Cassidy (Donal O'Brien) who also wants the gold for himself. Then there are the French assassins and bounty hunters who also want a share as well as blond Salvation Army turned gold huntress Penny (Linda Vargas) and many other bandits, too numerous to name. As comic relief we have Cuchillio's girlfriend (Chelo Alonso) following Cuchillio across the desert, trying to force him to give up the search for the gold and marry her. Cuchilio's relationship with her can be funny at times.

The nighttime gunbattle in the Texas town with the Mexican bandits is suspenseful as we see Cuchillio go to work on the bandits with his slick knife throwing skills as he kills each bandit, one after the other. It doesn't hurt that Cassidy also helps him since he needs Cuchillio to help him find the gold. The two of them eventually find out that the gold was melted down into the shape of an old printing press and painted black in order to hide it. Now that's an imaginative touch instead of the usual cave or hole in the ground plot device where people want to hide gold.

The ending is roughly the same as in THE BIG GUNDOWN only not as good since Donal O'Brien can't hope to top Lee Van Cleef in the earlier film. In fact, if there's one big flaw about this film, it's that Van Cleef isn't in it. Otherwise I'd rate it a couple of notches higher.

Blue Underground's anamorphic DVD looks pretty good and the sound and dubbing is excellent. As an earlier reviewer mentioned, there is an interview with director Sollima and Milian and their reflections on the film, as well as an interesting 1969 mini-documentary on the making of spaghetti westerns and their (then) popularity in Italy, including behind the scenes looks at this film as well as Sergio Corbucci's THE GRAND SILENCE (1968).

Decent flick although I think there are better.

6 out of 10

This film reuses the lead character of LA RESA DEI CONTI and is the third of the Sollima/Milian series. Cuchillo (spanish for "knife") is pretty skilled with this weapon and proves its usefulness in a lot of occasions. During the plot he acts as a maverick, with the only help of his fiancé Maria who wants him finally to get married. As a cultural counterpoint there is the other maverick Cassidy who is depicted as Nordic precise and cold. While being competitive at first they later join for purpose. Overall this sequel suffers from an overload of duel and fighting situations which often seem to be completely senseless, e.g. the duel between Cassidy and José in the beginning. The revolution is not more than a background. Less characters and more character development would have helped. Milian plays with his typical humor and very often we see his suffering face in repetitive scenes of torture. . Recommended for fans of the genre and of Milian. Rich daughter Penny (Linda Veras) is working for the salvation army and wears black fish-net stockings which I consider a minor inaccuracy ;-)

The Nicolai/Morricone score is nice but too hammering for my taste, cinematography is well above average. For me this film is the most humorous of the 3 Sollimas.

6/10

"Run, Man, Run" (1968) is a Revoloutionary Spaghetti Western directed by the third "Sergio" (after Leone and Corbucci) Sergio Sollima. It stars Thomas Milian as Cuchillo the peasant, reprising his role from "The Big Gundown" (1966), who becomes involved in the hunt of a large cache of gold in Texas.

This is a semi-sequel to "The Big Gundown", but like the Dollars trilogy one can be watched without the other and no confusion arise. In fact, it is probably best to watch this and not compare it to the two previous Sollima Westerns as this movie will be found wanting, which is not to say it is a poor film. Quite the opposite, it is very well directed, acted (especially by Milian), scored by Bruno Nicolai (although allegedly Ennio Morricone gave a helping hand) and the cinematography by Guglielmo Mancori is fantastic. It is just that in this picture what you get is absolutely what you see; there isn't any Fascist allegory hiding underneath like there is in "Face to Face" (1967) or the character complexities there is in "The Big Gundown". Perhaps because Sollima is a better director than scriptwriter (this is his only Spaghetti Western where Sergio Donati doesn't have a screenplay credit). Still, this is a very good Western, way above the average fare and a film anybody with even only a superficial knowledge of the genre will acknowledge as a great.