Mannaja

Although very much late in the game for an Italian western, (the bulk of which were made between 1965 and 1972) Mannaja (A Man Called Blade) is no slouch. It's actually a good muscular western with lots of violence and dark atmosphere, with the sun blocked out and everything bathed in a fog of dust.

Maurizio Merli plays Blade, a mysterious hatchet wielding bounty hunter with unfinished business to take care of regarding a puritanical mine owner and his psychotic number two, played by John Steiner, who's excellent at portraying nasty weasels.

Also memorable is (the late?) Donal O'Brien, who would later gain infamy as the title character in Doctor Butcher M.D. (Medical Deviate), as a scroungy fugitive who gets his hand cut off by Blade in the first scene and features prominently in the film's finale.

Director Sergio Martino is a master of Italian exploitation and really knows how to deliver the goods, especially in action/adventures. Another of his films I really enjoyed was Slave Of The Cannibal God with Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach.

Also, I really enjoyed the title song even though it was repeated way too often in the course of the film.

I found this film to be quite inspirational, actually. The movie is about a man who wields a blade for a weapon in fending off the bad guys while rescuing the girl from the evil villain, Voller (brilliantly played by John Steiner). At the beginning of the film we find our rogue hero Blade (played by Maurizio Merli) chasing after a man through the misty swamps. The man looks behind him frantically several times to try to make out the figure of his pursuer. Suddenly there is a swishing noise in the air as a hatchet blade strikes the man, severing his right hand against a tree. Thus begins the tale, and follows our hero into a virtual ghost town, where "sin and vice are not permitted." He enters a saloon where he and his new companion (the man with the severed hand) receive several shifty-eyed glances. This is when Blade first meets the dastardly Voller and wagers a gamble playing cards, to which of course our hero wins. The filming technique used throughout this scene is truly classic, where some shots show a profile of the villain on one side of the screen, with Blade standing in the background. The character acting is superb. I cannot speak enough about how Steiner personifies the classic old west villain to a "T". His snide mannerisms and long, lean stature lend to his overall character appeal. Throughout this film, there is plenty of splendid gunfighting and even a particularly notable scene in which Blade dukes it out with Voller and three of his henchmen in the mud. Yes, the actor actually does 90% of these stunts (as I later found out watching the director interview on DVD)! The director, Sergio Martino, could not have directed a more well-scripted film, complete with all the elements of a traditional spaghetti western! I give this film 3 out of 4 stars, mainly for its overall character appeal and for the simple fact that it's a 70's flick! 'Nuff said...

Eurocrime regular Maurizio Merli headlines this Italian Western about the title bounty hunter, who wields a hatchet rather than a gun. He comes upon the town of Suttonville, which is presided over by a mining boss, McGowan (Philippe Leroy) who supposedly doesn't allow any sort of "sin" or "vice". Mannaja gets caught up in the affairs of the town, going head to head with the crooked and deadly Voller (European exploitation veteran John Steiner) and seeing to some unfinished business that he has with McGowan.

"Mannaja" is directed by Sergio Martino, who was nothing if not versatile, moving from Gialli ("Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key") to post-apocalypse schlock ("2019: After the Fall of New York"), to the cannibal genre ("Mountain of the Cannibal God"). Martino gives the tale some real style, beginning and ending it with very atmospheric sequences. The violence is pretty vicious, but offsetting a certain grimness is a tendency towards levity at times. A case in point: Johnny-Johnny (Salvatore Puntillo) and his dancing girls. The music further adds to the atmosphere, having been composed by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis. Martino gets down to business with an eerie succession of scenes in which outlaw Burt Craven (Donald O'Brien) is pursued by Mannaja.

The charismatic Merli, who does indeed bear a resemblance to the more famous Franco Nero, does a capable job in the lead. He's extremely well supported by Steiner, who looks right at home in this genre; Steiner is a great villain. Leroy, O'Brien, Martine Brochard as dancing girl Angela, and Sonja Jeannine as McGowan's daughter are all fine as well.

Overall, "Mannaja" is pretty good of its type, offering up nice photography, lovely ladies, decent action sequences, a few laughs, and a plot where the hero doesn't always have the upper hand.

Seven out of 10.

This film begins with a bounty hunter who goes by the name "Blade" (Maurizio Merli) riding into the small mining town of Suttonville with a criminal named "Burt Craven" (Donald O'Brien) as his prisoner. Unfortunately, when he gets there he is informed that there is no real sheriff there which makes it impossible for him to claim the bounty. To make things even worse, he is also told that the entire town is essentially owned by the wealthy owner of the local silver mine named "Edward McGowan" (Philippe Leroy) and that nothing gets done without his approval or that of his chief enforcer and bodyguard by the name of "Voller" (John Steiner) . To that end, when Blade volunteers to help Edward McGowan with a problem he is experiencing with some local bandits, Voller doesn't take it too well and this results in a serious rift between Blade and everyone else-and Voller is not a man to take things lightly. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an entertaining "Spaghetti Western" which managed to keep my attention pretty much from start-to-finish. Admittedly, I didn't especially care for a couple of the twists and turns taken and the musical score was a bit odd. But even so I liked this film for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

I absolutely love this film.

The lead actor, Maurizio Merli, is a handsome man and a decent actor cast in the role of the "Good" Bounty Hunter, with Donald O'Brien as the "Ugly" thief/wanted man, and John Steiner as the "Bad" villain. The acting is top-notch as far as Italian Westerns go. The cinematography is beautiful, the editing great, and the direction superb. The sets are great but shrouded in a mysterious fog that lends to the movies surrealism. This film is like a very Artistic Western Graphic-Novel!

There are a few things in the plot that make you scratch your head (what movie DOESN'T suffer this problem?) but overall I would rank this in my Top Ten Westerns so far...here is the list (only culled from films I have seen thus far)

1. The Good The Bad The Ugly 2. Django 3. Mannaja 4. Fistful of Dollars 5. For a Few Dollars More 6. Tombstone 7. Outlaw Josey Wales 8. Unforgiven 9. Pale Rider 10.Silverado 11.High Plains Drifter 12.Hang Em High 13.Once Upon A Time in the West 14.Fistful of Dynamite 15.The Quick and The Dead

If you are a fan of movies that are as much art as film, then you should love Italian cinema!