boardwalk_angel

You gotta hand it to Tony Anthony. The man definitely thought outside of the box. Not content with recycled "revenge for a slaughtered family" or "gang of vicious thugs control a town" plots.......he co-wrote & starred in a series of films as "The Stranger", which, coincidentally, no pun intended, got stranger & stranger as they went along.

He..along with director Ferdinando Baldi, brought "Zatoichi" to the Spaghetti West w/ Blindman in 1971... fought against Moors and Vikings in Spain in 1976's "Get Mean",...& ushered in a modest 3d revival w/ 1981's "Comin' At Ya".

This, the third collaboration with Director Luigi Vanzi...."The Silent Stranger" predates a bunch of East-meets-West Spaghetti Westerns, including 1971's "Red Sun", "Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe" in '72...and "The Stranger and the Gunfighter" in '73.

I was, for the most part, pleasantly surprised...by this Italian/Japanese/American co-production. There's a pretty good script..a mixture of Spaghetti Western violence...a number of well-staged Samurai sword fights which aren't bad at all....nicely done, & a lot of humor.

Plodding through the snow in the Klondike.........The Stranger has a run-in with bandits who are attempting to rob a young Japanese man of an apparently valuable scroll. The Stranger manages to kill the bandits, but the young Japanese man is shot. He tells The Stranger that the owner of the scroll will pay him $20,000 for its return. Entrusted to return this mysterious scroll to its rightful owner, & looking forward to a big payday.. The Stranger and his trusty horse board a ship for Japan. Once there, he discovers that two powerful warlords have been vying for control of a village and both parties claim that the scroll is rightfully theirs. The Stranger realizes that the only way to save his hide....and get his money, is to play both sides against each other.

Yes, this is yet another twist on Yojimbo, ...adding the old fish out of water bit...having a gunfighter battle both with & against samurai in Japan.

A dispute between the American producer and distributor MGM kept it from being seen in USA theaters until 1975. ..seven years after it was produced.

A little "Yojimbo"...a bit of "Ran"...a "Fistful" of other stuff...it's fun.

Capturing the spirit of Zorro ...The Lone Ranger..Robin Hood.....a large dose of Clark Kent...Batman & Robin...yes, even Mighty Mouse..."Starblack' mixes tongue in cheek humor...high camp...A lot of good Spaghetti Western action ..into a pretty entertaining movie.

Robert Woods stars as Johnny Blyth...who returns home after striking out on his own..building a ranch in Colorado..(at least that's his cover story)...accompanied by his deaf mute sidekick (yes, just like Zorro & his Bernardo)...to discover (?) his father dead..under mysterious & shady circumstances.....his mother remarried to his uncle...his dead father's brother..the respected Judge King. The locals are being squeezed by a gang of cutthroats led by the well scrubbed but slimy 'Curry', saloon owner..banker..money lender...supporting a very profitable business driving people to financial ruin......then seizing their homes & assets.

Curry's thugs are beginning to encounter an obstacle to their terrorizing & killing of landowners...in the form of a masked protector...his face completely covered by a black mask....who rides a white stallion (like the Lone Ranger, yup).....carrying a black star, which he always leaves at the scene , as a symbol of justice. Zorro has his Z...Starblack has silver badges.

Woods plays it straight..and plays it well..both as the dashing, swashbuckling Starblack...& the mild mannered, guitar strumming, somewhat meek & cowardly Johnny.

It's obvious that this is in the hands of a good director..the guy knew his Western movies..knew the old 40s serials..& without a ton of money, fashioned a nice little nod to them.....in the true spirit of old time good guy B Westerns...comic book super heroes..and old time movie serials........complete with secret tunnels..deception.....very hammy bad guys..and all not necessarily being as it appears to be......featuring our hero getting into dangerous predicaments & getting out of them..sometimes inexplicably....with an uncanny knack for always being in the right place at the right time..

......but there's no doubt we're firmly in Spaghettiville---> due to whippings...knives in the forehead...a rape followed by a stunning scene....a moment not only one of the best resolutions in Spaghetti Westerns..but in Movieland itself...I cheered.

Grimaldi was obviously aware of Leone..it shows ...but at a time when copies and simple variations of "Dollars" ..& "Django" were flying out of Texas Hollywood..he went in his own direction. He also wrote the dialogue..& threw in some wonderful lines.....like "gotta go where people need our help" ...I was waiting for.... ''ma'am"..ha ha..just like the old movies.....in one early scene..after Starblack has saved the day...a woman looks up at him adoringly...uttering "Starblack"...a simple hoot of a scene.

Some of the camera shots are spot on terrific.. innovative & fresh..such as peeking through a noose ....overhead shots....shots from behind..from inside a moving miner's cart......& violently funny..like when Starblack knocks off 10 guys like shooting ducks.

Both a tribute..a spoof..AND playing it straight.. a fairly difficult blend to pull off......it's clear that there's a genuine affection for his subject matter & his characters. ............the too often obligatory comic saloon fight was actually pretty good..the stunts were well done...the fights choreographed well...some nice moments in the score..nice whistling theme.. and Robert Woods really sings.- which, as it is, turns out to be integral to the plot.

Of course the German version called him Django.......w/ the great title "Django - Black God of Death". .brrrrrrrr!!! Call it a popcorn & pasta flick...perfect for a Saturday afternoon matinée, perhaps..maybe w/ some cartoons & a newsreel and then.......

"Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear.... A fiery horse with the speed of light, A cloud of dust, and a hearty "Ciao-Yo, Argento...... Via" !!!!!!!

Hey..it's not high art...but I give it a "Bravo" anyway.

By 1981, the heyday of the Spaghetti Western was over..that golden era finished..played out...& pretty much left for dead. A few interesting stragglers trickled out..."Mannaja" in '77..Lucio Fulci delivered "Silver Saddle" in '78.. & Michele Lupo's "Buddy Goes West" in '81. The previously bustling sets in Almeria & other Spanish locations were abandoned...& allowed to fall into disrepair. Director Ferdinando Baldi & Producer/Actor Tony Anthony, who ten years earlier had collaborated on adapting & bringing the blind swordsman "Zatoichi" to the Spaghetti West..resulting in the entertaining ........"Blindman",.............decided to do it again.......... filming a loose remake of Blindman in Spain.

Producer Tony Anthony decided to film it in 3-D...to give it life... to make it stand out...& that's precisely what it did. Originally called YENDO HACIA TI (GOING TOWARDS YOU) ,... Filmways picked up the film for North American distribution, re-named it COMIN' AT YA! ...it wound up making a bundle at the box office...grossing $12,000,000 in the USA...becoming the 23rd highest grossing Western ever among all post 1980-present Westerns... & sparking a modest 3D revival.

Anthony stars as H.H. Hart...who's not given any backstory but I'd project him as a former gunslinger. His wife, Abilene, is played by the gorgeous Victoria (TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN!) Abril. Gene (TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS) Quintano plays the sleazy leader of the bad guys, Pike...unfortunately he plays it badly, in a terrible performance.. Quintano also had a hand in the script. Pike's fat, disgusting brother, Polk, is played by Ricardo (ARK OF THE SUN GOD) Palacios.

After an opening credits sequence in which beans spill all over the camera, bullets fire at the audience, a snake slithers out of a basket.., and hands reach out for the viewer's face... this recycled, slightly fiddled & diddled with clone of "Blindman"....... ....gets going as Hart embarks on a rescue mission after his wife is kidnapped, he lies shot & left for dead......the priest shot & killed... by the Thompson brothers (Gene Quintano, Ricardo Palacios)...in the little border chapel...as they exchange their vows...anticipating and influencing the chapel massacre in "Kill Bill".

We discover that the Thompsons & their gang have been kidnapping women all over the territory in order to sell them to Mexican brothels... taking them all down to Mexico to be sold to the highest bidder. Hart follows, carrying a pump shotgun , blasting his way through the bad guys, getting beaten up several times (an Anthony trademark...he always gets pummeled a lot). After capturing one of the brothers and giving him a beating. ..he then tracks down the other brother/rest of the gang, hoping to release the captive women...& save his wife. Release...escape..recapture..& murder ensue.

As Hart continues on his quest, we're treated to guys falling downstairs (in slooooow motion), spinning fiery pinwheels (for the five minute recap at the end), an attack of bats, spiders, scurrying (and hungry) rats, flaming arrows (the best part...& the 3D works), and even a baby's bare bottom.

As the gang kills time in a windswept ghost town waiting for Hart to show up ...it's an excuse for more gimmicks....yo-yos...paddleballs... playing cards flipped at you....as Hart, despite being greatly outnumbered... rides into town to save his wife....& exact his revenge. The explosive finale works well in 3D...or maybe I was just sufficiently cross eyed by that time.

The old, abandoned, crumbling, delapidated sets work well.......conveying an air of desolation & desperation.

Carlo Savina scored a lot of Spaghetti Westerns...all low budget "B" stuff. Here he contributes a spare, elegiac score......using ambient voices pleasingly. His best moments are during a 5 minute replay of its best 3D moments after the movie.....which I'm guessing was probably the original opening credits title tune.

I've always liked Anthony...although he never achieved the status of a Nero, Eastwood or a Garko ... he always gave a good performance...was one of the most likable SW "heroes"..as well as being a talented writer & producer.....& Baldi...never accorded the reverence of a Leone, a Corbucci.. always delivered the goods.......never afraid to take chances.

When presented in the theater...........viewers used polarized (gray lenses) to gain the 3-D experience. The DVD utilizes Anaglyph 3-D, centering around the wearing of glasses with red and blue lenses...to effect the illusion of depth. It's best to view the movie in a fully darkened room with the red lens over the right eye...as it appears to be Reverse Anaglyph. The close, foreground shots don't work too well...........the foreground objects that are supposed to loom out at you are always breaking up & tend to produce a "ghosting" effect, which ruins the overall illusion. ..The 3-D actually works best............producing pretty good depth effects, in the regular shots...the medium & background shots.

Could it stand on its own...w/out the 3d...something to be watched & watched again? No. The story...pretty much paint by numbers, point a--> point b--> point c.............doesn't warrant repeated viewings. That being said...I'll watch it again........not for the story..but for the 3D.

In 1983...Baldi & Anthony collaborated on another 3D movie.."Treasure of the Four Crowns "....which marked the final on-screen performance by Tony Anthony, though he continued working for a time as a television producer. From his experience working on the 3D film techniques for this movie, Tony Anthony now manufactures specialized lenses for the medical industry.

Grab some buttered popcorn......a Giant Coca-Cola...an x-large box of Junior Mints...& check it out.