La rossa ombra di Riata

A very uneven film, filled with a "a bit of the olé' ultra-violence", shows its troubled production and finally emerges as a curios and a signpost of the changes in Hollywood that were still evolving and not without pains.

There is a vastness to the production with a gritty feel, children in distress and some really despicable characters. The Hero's change of heart from pacifist to killer is abrupt as are some of the other plot devices that take a backseat to the carnage and and mayhem.

It does have a memorable feeling to it that seems to stem from the movie's outrageous flourishes and one wonders if this was probably the best they could cobble from all the changes in Directors and other on the set strife. The good cast, however, are all in top form.

After all, it is recommended for fans of Westerns and movie chronology. It is a definite piece of postmodern cinema that is having difficulty (although not always aware) finding its niche and as a lot of seventies films show, it was not an easy transition as the art-form was released from over thirty years of repression.

The big surprise in The Deadly Trackers is Rod Taylor's emergence as one mean and nasty villain here. Although he had played a bad guy early in his career in Hell on Frisco Bay as a contract killer, the public was used to Rod as the civilized fellow bringing a sense of order to a future world in The Time Machine. He's anything, but civilized in The Deadly Trackers.

Richard Harris is a sheriff with some rather strange notions about capture instead of killing in a lawless land. Rod Taylor and his gang rob the bank in Harris's town and kill the bank manager on a whim. Then when Harris tries to capture and use reason with Taylor, Harris's wife and son become dead also.

That gives our sheriff a whole new outlook and he hunts the gang into Mexico where he teams up with a federale played by Al Lettieri who has all the ideas Harris used to have.

This was the farewell performance of Al Lettieri and interesting that he went out as a good guy here. He created a great group of villains in The Godfather, McQ, Mr. Majestyk, and The Getaway. He was a great talent.

Some attention was paid to the fact that Harris is an Irish sheriff and for that matter Rod Taylor is Australian. But America is in fact a nation of immigrants and this should be no stranger than Errol Flynn's emergence as a western star in the heyday of the studio.

An opening scene is one that will make the anti-gun group proud. The sheriff (a sober Richard Harris) explains that guns beget guns, etc. But when a group of super-nasties kill his school marm wife, and young son, it's a whole different story.

It's vengeance time and the next hour or so has to do with the sheriff on a one-man quest to find the head baddie (Rod Taylor relishing the role) and the chase takes us into Mexico and a small village where, usually, nothing much happens.

What happens in this flick is brutality piled on brutality, and violence up the ying-yang. Look at someone cross-eyed and you've had it mister.

There is the requisite prostitute with the requisite heart of gold and, by the way, some of the best acting comes from her little girl who was fathered by Taylor. She really looks scared --- well, you know the phrase.

So, the story is standard stuff, but it will hold your attention. The scenery is neat, the 'borrowed' music is neat and, for you lovers of violence, this is heaven on film although, to be honest, it is not as gross as you may have expected, since the films of Fuller are 'full-er' violence.

The moral to the story? Revenge is not always sweet. Would the Lone Ranger have done it this way?

With a soundtrack lifted straight off "The Wild Bunch" and a premise from any number of superior films (not just westerns), "The Deadly Trackers" is nothing more than a shameless plagiarism. Solid cast is wasted in stereotypical roles, only Al Lettieri breaks the mould as a sympathetic policeman on the trail of Harris, a former lawman taking revenge on those who murdered his family.

Taylor is the key villain, sadistic and for all intents and purposes, effective in his role. His ragtag crew including Brand, Smith and Benjamin are less convincing, with Smith (a cult favourite) flexing his muscles for one bloody fist fight before a premature exit. The movie basically lurches from one bloody encounter to the next, as Harris exacts merciless revenge, in turn pursued by Lettieri intent on taking him alive in the name of justice.

The contrast from his pre-family massacre pacifist (to the extent that guns are prohibited in his town), to that of total maniac who bludgeons his victims to bloodied pulp, is aimed at conveying the message that even the most gentle soul can turn feral under the most intense desperation. Just in case you fail to pick up on that message, there's a plethora of fatal beatings and progressively more sadistic retaliations to underline the point, culminating in a face-off between Harris and Taylor at an orphanage where they compete for wildest animal honours.

It's been written that Harris threw a lot of weight in the making of this picture, and it does have the appearance of being a one-man-stand, built around Harris from every angle in every frame. If only some of that attention had been dedicated to the script and plot, the outcome could have been much more rewarding. As it is, "The Deadly Trackers" is a pointless orgy of violence, a less than impressive vehicle in which to showcase the least of Harris' acting range. Uninspiring.

The Deadly Trackers was to be directed by the author of the original story, Sam Fuller. He was replaced by one or two other directors (identities unknown) and it was up to the dependable Barry Shear to complete the film. The opening sequence of stills and voice-overs is a liability to the overall film. My guess is that Shear, due to the chop and change of previous directors, had cobbled together pieces of their unfinished work. I would appreciate clarification of this from someone who knows. The importance of the opening sequence is that it establishes the motivation for the entire film. The violent shattering of this close-knit family drives the action - and should have given the viewer a greater appreciation of Richard Harris's despair. Otherwise Shear's film is an excellent thought-provoking western with an excellent performance by Al Lettieri playing the sheriff as the revenge-seeker's conscience. Vigilante theme worth comparing to films like Dirty Harry which was released two years earlier and set a trend in American cinema.

Memo: Whoever wrote the line `He shot the roses from her cheeks' should have been shot himself.