Le Spécialiste

Cult film-maker Corbucci's rarest of his thirteen Spaghetti Westerns (of which I'm only left with WHAT AM I DOING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE REVOLUTION [1972] to catch) is one I only became aware of fairly recently via Marco Giusti's "Stracult" guide; it's an atypically bleak genre gem in the style of the director's own masterpiece, THE GREAT SILENCE (1968), complete with desolate snowy landscapes.

Johnny Hallyday, the French Elvis Presley, whom I first saw in Jean-Luc Godard's DETECTIVE (1985) is a curious but highly effective choice to play the loner anti-hero Hud (who, like Clint Eastwood's The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone's celebrated "Dollars Trilogy", is fitted with a steel-plate armor for protection); incidentally, I had 'met' Hallyday's stunning daughter Laura Smet at the 2004 Venice Film Festival but was distracted by the presence of her esteemed director, Claude Chabrol! Gastone Moschin is another curious addition to the fold (serving pretty much the same function that Frank Wolff did in THE GREAT SILENCE) but acquits himself well and is amusingly clumsy in the presence of a bathing Francoise Fabian; the latter, then, plays a greedy nymphomaniac of a banker's widow who seduces all and sundry in the pursuit of her goals. Sylvie Fennec has the other major female role as a farm girl looked after by Hallyday and who, at one point, is entreated into Free Love by 'hippie' Apache Gabriella Tavernese (with this is mind, it's worth noting that the movie features surprising but welcome bouts of nudity from both Fabian and Tavernese)! Incidentally, the anachronistic addition of a bunch of long-haired youths (who also engage in dope-smoking and revolutionary talk) is a somewhat half-baked attempt at contemporary relevance – but it all eventually adds to the fun (besides, even the black barmaid sports an Afro hairdo!).

Mario Adorf, too, enjoys himself tremendously with the smallish role of a larger-than-life Mexican bandit nicknamed "El Diablo" – who keeps a youthful biographer constantly by his side (an element which may have influenced Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN [1992]) and, at one point, challenges the captive Moschin to a head-butting duel! Having mentioned this, the film also contains one very unusual 'weapon of death' – as Hallyday disposes of an adversary by kicking the cash-register of the saloon into his face! As always, the enjoyably fake fistfights are accompanied by over-emphatic sound effects; equally typically for the genre, however, the wistful score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino emerges a most significant asset. Actually, the ambiguous ending is entirely in keeping with the film's generally somber tone – after Fabian's comeuppance at the hands of the locals, the hippies (who had previously idolized Hud) suddenly turn against him when wounded and terrorize the town (forcing everyone on the street and unclothed)…but the unflappable gunman manages to lift himself up to meet their challenge (they, however, scurry away at the prospect of facing him!) and then rides out of town, leaving Fennec behind.

In conclusion, I acquired this via a good-quality Widescreen print in Italian albeit with French credits and the occasional lapse – about one minute of screen-time in all – into the French language (where, apparently, the original soundtrack wasn't available).

The Specialist 1969 (Sergio Corbucci ) yey another revenge based Spaghetti Western, of particular interest in this one is its not directed by Sergio Leonne or features a soundtrack composed by Ennio Morricone. What it does contain is French Singer Johnny Halliday, who was France's biggest rock pop (The French Elvis) star throughout 60s/70s and into the 80. He was known as much for his hell raising as his singing (there is a great documentary about him, made just after he died in 2017, if you able to find it) What about the film, well its a decent western, like most of the genre, there is a reason for all the carnage, in this case its, the return of the gunslinger Hud Dixon, to avenge the death of his brother by the town's folk of Blackstone . This Dead Man's Shoes but with cowboy boots and chaps. There's villain's El Diablo, the Mexican with one arm, crooked businessmen and politicians (aren't they all) and the love interest Sheba played by actress Sylvie Fennec who I've never seen in anything before who is drop dead gorgeous.

There are also some random hippies and a pacifist sheriff who has flowers in the barrel of his pistol (it was film in 1969 after all) great stuff but not a great film. 6/10 . If you want to try a Corbucci film, try The Great Silence, at least it features a Morricone score, and is based in the snow, I'm sure Tarantino got ideas for Hateful 8 from this.

The French Elvis, Johnny Hallyday is excellent, physically well-cast and impressive as the recurring main character in hundreds of Italian westerns: the lanky, silent stranger with supernatural shooting skills, and for the most part, not particularly interested in having sex with any of the gorgeous girls that filled the Italian westerns.

"The Stranger" character is more interested in dollars or gold but it's rarely explained in most films what his goal would be once he gets said dollars. The prototype was Clint Eastwood followed by Franco Nero, Terrence Hill, Anthony Steffen, George Hilton, Mark Damon, John Phillip Law, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Giuliano Gemma, Gianni Garko, Chuck Connors, Robert Woods, Charles Bronson, Tony Anthony and other actors. Abstract and surreal, the one-dimensional characters in Italian westerns have nothing in common with the more complex characters in American western films and, especially, TV shows that presented westerners faced with the problems and challenges of daily life. An example of this is the character Connors played in Castellari's Kill Them All and Come Back Alone compared to the single dad Lucas McCain raising a son in The Rifleman, a violent show yet filled with great humanity.

Hallyday gives a measured performance, much cooler than the explosive Law was in Death Rides A Horse, lighting the ever-present cigarillo and protecting a beautiful girl from harassing proto-hippies who enjoy rolling in mud holes while dealing elsewhere with a beautiful lady crime boss. Gli Specialisti also includes Mexican banditos, white townspeople (in Nevada), and a closing massacre that wipes out the town. His casting is as unusual as Trintignant's was in The Great Silence, an actor not associated with westerns like Hilton and Steffen were.

As realized in his The Great Silence, and Django, Corbucci had a great eye for scenic and unusual locations that elevated his films from the many Italian westerns that all shared the same geography. His locations are an important part of his westerns. Gli Specialisti never struck a major chord in audiences and Euro western fans but it's well worth repeated viewings.

With his deservedly lauded, darkly hued outlaw masterpiece 'The Specialists' Sergio Corbucci once again dynamically proves himself the grand architect of audaciously stylised, dazzlingly quick-fire, bullet-blasting western action! A bona fide, flint-edged classic, dramatically fortified with an exemplary cast of charismatic Euro-cult legends, truly breathtaking vistas, an exemplary score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, pristine photography by maestro Dario Di Palma, and a seethingly enigmatic performance by broody, blisteringly bellicose blue-eyed Gallic icon Johnny Hallyday as the loner, fatally fast Gunslinger Hud Dixon!

There's a fatalistic, palpably grim, strikingly Noirish quality to Corbucci's art that I found especially fascinating, with its majestically mountainous, soul-stirring vistas, lasso-tight plot, exemplary set pieces, and generously seratonin-spiking climax, the undeniably special 'Gli Specialisti' is a very, VERY fine western indeed! On a more personal note, not only did I find Hallyday's steely portrayal of the stern, solitudinous shootist Hud suitably menacing, it also proved to be pleasingly nuenced, engendering great sympathy for his isolated, doom-laden vengeance, a rare trait one doesn't often find in the more noisome, gun-happy spaghetti western protagonists of its era.

Talk about Johnny Hallyday a famous singer star no make sense, as French-Italian production it was used as vehicle for him aiming for draw attention of his fans, playing something alike Clint Eastwood typecast character, thus worthwhile discuss the supporting casting as Mario Adorf, Françoise Fabian and Gastone Moschin, firstly several sources state that Corbucci had a stormy rapport with Françoise Fabian by asking for make several nasty sequences, as nude scenes and mainly on final collective r.a.p.e. Whereof she didn't agreed whatsoever.

Also those juvenile's gang exposing a filthy behavior mostly of time reminds us on that fresh hippie movement ongoing on late sixties as well, further when Hud decides burn the money it depicts a rebelliousness of its time and primary by final nude sequence of the whole towners men and women laid on the ground, all these elements altogether take us to figure out a sadist offering by the bleak Corbucci, doubtless his most unseemly picture ever made, setting out his dark side, there are other good thing to point out as the breathtaking landscape on high frozen mountain at Cortina d'Ampezzo at north Italy.

Thanks for reading.

Resume: First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.