Le Dernier Face à face

This Italian western is often mentioned as one which is well known for having political undertones, specifically a storyline that is an allegory on the rise of fascism and the then current Vietnam War. While it's certainly true that you could make these interpretations if you look deep enough, you really need to be looking for them and the film works just fine without these readings. It's about a professor who moves from the urban east coast to Texas to retire for health reasons and immediately becomes involved with a bandit who is on the run from the law. As the story progresses their partnership results in a transformation between the two where the good guy's behaviour gets worse and the bad guy develops a conscience.

It was directed by the third Sergio of the spaghetti western genre, Sergio Sollima; the other two being Leone and Corbucci. He directed three well received westerns in total, including the impressive The Big Gundown (1966). Like that one, this one features the talented actor Tomas Milian in another shifty role, in this case as the bandit. He is joined by another two regulars of the genre in William Berger, playing a character based on a real life Pinkerton detective, and Gian Maria Volonté, most famous for his two highly memorable turns in the first two films in Leone's 'Dollars Trilogy'. Volonté is especially good here in a role that shows how good an actor he is. It's his character's transformation from meek intellectual to callous gang-leader that really drives the narrative. His performance, along with Milian's, is very convincing and illustrates how easy it is to cross a line and become immoral. It's this aspect in particular where the fascism allegory comes from, while the massacre of a group of innocents later in the film echoes the events in Vietnam. As well as being a well-acted and directed affair, it has a good script and another impressive score from Il Maestro himself, Ennio Morricone. Needless to say, when you have all these ingredients coming together you are left with a great western, which is certainly enhanced by having more going on under the surface than most.

Take three of the finest Spaghetti Western actors (Gian Maria Volente, Tomas Milian and William Berger), the great direction of Sergio Sollima (The Big Gundown) and a gripping topsy turvey story of power and you get Face to Face.

Volente stars as Brad, a Professor that inadvertently becomes embroiled in Beau's (Milian) revolution when taken hostage by the bandit. It is not long before Brad becomes attracted to Beau's way of life, with the film superbly capturing his gradual corruption by power. Meanwhile, Beau's character develops an increasing compassion for his people and their life. The interplay between these two actors works brilliantly, and ably assisted by Berger as Siringo - a lawman disguised as one of Beau's gang.

Morricone's soundtrack is, as ever, fantastic. All in all, this is a true Spaghetti gem - Italian cinema at its near finest.

"Face to Face" (1967), directed by Sergio Sollima, who made only three Spaghetti Westerns, all now considered classic in the genre, the other two being "The Big Gundown" (1966) and "Run Man, Run" (1968), is a great Western, Spaghetti or otherwise, with a trio of great performances from Gian Maria Volonté, Tomas Milian and William Berger.

The plot, an allegory on the rise of Fascism in Europe, concerns a sickly teacher from New England called Brad Fletcher (Volonté), who is kidnapped by by a wounded outlaw, Solomon "Beauregard" Bennet (Milian), and they form a friendship, and eventually Fletcher joins Bennet's gang, which unleashes Fletcher's inner "heart of darkness", while Bennet starts to question his role as a bandit.

With a potent script by Sergio Donati and himself, Sollima loads the screen with great action scenes, gunfights and duels, all the while showcasing Volonté's brilliant performance, as his character completely transforms for the wore, as Milian's role shows him going the exact opposite way. It is a stark tale of contrast, powered by an epic Ennio Morricone score (conducted by a composer of not inconsiderable talent, Bruno Nicolai), grand direction, and photography (by Emilio Foriscot and Rafael Pacheco) and editing (by Eugenio Alabiso), with art direction by Carlo Simi, who worked on Sergio Leone's masterly "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966). A Spaghetti masterpiece, which is one for the Top 10 Western lists.

This is a great western, one of the finest of the spaghetti-genre which has some political overtones. Everyone knows about the Eastwood/Leone movies but this is just the tip of the iceberg, there were hundreds of spaghetti westerns made & this is one of the best. Through a combination of illness & circumstance a mild mannered teacher is introduced to the world of bandit Solomon Beauregard Bennet. Gradually the two men begin to influence each other - for better & for worse - with the teacher becoming more vicious an outlaw than Solomon ever was. Solomon on the other hand begins to see another way of life & the folly of his criminal past.The transformation between the two characters is really interesting & believable, this coupled with some great western scenes, a score by Ennio Morricone, some familiar spaghetti western actors (including the excellent Tomas Milian) & an explosive finale make this a western to rival anything that the more well known Leone offered.

Sergio Sollima's Faccia a faccia (1967) is a very great Italian western with the genre icons Tomas Milian and Gian Maria Volonte. A seemingly "good" teacher, a professor (Volonte), gets by coincidence on the same path with a seemingly "bad" and infamous bandit (Milian) only to see how hollow and meaningless those terms are, used alone, without the other, the opposite. The way how both characters begin to change (the professor away from his usual, sophisticated environment and society) is very believable and well-written with the development that steps on the all necessary steps, not jumping from one point to another and thus making it all very unnatural: when an unexpected character does something against his "persona", it has been well argumented by the previous happenings and words. Like in the masterpiece western Il grande silenzio (Sergio Corbucci, 1968), there are no entertaining heroes that end up killing the "bad guy" in a spectacular finale. Sollima concentrates on the dualism of the human nature and the fact how easy, in the right circumstances, it is to change and cross the line, for every human being, no matter what the past or status in society. And he does it very well, both script-wise and image-wise.

The imagery and compositions are great, intelligent and use the whole aspect ratio very carefully. Sollima uses some very low and radical angles very effectively, to make the imagery as rich as possible. The actors are professionals and both leads possess perfect faces for their roles. The soundtrack by Ennio Morricone is once again very pleasing but not among his greatest works, like in the mentioned film by Corbucci, or several films by Sergio Leone. This is simply a fantastic western from the time very many were made, after the success of Leone's first film with Clint Eastwood in 1964, A Fistful of Dollars. Corbucci's Il grande silenzio is even more stunning in its visuality and silent despair, but after all Sollima's film's statement isn't any more positive, untrue and calculated, in other words.