Frank Kramer on Sergio Leone

Gianfranco Parolini: IF YOU MEET SARTANA PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH, SABATA, and RETURN OF SABATA were the antithesis of Sergio Leone's films. I can say this now because he's dead, poor soul, and I'm still here. Because he once said that my films were only saved by their gags and likeableness. He didn't think I was capable of directing actors. When Leone broke with Grimaldi's P.E.A. company, Grimaldi called me right away. Piero Lazzaro, my general organizer, was in the desert in Nevada or in Nebraska...and there was this big shed. He was with Sergio Leone, they were preparing a film. On the shed someone had written "lf you meet Sartana pray for your death". Piero told me that Sergio Leone said "That son of a bitch has even turned up here !" Get it ? "He's even exported his gags here !" That film was a big hit too. They made sequel after sequel and they were all hits for Alberto Grimaldi.

Dollhouse #3 "Stage Fright"

The show is getting better and better.

Steve Reeves on A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS

From the July 1994 issue of The Perfect Vision magazine:

TPV: I heard you were offered the role in A Fistful of Dollars and didn't take it.

SR: Yeah. The director of The Last Days of Pompeii was an older gentleman and he was just a figurehead. Sergio Leone was his assistant and did about 90 percent of the directing. We had a little tussle one time because there was a scene where I was being filmed behind bars and he told me to do it a certain way, and I said 'Why?' - in other words, I needed a motivation. I'm not a great method actor, but you have to know why you're doing something. So he said, 'Because I said so.' I didn't like that, and I went after him. They grabbed me, and I cooled off, and after that everything was fine. Later he wanted me to do this Western, and I love the West. He told me about it, but then I found out it was based on Kurosawa's Yojimbo - he had taken it scene by scene and changed it into a Western. In fact, after it came out, Kurosawa saw it and demanded either a royalty or a buy-out. I personally thought, how could an Italian director make a good Western out of a Japanese samurai film? So I turned it down on that basis. That was the first Western in Italy, you know, and it turned out well. But also, I wouldn't have felt real good smoking a little cigar and squinting my eyes for three months. Frankly, Clint Eastwood was much better for it than I would have been. There are certain parts for certain people. To me, Johnny Weissmuller was the greatest Tarzan ever, And some other people, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno, have tried to make Hercules and they bombed. If anybody tried to play Rocky but Stallone, they would bomb. Same with Eastwood; he was perfect for that part.

The original story of THE MERCENARY

Giorgio Arlorio: The (original Solinas) story was more ambiguous than usually was the case with the "political" westerns of those years of the TEPEPA type. In a Texas jail, a man condemned to death is pardoned on the condition that he go to Mexico - in the throes of Revolution - and make sure that the brother of the man who pardoned him is safe and sound. In Mexico, he discovers that the man's already been killed, and he falls in with some peons, who admire his technical ability, and they hire him, submitting to a few conditions he demands: the right to rob, rape etc. whoever he wants. Under his military guidance, the group grows, it defeats the cavalry, it conquers a city. But once he's served his purpose, the peons condemn him to death after thanking him; chiefly because he has raped their women, shot who he pleased etc. The chief of the peons asks him if he has a last request: "Yes, I'd like you to shoot me!" It doesn't feel right to him, and he sets him free. Fifteen days later, all the band is captured by reactionary forces and condemned to death. The peon sees amongst the enemy the selfsame man, the mercenary. Last wish? "That you kill me." And the mercenary says" Se non e questo!", and he shoots him!! There was something Brechtian in this story and its logic. But in the film that was made with Tony Musante, and - I think - Franco Nero, all of this was lost. It ended up being directed not by Pontecorvo, but by Corbucci.

Thank heaven for the Fast Forward

I think Alias was the first TV show that intrigued me enough to want to know where it was going plotwise, but wasn't enjoyable enough to actually watch it. Thanks to the fast forward function on my VCR, I could watch every episode, and not have to put up with all of the inane dialogue. So, I could just slow down when Jennifer Garner, or Mia Maestro, or Lena Olin, or Melissa George, or Rachel Nichols, or Amy Acker, or Sarah Shahi, or Gina Torres, or Sonia Braga, or Isabella Rossellini did something that I wanted to see.
Having established the protocol, I now find that there are more shows that I'm interested in keeping tabs on, but don't enjoy actually watching. These include Heroes (After first seeing her on Ally McBeal, Hayden Panettiere is someone I'll watch in anything.), Chuck (After an enjoyable first season, the show doesn't feel like it's going anywhere.), Lost (I find this show really annoying, but I want to know if the writers actually do have a point to all this.), 24 (I'm interested in the plotting for this show, no matter how absurd the scripting gets.), Big Love (After Veronica Mars, I'll watch Amanda Seyfried in anything - and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin are fun, too.) and Trust Me (I'm happy to see Sarah Clarke and Monica Potter getting regular work.).

The Importance of Being Cuchillo

Tomas Milian: In my view, so many "third world westerns" were huge hits because even though the hero was always American, the third worlder could be in a certain sense the Italian underclass. I'm not saying that Italy is a third world country, not at all, but honestly you must admit there is much underdevelopment. So, as in many other countries where my films did and do well - Spain, Turkey, Arabia, Africa, South America - the people needed superheroes: the bounty killer - Anglo Saxon, hard, inexpressive, made of steel - and that these guys went on the hunt for a poor little guy, with whom the audience identified, because through a sort of love hate relationship, the poor of any country. Monnezza and Nico the Pirate are very closely related to Cuchillo and these Westerns. Monezza is nothing more than a Roman Cuchillo revisited, to use a term I detest, and Nico the Pirate is the Lee Van Cleef of LA RESA DEI CONTI in a modern key. Yes, I really do believe my career has lasted so long because after Cuchillo I managed to split myself into two pesonas: playing - in one series of films, this Monezza, really a thief, a disinherited; and in the other, Nico the Pirate, or essentially, the policeman, the super hero.

Dollhouse episode #2

Another splendid installment for this new show.