The Forgotten Pistolero
In the 1980s, my father and I went to the local university to see a screening of Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum, a film I found to be impressive while my father had mixed feelings. To my mother he described it as "a semi-great film."
Semi-great film, to this day, for me, accurately describes a small number of movies, including The Forgotten Pistolero (1969), directed by Ferdinando Baldi. Taking place in Mexico and Texas in the nineteenth century, the film depicts the reunion of two old friends, Rafael Garcia (Peter Martell) and Sebastian Carrasco (Leonard Mann). They were separated during childhood when Sebastian's upper class mother, Anna (Luciana Paluzzi), and her lover Tomas (Alberto de Mendoza), murdered Sebastian's father, General Carrasco (José Suarez), soon after he returned from a successful military campaign.
Rafael, grown up, takes an interest in Sebastian's sister, Isabella (Pilar Velázquez). Tomas orders his chief henchman and enforcer, Francisco (Piero Lulli), to mutilate his genitals. Some of Francisco's men chase Rafael to the border, but Rafael kills all but one of them. He finds Sebastian on a small farm in Texas, reveals his identity. They set out to avenge General Carrasco's murder.
That his own mother killed his father presents a dilemma for Sebastian, but he rides south on a mission to kill, at least, Tomas, and to confront his mother.
Anna, the mother, is the one who sent Francisco and his men after Rafael. She's convinced Sebastian is dead so it's quite a surprise for her when he shows up. Meanwhile, Tomas seeks to exert control over the developing situation by having Sebastian's sister Isabella kidnapped and brought to the hacienda he shares with Anna. Isabella makes a show of coming on to Tomas in front of Anna, souring the mother and wife's view further toward her partner in crime.
Sebastian and Rafael go through Francisco's men one by one, leaving behind more corpses than I could count. Finally, it's just Francisco, Tomas, and Anna against Sebastian and Rafael, with Isabella mad with grief after Tomas shoots a repentant Anna. Rafael exacts revenge on Francisco, Sebastian puts four or five bullets in Tomas's extremities, giving him a prolonged, agonizing death struggle while an overturned lantern has set the house on fire. The climax, played out against a burning building with Isabella wandering through the doomed structure and searched for by Rafael, is the truly great part of the film.
The best thing in this movie is the musical score by Roberto Pregadio. One of the most beautiful soundtracks I've ever heard, its main theme achieves epic proportions when paired with the film's climax of fire, the destruction of a family, the satisfaction of revenge, the righting of wrongs, and the mother's dying, killed as much by regret as by her lover's bullet.
The film, overall, is entertaining, while the climax opens out to the kind of overwhelming power demonstrated in Sergio Leone's best work in the spaghetti western genre.
The movie's currently on Amazon Prime.
Vic Neptune
In the 1980s, my father and I went to the local university to see a screening of Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum, a film I found to be impressive while my father had mixed feelings. To my mother he described it as "a semi-great film."
Semi-great film, to this day, for me, accurately describes a small number of movies, including The Forgotten Pistolero (1969), directed by Ferdinando Baldi. Taking place in Mexico and Texas in the nineteenth century, the film depicts the reunion of two old friends, Rafael Garcia (Peter Martell) and Sebastian Carrasco (Leonard Mann). They were separated during childhood when Sebastian's upper class mother, Anna (Luciana Paluzzi), and her lover Tomas (Alberto de Mendoza), murdered Sebastian's father, General Carrasco (José Suarez), soon after he returned from a successful military campaign.
Rafael, grown up, takes an interest in Sebastian's sister, Isabella (Pilar Velázquez). Tomas orders his chief henchman and enforcer, Francisco (Piero Lulli), to mutilate his genitals. Some of Francisco's men chase Rafael to the border, but Rafael kills all but one of them. He finds Sebastian on a small farm in Texas, reveals his identity. They set out to avenge General Carrasco's murder.
That his own mother killed his father presents a dilemma for Sebastian, but he rides south on a mission to kill, at least, Tomas, and to confront his mother.
Anna, the mother, is the one who sent Francisco and his men after Rafael. She's convinced Sebastian is dead so it's quite a surprise for her when he shows up. Meanwhile, Tomas seeks to exert control over the developing situation by having Sebastian's sister Isabella kidnapped and brought to the hacienda he shares with Anna. Isabella makes a show of coming on to Tomas in front of Anna, souring the mother and wife's view further toward her partner in crime.
Sebastian and Rafael go through Francisco's men one by one, leaving behind more corpses than I could count. Finally, it's just Francisco, Tomas, and Anna against Sebastian and Rafael, with Isabella mad with grief after Tomas shoots a repentant Anna. Rafael exacts revenge on Francisco, Sebastian puts four or five bullets in Tomas's extremities, giving him a prolonged, agonizing death struggle while an overturned lantern has set the house on fire. The climax, played out against a burning building with Isabella wandering through the doomed structure and searched for by Rafael, is the truly great part of the film.
The best thing in this movie is the musical score by Roberto Pregadio. One of the most beautiful soundtracks I've ever heard, its main theme achieves epic proportions when paired with the film's climax of fire, the destruction of a family, the satisfaction of revenge, the righting of wrongs, and the mother's dying, killed as much by regret as by her lover's bullet.
The film, overall, is entertaining, while the climax opens out to the kind of overwhelming power demonstrated in Sergio Leone's best work in the spaghetti western genre.
The movie's currently on Amazon Prime.
Vic Neptune
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