My notes on Un fiume di dollari (The Hills Run Red) (1966)
This Dino de Laurentiis production was one of the first of the flood of Italian westerns greenlit in the wake of Sergio Leone’s early hits – note the use of the word ‘dollari’ in the title. Director Carlo Lizzano (billed as ‘Lee W. Beaver’) was a long-time midlist hack, whose most notable credits are probably the Peter Boyle gangster film Crazy Joe and the odder spaghetti western Kill & Pray; here, he just gets the job done, and works with what he’s got, which isn’t very much. It opens just after the Civil War with a couple of Rebs, Jerry Brewster (Thomas Hunter) and Ken Seagull (Nando Gazzolo) on the run from the Union army with a stash of cash. They cut cards to see who’ll escape with the money and who’ll string out the chase and get captured, and the heroic Jerry wins – which leads to five years in the sort of camp where prisoners have to stand unaided in a cage of barbed wire for punishment. Jerry asks Ken to look out for his wife and son, but naturally the weaselly villain doesn’t – the wife pines away and the son (Loris Loddi) is adopted by a blacksmith – and so Jerry looks up his old comrade, now a land-grabbing bastard, to get revenge.
Hunter didn’t go on to become Clint Eastwood and no wonder – he’s male model pretty, but not charismatic and fails to project the grungy toughness that was a spaghetti hero requisite. Gazzolo isn’t much of a villain either, so the acting falls to American veterans Dan Duryea, as quixotic but helpful gunman Winny Getz, and Henry Silva, as the baddy’s fiendishly grinning sidekick Garcia Mendez (character names aren’t a strong suit). Silva isn’t subtle, but is entertaining: if the whole film had been pitched at the level of his ham, it would be a lot more fun. Nicoletta Machiavelli is lovely but underused as the sweet heroine who reminds Jerry of his dead wife. It has gruesome elements – the hero cuts off his own tattoo so Winny can claim to have killed him to get in with the villains’ camp – and the expected gunplay, but it doesn’t add anything to the new-minted sub-genre in the way that, say, Sergio Corbucci’s Django soon would. Entertaining enough, though.
Ta for accompanying picture of the indeed lovely Nicoletta. Ken Seagull? Lee W. Beaver? Were the Italians having fun, or did the English language distributors not care, or what. Add these to the immortal Frank Smokecocks and Alan W Steev (I think there was one called Alan W Cools as well, or sone variation – can’t recall the films). A lot of Spaghettis have titles that promise sun-blasted apocalyptic gothic on an operatic scale, and transpire to be tantamount to swarthy Roy Rogers capers – less Hills Running Red more Acceptably Entertaining Hi-jinx Ensue, thank you
Posted by wmsagittarius | June 2, 2020, 10:10 pmI just got this film on a Kino Blu Ray and the lead guy, Thomas Hunter, is off the chain nuts. He’s like a cross between Don Knotts and Woody from Toy Story. Apparently this was his first gig and nobody was tempering his performance and man it shows. When he runs, he bippity bops. When he screams, it looks like something from a David Lynch movie. It’s deeply interesting. I never seen a lead hero played like a marionette puppet on meth.
Posted by dave in the cave | February 11, 2021, 10:53 pm