have a good funeral my friend...sartana will pay (cinema history class)

First of all, my apologies for the trailer above. I couldn't find a good quality version of the trailer in English, so I'm linking to the one in German.

Keith continued Spaghetti Western month in our cinema history class with the clumsily-titled Have a Good Funeral, My Friend...Sartana Will Pay, the fourth in the series of Sartana movies. I'd heard of Sartana, a kind of Old West James Bond -- primarily because I attended the adult continuing ed classes that Keith teaches at Nassau Community College. But, despite having heard of Sartana, having seen clips of Sartana, and even having bought a box set of Sartana DVDs, this was the first time I'd actually sat through a Sartana movie.

Keith had billed this session as a series of hopefuls for the role of "next Clint Eastwood." Gianni Garko, in the titular role, was credible, though I don't think he was quite up to Eastwood. We spent some time in class discussing who he reminded us most of. None of us really saw him as Clint, though I noted that he seemed a lot like Franco Nero in The Mercenary. Someone also compared him to John Holmes -- a comparison that escapes my senses. Looking back, I think the movie reminded me of The Equalizer (the TV show). Not that Garko is anything like Edward Woodward in manner or presence. But there was something about the character that made me think of Woodward's Robert McCall.

One of the things about A Few Dollars for Django, the film that Keith picked to open the year, is that the title had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual movie. There was no Django in that, and the "a few dollars for" part of the title had no connection to the film, unless you consider the first couple of minutes. By contrast, Have a Good Funeral, My Friend...Sartana Will Pay actually featured Sartana. And he was paying for some first rate funerals. So there was that. I like a movie title to have something to do with the movie.

There were a couple of other pleasant surprises in this film. The soundtrack, though not quite up to the greatness of Ennio Morricone's work, was among the better scores. And there was a lot of good work done with handheld cameras, which gave life to the sense of chaos at the right moments.

But there was also a lot not to like. There was a Chinese caricature running a casino and constantly spouting Confuscianisms. I suppose that's good if you like that sort of thing, but I don't. I also got tired of seeing Sartana the Invincible dodging bullets and never getting s scratch. And I was kind of hoping for more gadgetry. Keith did warn us that this was not the best of Sartana, so I hope to see the better ones...