Tag Archives: Western

Dark Force Rides into the Sunset with EVIL Flannel, Stirrups, and a Brothel Full of Stolen Women! “Ride a Wild Stud” reviewed! (Dark Force Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

About as Obscure as They Come! “Ride a Wild Stud” on Blu-ray!

During the Civil War, the Wild West lives up to the name between advantaging exploiting gangs of bandidos running rampant alongside the Southwest terrain and the hard-pressed law outmanned and outgunned to never be able to gain apprehending ground.  One determined law man, Lieutenant Mike McDermott, has a plan to infiltrate William Quantrill’s plundering murders, thieves, and sex traffickers and take them down from the inside-out by portraying to be a likeminded criminal escaping the law.  Successfully penetrating Quantrill’s ranks, McDermott takes young Marsha under his watch; Marsha has become enslaved in Quantrill’s house of pleasure brothel, supervised by his right-hand man Bill Doolin after Doolin mercilessly guns down her father and rape and murders her older sister in a home invasion of their simple life assets.  When another of McDermott’s steady female informants is shot dead by Doolin, the lawman becomes judge, jury, and executioner on a gang of no-good Western raiders and sexual profiteers. 

A western exploitation epitomizing B-movie babes, brawls, and bad guys, “Ride a Wild Stud” surmounts as sleazy cowpoke overtop classic, 1960s Western vibes of machoism, duty, and exciting gunfights.  Profound Western film filmmaker Oliver Drake during the Golden Age of cinema (“Bordering Buckaroos,” “Deadline”) quietly transitioned from run-of-the-mill westerns to a handful of grindhouse and exploitation B-movies by the 1960s under the pseudonym of Revilo Ekard, Drake’s name spelled backwards, who produced under that credit this 1969 adult-oriented oater as well as the even saucier and scandalous “Angelica:  The Young Vixen” where the titular young woman seeks older man comforts.  “Ride a Wild Stud” is penned by the assumed husband and wife due of Rachel and William Edwards of the sex-schlocker “Dracula (The Dirty Old Man)” released the same year.  The writing pair also served as producers of the film under the production of Vega International. 

Director: Oliver Drake

“Ride a Wild Stud” is an interesting oddity of it’s time.  Usually in exploitation pictures, the lead male actor has his get busy share with the ladies but for Hale Williams, as the gang-infiltrating Lt. McDermott, there’s no hanky-panky with the actress lot.  Williams, whose role is his only listed credit, plays a respectable and honorable law-abiding man without any inkling of perversion of sensuality in his most defining John Wayne respect.  Instead, romping in the haystack is no stranger to the transgressing Quantrill gang in quite a handsy show of rough, unwanted affection with those characters unwilling to go along with the brothel or are being raided invaded elsewhere.  Frenchy Le Boyd does a lot of fondling and groping as second in command Bill Doolin along with an assortment of bandido backdrop actors really getting into the sleazy deviant role.  This sets a clear hardline of contrast between good versus evil, respect versus the disrespectable, to never blend the characters even when McDermott becomes the sheep in wolves clothing.  Josie Kirk plays as one of those unfortunate pilfered women in Marsha and is, in a way, the leading or mainstay characters Doolin’ drools over and McDermott fights for but it’s the blonde C.C. Chase as house of pleasure vet Irene who has is deeper into the dredges and is has complexities as McDermott’s informant rather than just a chest-bearing pretty face being taken advantage of and succumbing to Doolin’s woos when it fits her need.  The rest of the cast rounds out with a bunch of no-names, yet get protracted screen time for coldhearted perversities, with William Fosterwick, Burke Reynolds (“The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals”), Helga Hanshue, Cliff Alexander, Chuck Alford (“Corpse Grinders 2”), Richard Smedley (“The Suckers”), Bill Johnson, Tex Gates, S.T. Alexander Sr. and Bob Goldfarb. 

“Ride a Wild Stud” has all the hallmarks of a typical exploitation picture with a double entendre title, unprovoked and gratuitous violence, and plenty of feminine skin.  Yet, the story leaves much to be desired.  The lawman infiltrating the criminal organization, becoming one of their own to take down from the inside out, tale is no Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed.”  In fact, the story is rather lazy akin to low-rent porn or softcore titles with a story garnish.  Focally, “Ride a Wild Stud” harnesses the men-take-want-men want mentality with rarely any Western damsel enjoying herself in the arms of musky flannel and gun-belt thrust grizzled by a scruffy 5 o’clock shadow and for the story, there’s too little progression to compel with empathy or be at the edge of your seat with intense anticipation for the in the lions’ den hero and heroines and the gunfights are grotesquely tame after the initial film opener of a multi-horseback chase gunfight.  The whole good versus bad cowboy roundup is stiffer than normal of its era heading into the time of the famed and profound spaghetti western.  The exploitation action has some noteworthy clout with busty, slender women being manhandled like a hogtying a pig at a rodeo and the ample scuffle between Doolin and McDermott might be bordering repetitive but scratches the itch of a good ole fashion fist fight, but by the telltale strum of a rhythmic and recurring guitar riff, that is when the salacious sex ensues and without that change or evolution in the score, that plays every a few minutes with another intertwinement of two bodies, not even the charge of gratuitous nudity can re-spark “Ride a Wild Stud’s” Western-exploitation mojo back on the snakebitten and dysentery-riddled Oregon trail. 

An Adult Adventure awaits in this womanizing Westerner released by Dark Force Entertainment for the first time in high-definition.  The film was originally shot in 16mm, but Dark Force Entertainment unearths the rare blown up 35mm reel for their Hi-Def transfer that produced decent picture quality from the AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD25.  Preserved to the extent where the 16mm could be on the fence of being native 35mm if it wasn’t for the degrading emulsion layer and the lower contrast with exterior lighting that creates washed out blacks.  There are the typical speckle blips and faint vertical scratching in the one-off scene that seems low-carb for a stock that’s vulnerable to exposure, storage, and handling elements.  Dark Force Entertainment Blu-ray back cover lists the film being displayed in an anamorphic widescreen but with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio.  This is likely a misprint as the film is definitely presented in a full frame format with no sign of a compressed image.  Color grading falls flat but is touched up enough to see some semblance of the spectrum and that’s always pleasant with an ISO 100-200 stock that doesn’t absorb contrast very well.  The English PCM mono track simply does the job handling the pale dialogue, ambient, and soundtrack layers.  Dialogue receives recognition amongst the limited array, but the post-provided scores is right behind it, breathing down the dialogue’s neck, with the incessantly low toned rhythm guitar that denotes upcoming deviant sexual encounters.  It literally sticks with you even when the credits roll and long after.  Moments in the dialogue do experience some faint crackling and muffled interference but, as well as some intermittent pops, but nothing to warrant overly critical marks.  There are no subtitles available.  Dark Force’s release is a feature only.  Physical artwork includes an illustrated action rendition that’s grindhouse include and sleazy just a smidgen inside the traditional Blu-ray Amaray.  The disc is pressed with three of the actresses in plain-looking clothes looking smug and curious from their line of sight, though we don’t really know what they’re looking at.  The region free release has a sexually coincidental runtime of 69-minutes and is rated R.

Last Rites: “Ride a Wild Stud” is the perverse cowboy caper you’ve never seen, but will watching it enrich your life? No. Will it salivate your taste for sleazy exploitation? Absolutely. Giddy-up!

About as Obscure as They Come! “Ride a Wild Stud” on Blu-ray!

Don’t Mess with Texas Unless You’re EVIL Going Up Against “Shanghai Joe” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

East Doesn’t Just Meet the West, It Kicks It’s Ass in “Shanghai Joe!”

A Chinese immigrant arrives into San Francisco looking to begin a life as an American cowboy.  Met with extreme prejudice, he pushes forward to avoid the Western stereotypes of his race by taking a stagecoach to anywhere Texas in order to become a true-to-form Cowboy.  Mocking monikered Shanghai Joe, even in Texas Joe is met with bigoted resistance in every way and in every exchange with the locals despite his uncanny fighting, intellect, and horse-riding skills that are far superior to his meanspirited rivals who think of him nothing more than a dumb foreigner.  When Joe become inadvertently involved with human traffickers and slave owners of downtrodden Mexicans, Joe aims to set things right against an oppressive and murderous rancher named Spencer who runs the entire region.  Spencer knows his usual hired posse can’t match the supernatural abilities of Joe and hires out the $5,000 bounty to the four most cunning and ruthless killers that will seek Joe’s head as well as possibly commit other atrocities to him for the sole joy of it.

The sun rises on the dawn of the East Meeting the West with “Shanghai Joe” at the center   of subgenre.  The Italian made spaghetti western helmed by “Nightmare Castle” and “Nazi Love Camp 27” director Mario Caiano who exhibits what happens when an unstoppable force hits an immovable object as quick hands and feet of the Asian East combat with the quick gunslinging showdowns of the American West.  Penned by Caiano alongside Carlo Albert Alfieri (“Sodoma’s Ghost”) and Fabrizio Trifone Trecca, credited as T.F. Karter, “Il mio nome è Shangai Joe” or “The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe,” as the film is originally entitled in Italian, keeps true to the graphic and vehement violence that ultimately lacked from the U.S. Western and sought to bring a martial arts foreigner into the fold of brute and barbarity as Kung-Fu flicks were up-and-coming with the rise of Bruce Lee and the Italian wanted a piece of that cinematic success without having to spend a fortune of turning sets appear oriental when already built saloons, corals, and spittoons were a plentifully available from previous films.  Producers Renato Angiolini and Robert Bessi serve under the production companies Compagnia Cinematografica Champion (“Torso”) and C.B.A. Produttori e Distributori Associati (“Emergency Squad”).

Leave it to the Italians to make a Western set in Texas and to have protagonist Chinese hero be played by a Japanese actor.  Performing under the stage name of Chen Lee, the Aichi, Japan born actor’s real name is Myoshin Hayakawa and he plays the role of Chin Hao, a nomadic Chinese immigrant, taught the rare fighting ways of an ancient martial arts, travels to America in hopes to reside in the American dream.  Lee’s certainly a presence on screen in his quiet and reserve composure but equally as self-assured and as competent to take on the worst-of-the-worst in the exploitative West where law has yet to reach it’s firm grasping hand.  Lee lands fight sequences with fierce finesse, though perhaps not on a Bruce Lee level, but does it so with his own distinct style of chopsocky flair with laws of physics breaking gliding through the air and tremendous accuracy in all areas of throwing weapons, even hyperbolizing his Yo-yo as a coconut splitting, head-cracking weapon.  When not wiggling his way out of impossible no-win situations with smarts and strength and when it comes to the interests of romantics, Chin comes to find solace being twisted into a paired fate with Mexican national Christina, played by Italian actress Carla Romanelli (“Lesbo”), after saving her father from being executed. As if destined to fall in love at first sight, the two outlanders are in each other’s embrace but before anything could be commutated by any sense of the term, head honcho rancher Mr. Spencer (Pierro Lulli, “Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot!”) hires out assassins to relieve him of a troublesome Shanghai Joe. The killers are just as colorful and individualizes as the titular character with quirky personalities and traits that make them indubitably daunting by their mere nicknames: Pedro, the Cannibal (Robert Hundar, “Cut-Throat Nine”), Burying Sam (Gordon Mitchell, “Evil Spawn”), Tricky the Gambler (Giacomo Rossi Stuart, “The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave”), and Scalper Jack (Klaus Kinski, “Nosferatu the Vampyre). The eclectic bunch of Western-horror tropes level out Shanghai Joe’s uncanny abilities with their own big penchants for demise but the actors behind the characters also have bigger personalities, especially Kinski who is only in the film for a few scenes but is second billed in both before and after credits. “Shanghai Joe” fills out the cast with Dante Maggio, Andrea Aureli, George Wang, and another Japanese actor and martial arts master, Katsutoshi Mikuriya, as the showdown villain trained in the same ancient combat arts as Chin but turned his back against the teachings’ moral principles for his own greed.

Plot pointed by a series of bad case scenarios to showcase Shanghai Joe’s superior skillset as not only a fighter, but also an intelligent, almost con-like, mentalist as well as being good at just about everything else, the film is laced with repetitive derogatoriness from all races except white.  “Shanghai Joe’s” indelicacies, coupled with graphic, moderately bloodied violence, adds to the laundry list of idiosyncrasies of this unique old West spectacle.  The Caiano and team’s scripted narrative exacts the epitome of the label the Wild West where the unexplored, uncultured, and uncivilized country gives way to lawlessness and opportunity, especially the latter at the expense of others.  Joe becomes a beacon of moral hope, a foreigner who seeks, by way of a semi forced hand, to correct the system from within using his rare training only as a position of defensiveness or to right a terrible injustice.  Caiano has the eye to make a legitimate Italian spaghetti western that hits all the hallmarks and the director can also fashion a two-prong narrative with a unified purpose that builds up the hero first with a series of outlaw confrontations before immersing him into a rigorous roughhouse recruited by the rotten rancher.  While each face-off spars differently, Caiano letting the actors build upon and have fun in their villainy, the ultimately take the place of the tip of the spear antagonist, rancher Stanley Spencer, who doesn’t get what’s owed him by the roll of the end credits.  The high-flying combat wires, that you can plainly see during the air time fight sequences, and the personal and frame stylistic choices of the actors and Caiano tend to distract viewers from the unfinished business, concluding on a satisfactory note that what we just experienced was felicitously violent, engrossingly entertainable with appealing characters, and just waggish enough to provide levity amongst the harsh racism and the aforesaid brutality. 

“Shanghai Joe” is a must-have, must-see Italian Western for the subgenre aficionado and, luckily, Cauldron Films delivers the 1973 film onto Blu-ray for the first time ever in North America. The AVC encoded BD50 is presented in high definition, 1080p, with a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1 of a 2K restoration scan from the original 35mm negative. Cauldron Films’ restoration is a labor of love for an atypical western of the obscure nature with a generous tactile intensification to bring the warm dust of the tumbleweed West down upon the anomalist Asian in a blue Tang suit and pants with a conical hat. A few and very faint scratches are the only issues observed that come and go as quickly as they came, but the there’s a nice richness to the coloring, a natural grain, and zero compression issues or unnecessary enhancements detected. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono comes in two options – An English dub and an Italian dub. Preferably, I went with the English dub over the Italian despite “Shanghai Joe” being an Italian production. For one, Myoshin Hayakawa spoke English which you can tell by reading his lips so the English track paired better. Secondly, the Italian track is quite orotund to the point of losing some minor ambient detail as well as not feeling to be a part of the whole package team. Slight hissing at times during dialogued scenes but the clarity comes through with the decent dub pronunciations and the chopsocky ài yas are often repeated in the same audio tone and level in every evasive or attack flight by Joe but is not ostentatiously annoying. “Marquis de Sade Justine’s” Bruno Nicolai and his twangy score, channeling his best Ennio Morricone, has great purpose as “Shanghai Joe’s” main theme that rowels up and shapes Joe’s hero role. English and English SDH subtitles are available. The special features include an interview with Master Katsutoshi Mikuriya on how he was approached for the role and the martial artists also discusses the fight sequences in Samurai Spirit, film historian Eric Zaldivar puts together a visual essay with the topic East Meets West: Italian Style, an audio commentary by Mike Hauss from “The Spaghetti Western Digest,” the original trailer, and an image gallery. The physical portions of the release include a translucent Blu-ray snapper with a reversible cover art featuring two stylishly illustrative posters in contrast to the simple disc art of the red “Shanghai Joe” title set upon a black background. The early 70’s feature comes not rated, has a runtime of 98 minutes, and is region A locked. “Shanghai Joe’s” singularity scores high on the limited East meets West subgenre novelty but certainly aces as a versatile Kung-fu period piece with ridiculously good fight scenes, a handful of callously charming characters, and a disparaged hero, who embodies the good in all of us, you can gladly cheer for from beginning to end.

East Doesn’t Just Meet the West, It Kicks It’s Ass in “Shanghai Joe!”

EVIL Cowboys Up! “Ghostriders” reviewed! (Verdugo Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on
Ghost Riders (Blu-ray)

A small Texas town in 1887 took lynch mob tactics upon a jailed outlaw Frank Clements after a prominent resident and his family were slain.  In a last-ditch effort to save their gang boss, Clements’ men come in guns blazing but mob leader, the Reverend Thadeous Sutton, pulls the gallows lever to send Frank Clements to his doom.  Fast forward 100 years later to 1987, renowned historian Professor Jim Sutton researches the notorious murdering bandit, even owning a piece of Clements’ property with a cursed sawed-off double barrel shotgun, but the 100th year anniversary delivers good on the Clements’ curse as he and his men return from the dead and gun down all in the rural Texas backland.  Walking into a supernatural showdown with the undead is the professor’s son Hampton and his friends on a road trip to his father’s isolated estate where surviving the night of continuously respawning malevolent six-shooters will seemingly never happen.

Ghost cowboys.  That small and obscure piece of particular subgenre stemmed from the broad western horror pie can be and has been a hard product to peddle, bucking audiences off its hind side faster than a mechanical bull full of amateur rodeo saddlers.  Think about it.  Can one even name a handful of horror westerns involving cowboys, especially gunslingers back from the grave?  There’s Lee Vervoort “Gun Town” that’s more of a saloon town slasher.   “Ghost Brigade” might be the closer to the theme with Civil War soldiers possessed by evil voodoo spirits.  However, the relatively unknown TV movie “Ghost Town” from 2009, surrounding a group of college students pursued by ghostly outlaws in an abandoned western town, hits the nail on the head.  Again, these titles are rare and if you find one that does exists, more than likely the film’s a waste of cinematic space.  In any case, if you’re hellbent on a decent gunslinging ghoul film, Alan Stewart’s “Ghostriders” will saddle up just nicely.  Penned by Clay McBride (“Ghetto Blaster”) and James Desmarais (“Victim of Love”), the debut film of Alan Stewart resurrected a ruthless gang of gunslingers for pure retribution set on location at the Texas Safari Ranch in Clifton, Texas and was self-produced by Stewart, under Alan L. Steward Productions, along with fellow producers in cinematographer Thomas Callaway, who went on to be the DoP of “Slumber Party Massacre II” and “Deep Blue Sea 2,” as well as composer Frank Patterson, and Alan’s wife/production manager Susan Stewart. 

As you’ve probably noticed, the “Ghostriders” crew is small and wears many large brimmed hats by engaging themselves deeply into this 1987 released indie production.  Same can be certainly said about the cast.  Actor turned stunt man Bill Shaw was booked for dual performances between two characters stretching 100 years apart with the zealous Reverend Thadeous Sutton and the reverend’s grandchild, professor Jim Sutton.  The ancillary gunfighters, led by Frank Clements himself, Mike Ammons, are actually members of a roadside replica of a wild west town.  The actors, trained to shoot revolvers, take fake bullet hits, and learn to be rootin-tootin’ cowboys and townsfolk, took to the camera’s key antagonist roles that required them to also do some stunt work.  When considering the other cast, “Ghostriders” struggles to emerge a lead out of the various roles.  In the role of Professor’s Sutton’s son, Hampton, Jim Peters’ often subtle comedic timing, towering stature, and his cool-and-calm intellect as a stunt pilot points to lead man material, yet there are elements and qualities surrounding his young adopted sidekick Cory, played by Ricky Long, who went on to have a very long and extensive career working on the purple dinosaur kid show “Barney,” that qualifies the often inept and lovesick grease monkey to Hampton’s stunt planes as another candidate for lead man.  Even Bill Shaw could be considered principal.  Either way, for an 80’s flick, “Ghostriders” campy characters and dialogue flatten whatever substance McBride and Desmarais tries to wedge into their narrative.  Whether be the tragic bond that glues Hampton and Cory’s strong friendship or Cory’s inability to read his recent court Pam (Cari Powell) and her fascination toward Hampton, those moments of human depth are cannibalized by “Ghostriders’” round’em-up, shoot’em-down gang of ghosts.

Alan Stewart’s “Ghostriders” might be an intelligible film, but it’s certainly not an intellectual one due to budget and inexperience complications.  Pacing is good with the historical backstory opening transitioning into the present’s continued lawlessness of curse-resurrected 19th century killers after building up the prominent players with depth and humanism in order for us to care about their plight, but also in regard to the characters, there’s much left unsaid and undone to nearly every role for a complete and justifiable narrative arc.  Point in case, Clements and his gang’s ability to return 100 years after the hangman’s knot tightened around their throats goes very much unexplained along with their connection to Clements’ shotgun that seemingly holds the key to their supernatural slaying.  A lack of essence towards the titular antagonists’ return from the pine box to wreak havoc on the Sutton bloodline really has no merit to stand on, leaving a void in the crux that doesn’t serve well within the parameters of an imagination reasoning.  We need some sort of resolution for Clements return, whether it’s a deal with the Devil or perhaps stolen Native American necromancy rituals used to cheat an outlaw’s own foretelling of death, to make sense of the senseless driven chaos because, as far as we’re shown, Clements and his gang are no more than just abnormal bad dudes doing normal bad dude things.  “Ghostriders” also won’t knock your boots off with high dollar special effects.  There’s some superimposing of people and items disappearing and some solid stunt work (again – some of these hombres are moonlight as stunt people), but the most impressive practical special effects used are the blood squibs.  If you like firecracker pops making craters and spurting blood off of bodies, “Ghostriders” has you covered with plenty of squibs with a select few in slow-motion.  

“Ghostriders” rides into the black sunset with a rare cowboy horror from Alan Stewart and the film is receiving new life on an unrated Blu-ray from Verdugo Entertainment and MVD Visual.  Verdugo Entertainment’s an independent cult film distributor seeking to release forgotten retro features of the 70s and 80s, centralizing themselves mainly around westerns, horror, or in this case, a blend of both.   The region free Blu-ray converts the 16mm A & B negative into a 4K scan resolution that maintains impeccable image quality with little to fuss about, such as extremely faint and seldom vertical scratches.  There wasn’t any noticed forced enhancement or cropping which provides logical evidence to a pristine original negative. Though the original English language mono soundtrack bears the same unblemished qualities as the video, the difference lies within the soundtrack’s weak decibel levels that leaves the dialogue corridor stuffy and muddled behind a curtain a fairly perceivable static interference through the duration. The release labels the audio as remastered, and I’m certain the audio was spruced up from a worser quality, resulting in a much more palpable and persistent outcome that works at your attention rather than leaving caution to the wind. Verdugo offers up a nice selection of special features with an audio commentary with cinematographer-producer Thomas L. Calloway, writer-producer James Desmarais, and moderator Steve Latshaw, a brand-new original documentary “Bringing Out the Ghosts: The Making of “Ghostriders” with Desmarais and Calloway recollecting memories of being on set and talking about the cast and crew, an archived documentary “Low Budget Films: On the Set of “Ghostriders” is a Baylor University funded vintage doc about the makings of independent film, more so about this particular one, feature stills and behind-the-scenes photo gallery, the original trailer, and a new reissued trailer, which you can see below, all packaged nicely in a Blu-ray case with a cardboard slipcover with a cheeky illustration of three skeleton desperados cladded in cowboy attire and brandishing Winchester rifles. Nowhere near what the film is like but the comicbook-esque cover is eye-catching and whimsical enough to draw you in. Verdugo Entertainment could have easily chewed up this unknown cult film and spat it out with cheap distribution ease into the marketplace spittoon. Yet, the indie distributor dressed the late Alan Stewart film with respect, properly showcasing a neater, cleaner, and far from forgotten meaner spirited square off against the living and the dead.

Ghost Riders (Blu-ray)

Evil Messes With the Wrong Family! “Pickings” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on


Ruthless mobsters crack down hard on barkeeps, strong arming their way into seizing every bar in town. When they mess with Jo Lee-Haywood, the too cocky gangsters messed with the wrong Southern gal as Jo turns out to be Jo Pickings, one of three dames of the notorious Pickings gang. Jo tries to abide by a straighten arrow inspired by her deceased husband and four kids, but crime tugs at her violent past, scraping the good from her clean off. With the help of her brother, Boone, and her sisters, Doris and May, Jo and her family of heavily armed outlaws aim to fight back against thugs and thieves in this modern day western.

“Pickings” is the freshman film of first time feature film producer, writer, and director Usher Morgan. The contemporary gritty western is a maelstrom of goliath turf wars that’s stylized with rotoscoping and other comic book fatigues to dress Morgan’s film as an aesthetically popping story with illustrative visuals, anomalies, and raw tooth violence. The clear cut message, a fairly popular thematic motif among westerns, is don’t mess with family, even if family has been through an estranged time, and though Morgan’s theme runs a fairly conventional line, the “Sin City”-esque overlay gives “Pickings” a strong double take. What’s an especially fun and unique concept is having one of the characters, Sam “Hollywood” Barone, be exhibited in black and white while everyone else is in color as if the character was pulled straight from a Humphrey Bogart classic.

Elyse Price headlines as Jo-Lee Haywood, a wife-mother scorned by notorious gangsters, but the tough as nails mother of four runs a tight-ship when it comes to her bar and to her family. Price doesn’t hold back, taking the gut-checking hits and delivering a twice as big response with a performance of contempt and revenge. Price is joined by Joel Bernard, the sole brother of the Pickens gang whose as tough as they come, especially when you’re the only boy with three sisters. Bernard does the job matching Price’s hard nose character with his own more subtle version. The two other sisters, Doris and May played by Michelle Holland and Lynne Jordan, barely scratch the surface in an appearance that makes their characters difficult to absorb. Aside from Jo Lee-Haywood, the only other character with a significant character arc is her daughter Scarlet Lee-Haywood filled in by Katie Vincent. Vincent’s softens up against her mother’s violence despite being a passive witness to her cornered brutality, but can adhere to the akin familiarities of her family’s long and violent history. The cast rounds out with Yaron Urbas, who in my opinion is a decent mobster, Michael Gentile, and Emil Ferzola.

“Pickings” doesn’t come without problems and one of the problems is is the story concludes on a really too clean note. The inner monologuing exposition of Jo Lee-Haywood conveying her start-to-finish tale of her involvement with the three dames, Doris, May, and Jo, is a good visual like the rest of the Morgan’s film, but is just that, a good visual, and doesn’t carry the weight of suspense and becomes even more diluted when Doris and May have little interaction with Jo and barely any screen time at all to put the oomph into conveying their badassness. Aside from being obvious and telling, the gun blazing finale is also a bit underwhelming and disappointing, chocking everything to a one sided victory without any, or the hope of any, dire loss to compensate just feels empty and, again, too clean for comfort.

Courtesy of Dark Passage Films comes “Pickings” onto DVD and Blu-ray home video. The DVD is presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio that capture the neo-noir facets of shadowing figures and haunting mysteries. Morgan’s film doesn’t necessary pop with color, but that’s particularly the nature of the genre. Aside from that, no real issue with the DVD transfer. The audio is a stereo option that has an ample dialogue track and a stocky ambient accompaniment. Katie Vincent’s bootlickin’ acoustical score never wavers, cracks, or looses range. Extras include deleted scenes, filmmakers’ commentary, “The Mop” a Pickings short, a behind the scenes featurette, and a spoof reel during the end credits. Loaded with female empowerment, “Pickings” is a violent crime drama with neo-noir battle garments of two warring clans ready to get along like the Hatfields and McCoys, but the undercutting finale puts a sharp spur in one’s couch melding backside, leaving much to be desired from a women scorned vendetta.

Evil on the Quick Draw! “Day of Anger” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

dayofanger

In the quiet western town of Clifton, Scott is the naive town fool. As a simple bastard of a prostitute, Scott grew up without a place in Clifton and without knowing who fathered him and is belittled. Scott is only good for is taking up sweeping outside homes, taking care of the horses, and collecting the residential human waste for disposal in order to earn a better living for himself. But That all changed when Frank Talby rode into town. The infamous gunslinger takes the adoring Scott under his wing and turns the town fool into Talby’s right hand gun for hire, making Scott a fast drawing force in Clifton. When Talby takes the reigns over the town of Clifton, Scott doesn’t pity those who mistreated him as Talby turns the disrespectful rich into the town fools, but the one man that cared for Scott is the one man Talby hates the most from his past and Scott must choose between his long time mentor or his newly found idol when the two showdown.

This is a first; a spaghetti western review on Its Bloggin’ Evil! But I just love the genre with the rich story lines and colorful dialogues and dynamics between characters. The genre never becomes dull, the desert stricken west never looks unbearable on screen, and, just like that Seth MacFarlane movie, there are certainly are a million ways to die in the west. Director Tonino Valerli’s “Day of Anger” fits the bill for the Italian Western genre. Also entitled “Gunlaw” or “I giorni dell’ira,” Rome born Giuliana Gemma stars as Scott Mary to make this an authentic spaghetti western and genre veteran, and overall on screen bad guy, Lee Van Cleef, who you may recognize form “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” as the downright mean snake Frank Talby.

The story directly sets up Scott as this blundering idiot, but if you watch closely during the progression of the character, Scott is written with easter eggs showcasing him as being quick, agile, and strong. With Talby schooling him on how to be a gritty gunslinger, Scott is well on his way to being what he always idolized and instead of being the town joke, the town fears him. This is also where the script becomes a bit of enigma because you want Scott, the fool, to be respected by the people of Clifton. Yet, the people still don’t respect Scott and only fear him because he’s becoming like the ruthless Talby who the town folk despise. Giuliana Gemma does a fine job at portraying the nitwit part of Scott, but not so much the quick draw, new and improved Scott. Gemma made the character growth too easy and didn’t sell it properly to have Scott earn the right to be tough.

Lee Van Cleef, on the other hand, is damn nasty. The natural look of undermining and deceptiveness with power and brutality just can’t be undone in any project Cleef undertakes. The character Talby is formidable, cutthroat, and smart and Cleef plays those qualities to the exact tune. Scott is severely overshadowed by Talby making Cleef more of the stud as the “Day of Anger” headlining actor than Giuliana. Giuliana had some success in the niche genre under the pseudo name Montgomery Wood, maybe because it sounded more American or more Hollywood, but when death came for the genre, so did it for Gemma’s lucrative Italian career. Overall, both male leads are not hindered by a female love interest. “Day of Anger,” from start to finish, only contains a handful of scenes were women become prevalent.

The Arrow Film’s Blu-ray released from MVDVisual is quite awe-inspiring sharp with a beautifully brilliant picture that is presented in it’s original aspect ratio 2.35:1 format from the transfer of the original negative. The long range shots of the desert are unbelievable with the 1080p transfer. The contrasting colors amongst the town of Clifton organically bring the town to life, constructing a seemingly realistic town rather than a stage or a set. The audio comes in three soundtrack options: English (longer cut of the film), Italian (longer cut of the film), or English (shorter international version). The Riz Ortolani soundtrack really stands out clearly and firmly but not in annoying overbearing style that doesn’t sync with the film or with the characters’ dialogues. There are a few high frequency pops during a couple of transitional scenes, but these won’t distract from the amazing film. This Region A and B Blu-ray is absolutely stunning with loads of extras just waiting to be experienced. MVD and Arrow Film’s Blu-ray version of “Day of Anger,” the first time on Blu-ray anywhere in the world, would be a fine piece for anybody’s western collection.