The Hellbenders (1967)

You won't be disappointed!

Wonderful Movie

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This largely overlooked Spaghetti Western is one of the most unique and unusual entries in the work of prolific director Sergio Corbucci. Coming after the simplistic, over-the-top action of Django and the inferior Navajo Joe, it marks a beginning of a gradual increase in the quality of his films during the late 1960s.Corbucci had clearly been attracting attention – Django was a massive hit – and was now commanding bigger budgets, as well as bigger names in the credits. The Hellbenders boasts talented Mercury Theatre veteran Joseph Cotton in the lead role. However, like his friend Orson Welles, Cotton's career was in the doldrums and it's fairly clear he appears here for the money, not the fun of it.In style and story The Hellbenders is clearly a very different plate of spaghetti. The plot is based on a simple yet original premise. It's a great idea to have the defeated Confederate soldiers who hope to restart the Civil War carry their loot around in a coffin – a perfect symbol for the hopelessness of their cause. This device also allows for several extremely satisfying twists. As far as look goes, there is none of the grit and seediness of other Italian westerns and, with its compliment of cavalry and wagons The Hellbenders has more of the trappings of a John Ford film. It also has a somewhat more positive (albeit rather patronising) portrayal of women than most of its contemporaries, as it is the female lead who outwits all the men. While the basic plot elements are great, The Hellbenders is let down by the minutiae. The characters are fairly one-dimensional. Corners are cut and motivations are unrealistic. The ending is a total mess – while the final moments are nicely done, the screenwriters needlessly squeeze in a beggar and a tribe of vengeful Indians into the last ten minutes.Corbucci's direction was never great, but he was a cut above the average in the genre, and there are some occasional moments of genius. The first action scene, the massacre of a few dozen Union troops, is brilliantly constructed, and Corbucci gives a level of realism to the violence that even Sergio Leone didn't have at this point. As usual though he is still let down by his overuse of the zoom lens and his having absolutely no feel for landscape shots. The editing on this picture is very good, and no wonder, since it's done by Leone's frequent collaborator Nino Baragli. Ennio Morricone provides the music, although it's a rather mediocre score by his standards.While some top class actors tend to get a bit half-hearted when they're in less glamorous company, Joseph Cotton does a good job here, lending credibility to this somewhat creaky production. The same can't be said for the rest of the cast who are by and large abysmal. Despite some attention-grabbing cameos from Aldo Sanbrell and Al Mulock, The Hellbenders has a real lack of familiar spaghetti western faces. Luigi Pistilli, Mario Brega, Giuliano Gemma, Tomas Millian, Klaus Kinski – any of those would have been more than welcome.Despite those flaws I've listed I do enjoy The Hellbenders fairly well, and I do think it's often underrated. If you could just polish up the script, and add a few more decent acting performances, this under-appreciated spaghetti would have been one of the genre's classics.

Watchable Italian Western set in the aftermath of the Civil War; humorless and rather downcast (the only notable here being a visibly tired Joseph Cotten) but with an interesting plot, both incident-packed (involving as it does the Cavalry, Mexican bandits and renegade Indians!) and twist-laden…although it's relatively short on the violent action typical of Spaghetti Westerns – a surprise coming from one of the genre's key figures! As usual, the poor dubbing and full-frame presentation get in the way of one's full enjoyment of the film, but it's certainly a harmless diversion as is (if, clearly, nowhere near the best we've seen from Corbucci or the Spaghetti Western sub-genre).

Good grief. I think this is the ultimate caricature of a Spaghetti Western. Its almost to the point where its an unintentional parody of a Spaghetti Western.I'm not sure they even wrote down a screenplay. I think they just got some horses, a coffin, some Mexican clothes, and a girl and made the whole thing up as they meandered along.Joseph Cotten is horribly miscast as a twisted Confederate officer bent on somehow reconstructing the Confederacy by dragging a coffin full of money through the desert with his cruel psychotic sons in tow. None of it works out right for them (or makes any sense for that matter...not that you would care) but they do all manage to remain remarkably clean-shaven throughout their horrific and agonizing ordeal in the desert which is a plus for them I'm sure.The best acting in this film comes from the assorted bit players that wander in and out of the story line for no apparent reason. The Reverend, the blind Sergeant, the Yankee Fort commander, and the card player all have more memorable performances than the main characters even though they only have one or two lines.The film was gritty enough to have some realistic feel to it, in that weird Spaghetti Western way, but there are a few jarring things that spoiled even that for me. I know I shouldn't be looking too close but its hard to ignore Joseph Cotten's 1966 service station attendant outfit that is supposed to pass as a Confederate uniform (belt loops and all) or Ben's 1966 jacket with the funky pockets. Every time I saw that coffin I had to wonder where they came up with that weird looking lizard flag. The feel of the film would have been improved drastically just by using a regular old Confederate battle flag.The musical score was good and had that familiar Spaghetti Western eeriness to it that I love. Some of the cinematography was quite interesting, particular the opening credits with the yankees trying to manhandle the wagon across the river. That scene was designed as filler for the opening credits but turns out to be a real gem. I particularly like the detail of the yankee guidon bearer using his guidon to urge the horses forward, nice work. It makes you wonder what this crew could have done if they had taken the rest of the visuals just as seriously.This film was fun to watch even though it went nowhere and there were no characters to love, empathize with, or even care about. When I get hungry for a little pasta I'll probably watch it again with friends just for the camp value.

This not-so-dazzling entry from "Great Silence" director Sergio Corbucci appears to have been conceived with the intention of providing fans with every spectacle the western mythos has to offer, even at the expense of logic. This is especially evident about two thirds of the way through the film, when the protagonists, becoming unhinged and desperate in the middle of the desert, are suddenly assaulted from all sides by about fifty cookie-cutter banditos. Joseph Cotton exclaims, "Mexican Outlaws!" and a gun battle ensues (up to this point, Mexican outlaws have had absolutely nothing to do with the plot). Thirty seconds after that, the cavalry, bugle and all, comes to the rescue! Earlier in the film we've had the obligatory western bar fight, and later on our "heroes" (they're a bunch of murderous Civil War vets who want to re-establish the confederacy) will be confronted by angry injuns. "Companeros" this ain't.However, as a fan of Corbucci, who basically seems to subscribe to the Roger Corman school of just gettin' it done but who seems to manage to inject some of his own wierdness even into his worst films, I'm not sorry I saw it. I'll see it again. Certain moments make it all worthwhile. One of those moments is the whole finale sequence, which owes a lot to the bitter irony of film noir and also to the cheesiest episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." Another is the aforementioned barfight, which displays some typical Corbucci camera technique (handheld cameras, zooms) that is so unsettlingly out of place that it elevates the scene above its otherwise cliche status.Like most Corbucci westerns, there is blood when guys get shot (not always the status quo for the genre) and a decent helping of various brutality. There's a booze-guzzling femme fatale, a wierd-ass theme song with a trumpet that sounds more like it belongs in some European art film, and an atmospheric grave-robbing scene.However, there are plenty of slooooow moments and some REALLY bad dialogue that almost sink the whole thing. There's also a cheesy sub-plot involving a member of the Confederate gang who's questioning the evil ways of his father (Joseph Cotton as the gang's leader) and half-brothers falling in love with the woman they've coerced into helping them with their evil scheme. It could all work with better writing, grittier characters and better pacing; it doesn't have those things.It's probably a two out of five star movie that's worth seeing for a few scenes and twisted ideas if you're willing to sit through the rest of it. Definitely worth renting if you're a Corbucci fan.