The Specialists (1969)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Fresh and Exciting

A Masterpiece!

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Some SpoilersThe Specialist (Gli Specialisti) 1969 Dir. Sergio Corbucci, I watched it all the way through today, and I guess the best way to describe this film is that its frustrating. Corbucci to me, remains an enigma he was able to make some almost flawless top notch Westerns, The Mercenary, The Great Silence & Companero's I consider the best. The Mercenary can compete with and beat most of the best American Westerns.This should have been a great epic Corbucci film but it has serious flaws that serve to pull you right out of the story. The score for the most part is passable, though the title sequence however seems like it should be from a comedy flick about the French Riviera, it does not fit in.The Specialist has got a few things that I personally really enjoyed seeing in a film, and other things that were absolutely out of context and continuity.The great pieces of this film are the absolutely stunning backdrops of the Alps, like I mentioned in my first impression its like watching Corbucci do Anthony Man, reminds one of "The Far Country". One particular sequence has Halliday and the sheriff crossing a beautiful trout stream.One little side story I enjoyed was Corbucci's addition of an interesting side story that had nothing to do with the main plot and that's the depiction of the town sheriff (Gastone Moschin) as a fisherman we see in in one section he is carrying his rod as he rides off on horse back, in another he has a stringer of trout, and another we see him standing in a stream & fishing. The Town of Blackstone, Nevada is perched high in the Sierras, the town-folk hung the brother of famous gunfighter Hud (Johnny Halliday). The town thought he had stolen a cash-box of bills that he was entrusted with. Hud returns to seek vengeance. The real town boss is a wily widow woman banker (Francois Fabian) who's name is, get this, Virginia Policutt, she uses sex just as much as cash to control the town. There is also a Mexican Revolutionary band terrorizing the countryside, (though they do look a bit out of place, it may have worked if the film was set in the Sierra Madres of Mexico but its just a flaw of its distant Euro origins). The towns center of action is the fancy saloon/brothel run by Sheba (Sylvie Fennec) complete with a red fez wearing bartender and a small orchestra. The biggest, weirdest, and most frustrating inclusion in the film is the four street urchins of which its no exaggeration to call them Hippies, one of them has on a "Sergent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" overcoat with golden epaulets and has an afro, another a poncho with big chains around his neck, the female wears a bandanna around her forehead. One sequence has them smoking a huge joint, WTF is up with this? The character Hud looks cool he got a long dark overcoat (like a duster), a black hat with a silver hat band a weird sort of silver choker (that's kind of out of place) and a chain mail vest that must be made out of "mithril" from Lord Of The Rings, it does make sense to wear during his knife fights , but its a bit ridiculous to ask us to believe it will repel bullets. Halliday is a bit lightweight in the part.El Diablo (Mario Adorf) is a cool one armed Mex bandit, but seems a bit off in the high country. He flaps this arm (that has a sharpened spur attached to its end) menacingly.The action sequences are top notch, except for the bullet deflecting chain mail, the film is just seriously flawed by its unbelievability. It has more nude sequences with Francois Fabian (ff and topless) than any previous Corbucci film I've seen .I can't see what the motives of this film were, was it made for a ton money that was thrown at Corbucci for the promotion of Johnny Halliday, who knows, Corbucci can be hit or miss, this is a big miss, but it is worth seeing to see how it could have been another hit if it had been done differently. Its a bit sloppy at places in its cinematography, one noticeable sequence is the "riding off into the sunset sequence" you see Hud ride off under a gate post the red sun a disk setting in the distance then you get a close shot of Hud against the sun and you see a turreted castle in the background ;D.Somebody has got to write a book on Corbucci so we can figure these inconsistencies out, I'd pay to find out WTF was going on in this man's head.Django 1966 (ok) The Hellbenders 1967 (not seen) The Mercenary 1968 (great his GBU) The Great Silence 1968 (great is FAFDM) The Specialist 1969 (WTF) Companero's 1970 (great) Shobary, is seriously out to lunch on this baby with his ranking maybe a 50 by my opinion, but then again you have to look at Shobary's criteria.Definitely a film for Corbucci aficionados only, if its ever available here, try to rent first.

In the late sixties director Sergio Corbucci made four spaghetti westerns in a row--the classics THE MERCENARY, THE GREAT SILENCE, THE SPECIALISTS, and COMPANEROS. Three of these, all except THE SPECIALISTS, are constantly turning up on ten best lists when spaghetti westerns are rated. Until recently all I had seen was a very poor quality compilation with some English, some Italian, a fuzzy picture, and it was nearly incomprehensible. Now, having seen a beautiful widescreen version with subtitles (still in two languages, however), I can safely include THE SPECIALISTS in that group of four classics. Johnny Halliday is very good as the charismatic Hud, a notorious hand with the gun returning to Blackstone to investigate the death of his brother, who was lynched by the townspeople for losing their savings. It involves a voluptuous beauty who owns the bank, a Mexican bandit leader, El Diablo, who was once friends with Hud, an honest sheriff who dreams of better days, and a small band of hippies--well, it was the late sixties, and hippies were everywhere, even apparently in our westerns. It's not a desert western, shot in the alps somewhere, and is lovely to look at. There is a bit more nudity than I expect in a western, but that's not a bad thing. Sylvie Fennec is lovely as Sheba, who may be Hud's niece, or dead brother's girlfriend...that's never made clear. This film deserves to be seen, and once again, we plea for a nice DVD with all the trimmings--I think THE SPECIALISTS would be as well known as any of Corbucci's other westerns, and that's high praise indeed.

The copy of this movie that I have seen is not very good. It's grainy and has almost no color in some parts. It switches back and forth between English and French, often in mid sentence, and sometimes even in the middle of a word! To make matters much worse, there are no English subtitles during the French language parts, which I think make up at least one quarter of the film. But, amazingly, the movie is still very understandable and enjoyable, even in this condition, and I think that says a lot about how well-made this film is.This is a top notch spaghetti western with great acting, an interesting storyline, and an excellent music score. It also has a cool protagonist, a beautiful dark-haired girl, some strange characters and events, and an overall feeling of melancholy. This film has "Euro" written all over it.I hope there is a pristine negative or print of this film out there somewhere, because it deserves a quality DVD release, and when it comes out I will be one of the first in line to get it!

The whole town of Blackstone is afraid, because they lynched Bret Dixon's brother - and he is coming back for revenge! At least that's what they think.A great Johnny Hallyday and a very interesting, early Mario Adorf star in this Italo-Western, obviously filmed in the Alps.Bret Dixon is coming back to Blackstone to investigate why his brother was lynched. He is a loner and gunslinger par excellance, everybody is afraid of him - the Mexican bandits (fighting the Gringos that took their land!) as well as the "decent" citizens that lynched Bret's brother. They lynched him, because they thought he stole their money instead of bringing it to Dallas to the safety of the bank there. But this is is only half the truth, as we find out in the course of this psychologically interesting western.But beware, it's kind of a depressing movie as everybody turns out to be guilty somehow and definitely everybody is bad to the bone...Still, I enjoyed it very much and gave it an 8/10. Strange, that only less than 5 people voted for this movie as of January 12th 2002....