Blu gang vissero per sempre felici e ammazzati (1973)

Director:

Luigi Bazzoni

Writer:

Augusto Caminito (writer)

Release Date:

10 May 1973 (Italy)

Genre:

Western

Plot:

A group of young desperados is hunted for several years by a determined bank guard (Jack Palance). Both the gang's actions...

Plot Keywords:

Spaghetti Western

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Jack Palance	...	Hillman
Antonio Falsi	...	Johnny Blue
Guido Mannari	...	Kane Blue
Tina Aumont	...	Polly
Maurizio Bonuglia	...	Frank
Guido Lollobrigida	...	Sheriff (as Lee Burton)
Carla Wittig	...	Alice
Antonio Gradoli	...	Donovan
Maria Michi	...	Mama Blue
Paul Jabara	...	Teddy Fog
Giancarlo Terzaroli
Clara Mutschaewski	...	Jenny

Also Known As:

Brothers Blue
The Short and Happy Life of Brothers Blue

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Portugal:M/18

Company:

B.R.C. Produzione S.r.l.

Good Late Italian Western, Incredible Cinematography by Storaro

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

In the late 1960s and the 1970s, revisionist American westerns re-represented the genre in a more pessimistic, more irreverent, and perhaps more human including The Wild Bunch, The Hired Hand, McCabe and Mrs Miller, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The American genre had become simply an agglomeration of gestures and conventions which were performed mechanically, without the thematic dynamism which had once made the movies of John Ford and others so compelling. These movies, and similar films like Bonnie and Clyde, influenced the tail-end of the Italian western cycle in films like Keoma, Mannaja, and California. Enzo Castellari even edited Keoma to Bob Dylan's soundtrack from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid; unfortunately, the soundtrack that the DeAngelis brothers wrote for his own film was terrible. Most of these late Italian westerns are somewhat different than the American ones in that they are often nostalgic for the early years of the western boom. Keoma recreates numerous scenes from Django while California is return to the type of films that Gemma made with Lupo, Tessari, and Gastaldi.Matt Blake (The Cheeseplant, Issue 3) described these movies as having a "strangely dissociated feeling of looking at the spaghetti western genre rather than being a part of it."

Blu gang vissero per sempre felici e ammazzati (The Short and Happy Life of the Brothers Blue) is another one of these late films that has picked up on the flavor of the American revisionist western. Unlike the other Italian and Spanish examples, it is not a nostalgic and self-conscious rehash of early spaghetti westerns but idiosyncratically very close to its American models. Overall, its a decent movie, though marred with a number of sequences which have not aged well. These include a series of 1970s style montages, a naive adulation of an adolescent conception of freedom, and some slightly heavy-handed if fun symbolism. Furthermore, it conforms predictably to the narrative of movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Bonnie and Clyde - the free spirit of the West and of youth are doomed as the forces of capitalism and the state close in and smother them. Though filled with populist political rhetoric, this film is really about the end of youth. It is very different from the buoyant optimism in the earlier working class Italian westerns - the revolution is coming and the worker will be elevated. This movie portrays a revolt also, but a much different self-indulgent one. Ultimately, its a little silly. That said, this is still one of the better late spaghetti westerns made a time when the boom was going bust. All considered, it is worthwhile for fans of the genre as well as general viewers.

This is one of the most difficult to find Italian westerns. For years, finding copies of this movie was something of a holy grail for fans of the genre.

Bazzoni and Storaro did an excellent job staging scenes, creatively using color, light, shadow, and angles to make this movie visually appealing. Vitorio Storaro is a legendary cinematographer, noted for his philosophy regarding the color, the use of which is stunning in this film. There is a stunning sequence in a jail with blue light falling through the windows across the profile of Palance which should be one of the iconic images of the genre, up there with the final gunfights in the Dollars movies or of Django dragging his coffin in sea of mud. Storaro's most famous work includes shooting Appocalypse Now and The Last Emporer, for both of which he won Oscars.

Bazzoni's attractive, spaghetti-western style adaptation of Carmen starring Franco Nero is better known (Man, Pride, and Vengeance, 1968), but it is not very emotionally involving. This is the better film. The violence is more realistic than the grand stylizing typical of this Leone-inspired genre and is really effective. While the characters are unequally developed, character is focused on instead the of the dynamics of the plot. The plot is episodic and predictable. As is the case with most genre movies, it is not a question of how it is going to end - we already know the formula (modeled on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). Instead, we are interested in the style, in how it conforms to the formula and how it varies. In this case, the film delivers an interesting variation and so it is satisfying.

Augusto Caminito churned out screenplays for a large number of Italian westerns, especially in 1967-68, including: Turn the Cheek (1974), The Rutheless Four (1968), Poker With Pistols (1967), Days of Vengeance (1967), Django the Last Killer (1966), The Greatest Robbery in the West (1967), and Pecos Cleans Up (1967).

Jack Palance is top-billed, but he does not really do much except stand around and look really cool.

Top spaghetti western list http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849907

Average SWs http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849889

For completest only (bottom of the barrel) http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849890