Sartdjango Thousands of words are said about the great Sergio Leone, about Sergio Corbucci, their contribution to the rebirth of the Western, and the names of ordinary artisans are quickly erased from memory. Gianfranco Parolini just belongs to the category of “gone into the shadows”, despite the fact that he founded one of the most extraordinary series of spaghetti westerns. The series of films about the apt and witty Sartan, as well as similar series about the Trinity, Django, includes about 10 films, but Parolini shot only the first part, writing a script for it. After Sartana, he took on a new hero - Sabata, embodied on the screen by Lee Van Cleef, but critics perceived him much cooler. As it seems to me, the reason lies precisely in the greater seriousness of Sabata, the absence of sparkling frenzy inherent in Sartana, and in the field of even slightly serious spaghetti westerns Parolini can not compete with the bison of the genre.
Paradoxically, the first film of the series, entitled “If you meet Sartana, pray for death” is the quintessence, if not to say that brazen copying, of absolutely all the tricks and tricks used by other directors before. There is almost nothing of its own here, but the more amazing the effect of the picture. Even stamps can be clothed in a form in which you forget about their secondary, and you will just enjoy what is happening, and the film Parolini gives such a feeling. It seems that he set himself the goal of parodying the genre of spaghetti western, originally also considered a parody, and has been doing this all along. There is only one thing that is serious here – the shootings, which were filmed at a very high level. There is no flow of ketchup instead of blood, which sinned most of Corbucci’s films, and the early work of Leone, all looks decent. Spectacular headshots please the eye, the scene with a multi-barreled gun is not close to its reference twin sister from the Wild Gang, but not worse than Django’s adventures with a machine gun. All the rest: acting, dialogue, plot with the obligatory hunt of a bunch of crooks for constantly elusive gold, so funny and caricature that you want to either grab your head or laugh until you colick in your stomach. What can I say when a fat Mexican general who constantly eats fat chicken is called Jose Manuel Francisco Mendoza Montezuma del Plata Pérez Rodriguez. Obviously, the director focused not on the suddenness and originality of the plot twists, but on the humor and cruelty of what is happening, which is quite enough. 90 percent of the heroes flashing on the screen are dirty unshaven scum, ready to sell their mother for a good horse, which determines the direction of action. They shoot a lot, the innocent get hit by stray bullets, the gangs enjoy the loot for only a couple of minutes, quickly going to the other light at the hands of the same scum. The first third of the film generally sweeps like a glass in the bar in front of Alexei Panin, leaving the same feeling of complete satisfaction.
The main star of the film is not Gianni Garko, but the great and terrible Klaus Kinsky. The actor, born for the roles of infernal villains, here does not say almost a word, but makes a luxurious impression. He is again vile and disgusting in his actions, again sparkles with his blue eyes, fights with his Luciferian careless grin, in general scenes completely removing the main character from the frame, as in the memorable “Great Silence”. It is not for nothing that in the credits he was distinguished by patterned frames and the rank of a guest star, he really shines here, without making special efforts for this. It's just Klaus Kinsky, that's all.
You can treat the film Parolini any way you want, but not seriously, then you can get a lot of pleasure from all these primitive-harrowing dialogues, interaction with each other of cartoon characters.
8 out of 10