I think I sold this movie short the first couple of times through -- It is an odd mishmash to be sure, and may be the last of the Italian 'Cowboy Movies' made just before the Spaghetti Western chic had completely taken over. It is an Italian movie made by Italians with a few Gringos in the leads (Lee Van Cleef, Lionel Stander and Bud Spencer, who was a Brother, but never mind) just like a Spaghetti, yet is decidedly traditional in it's nature. If it wasn't for the comparatively excessive violence & lack of Native American characters, this could have been made with Randolph Scott and Robert Mitchum on the Universal backlots over a few weekends.
There was a period of time when Italy was making films that were an obvious attempt to compete with the "B-fare" Westerns coming out of the states, and BEYOND THE LAW sort of straddles the divide between that time of Italian made Cowboy Movies (SHOOTOUT AT RED SANDS, the overlooked FURY OF THE APACHES, GRAND CANYON MASSACRE and MINNESOTA CLAY) and when the Spaghetti mystique took over in the wake of successes like THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY, DEATH RIDES A HORSE, not to mention the SARTANA and DJANGO films -- All of which come from a different cultural sensibility that stressed style and delivery rather than trying to mimic John Ford. It was really with the walloping masterpiece of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST that the Yanks were forced to sort of sit up & take notice of people like Sergio Leone, Ennio Moriconne, Antonio DeTeffe, Gianni Garko, Franco Nero, and Enzo G. Castellari. After about 1970 European made Westerns didn't concern themselves much with square dance scenes, romance/comedy subplots, and scenes where dozens of riders chase a stagecoach.
So BEYOND THE LAW is a sort of throw-back film to 1965 or so, with the great Lee Van Cleef excellently cast as a scruffy two bit chicken thief who turns lawman to help an utterly square, uncorruptable and interminably cheerful young mining executive just off the boat from Europe (Antonio Sabato, also very well chosen for his role) protect the payroll and silver from a mining community from ... himself. And his two crony con men (Stander and Spencer, both excellent), plus a pack of hyenas led by a caped madman (Spaghetti legend Gordon Mitchell) obsessed with stealing the loot that inconveniently turn up to give Van Cleef a chance to not only be selected as the community's new sheriff, but allow Van Cleef a chance to finally "find himself" in the role, even if he was first handed the star as part of a put-on in an elaborate swindle that just didn't work out the way it could have.
So BEYOND THE LAW is not just a Euro Western but a Caper Movie about a Heist, an Action/Adventure Buddy Film, with touches of Comedy/Romance as Van Cleef finds himself responding to the admiration of the local burlesque queen (gorgeous Graziella Granata, who even gets time to belt out a rowdy stage number), and a Fish Out of Water "dramedy" as Antonio Sabata goes from a cultured immigrant to a cold-blooded if unusually polite killer: It is his sheer, earnest cluelessness that finds itself eating away at Van Cleef's otherwise rotten heart, who goes from an unwashed dirtbag to the hero of the community in 90 minutes whether or not he wanted to -- Sabato simply charms him over and makes his character realize that destiny has oddly thrust itself upon him, and he takes up the mantle of lawman with a grim chagrin that is actually quite amusing and sort of gets you right there (thump) when all is said and done: Some law is better than no law, even if it comes from the strangest places.
Such is the lesson learned by Van Cleef, and it's interesting to view his character here as sort of a "prequel" to the jaded, disillusioned & cynical lawman/bringer of justice he would play in so many movies afterward, and a couple before even. This is no Douglas Mortimer, but a totally different person -- A fine testament to his qualities as an actor, which is something that most folks overlook in favor of a black clad "total badass" who is the best shot in the Carolinas or whatever. Fans of his work are hereby admonished to seek this movie out and give it three or four screenings if that's what it takes. Yeah it's trying to look and sound like Hollywood, not Cinematalia, but after ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST Italian Pasta directors stopped trying to prove they could do John Ford, and this film stands of a relic of when that was still an ongoing proposition.
Now, finding the RIGHT version of this film may take a couple tries: Brentwood Home Video and a couple others of those 'Bargain Bin Box Set' issuers of Public Domain Movie fare DVDs are circulating an almost colorless 85 minute version, which is too bad: Diamond Entertainment and some outfit known as "Quality Digital Productions" both have a digitally color-restored 105 minute version that, while fullframe & "squishy" in spots from the improperly lensed transfer, contains every last minute described for an English language presentation -- Almost twenty minutes longer, including the burlesque scene and a good old knock down drag out barroom brawl that has more in common with THE WAR WAGON than it does with THE FORGOTTEN PISTOLERO. But that's sort of the charm: Seeing all those guys scurrying around dressed in those silly outfits, trying to be Cowboys rather than just existing as the larger than life iconic figures we usually think of in reference to Spaghetti Westerns ... Thank God for Franco Nero, I guess.
*** out of ****
There was a period of time when Italy was making films that were an obvious attempt to compete with the "B-fare" Westerns coming out of the states, and BEYOND THE LAW sort of straddles the divide between that time of Italian made Cowboy Movies (SHOOTOUT AT RED SANDS, the overlooked FURY OF THE APACHES, GRAND CANYON MASSACRE and MINNESOTA CLAY) and when the Spaghetti mystique took over in the wake of successes like THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY, DEATH RIDES A HORSE, not to mention the SARTANA and DJANGO films -- All of which come from a different cultural sensibility that stressed style and delivery rather than trying to mimic John Ford. It was really with the walloping masterpiece of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST that the Yanks were forced to sort of sit up & take notice of people like Sergio Leone, Ennio Moriconne, Antonio DeTeffe, Gianni Garko, Franco Nero, and Enzo G. Castellari. After about 1970 European made Westerns didn't concern themselves much with square dance scenes, romance/comedy subplots, and scenes where dozens of riders chase a stagecoach.
So BEYOND THE LAW is a sort of throw-back film to 1965 or so, with the great Lee Van Cleef excellently cast as a scruffy two bit chicken thief who turns lawman to help an utterly square, uncorruptable and interminably cheerful young mining executive just off the boat from Europe (Antonio Sabato, also very well chosen for his role) protect the payroll and silver from a mining community from ... himself. And his two crony con men (Stander and Spencer, both excellent), plus a pack of hyenas led by a caped madman (Spaghetti legend Gordon Mitchell) obsessed with stealing the loot that inconveniently turn up to give Van Cleef a chance to not only be selected as the community's new sheriff, but allow Van Cleef a chance to finally "find himself" in the role, even if he was first handed the star as part of a put-on in an elaborate swindle that just didn't work out the way it could have.
So BEYOND THE LAW is not just a Euro Western but a Caper Movie about a Heist, an Action/Adventure Buddy Film, with touches of Comedy/Romance as Van Cleef finds himself responding to the admiration of the local burlesque queen (gorgeous Graziella Granata, who even gets time to belt out a rowdy stage number), and a Fish Out of Water "dramedy" as Antonio Sabata goes from a cultured immigrant to a cold-blooded if unusually polite killer: It is his sheer, earnest cluelessness that finds itself eating away at Van Cleef's otherwise rotten heart, who goes from an unwashed dirtbag to the hero of the community in 90 minutes whether or not he wanted to -- Sabato simply charms him over and makes his character realize that destiny has oddly thrust itself upon him, and he takes up the mantle of lawman with a grim chagrin that is actually quite amusing and sort of gets you right there (thump) when all is said and done: Some law is better than no law, even if it comes from the strangest places.
Such is the lesson learned by Van Cleef, and it's interesting to view his character here as sort of a "prequel" to the jaded, disillusioned & cynical lawman/bringer of justice he would play in so many movies afterward, and a couple before even. This is no Douglas Mortimer, but a totally different person -- A fine testament to his qualities as an actor, which is something that most folks overlook in favor of a black clad "total badass" who is the best shot in the Carolinas or whatever. Fans of his work are hereby admonished to seek this movie out and give it three or four screenings if that's what it takes. Yeah it's trying to look and sound like Hollywood, not Cinematalia, but after ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST Italian Pasta directors stopped trying to prove they could do John Ford, and this film stands of a relic of when that was still an ongoing proposition.
Now, finding the RIGHT version of this film may take a couple tries: Brentwood Home Video and a couple others of those 'Bargain Bin Box Set' issuers of Public Domain Movie fare DVDs are circulating an almost colorless 85 minute version, which is too bad: Diamond Entertainment and some outfit known as "Quality Digital Productions" both have a digitally color-restored 105 minute version that, while fullframe & "squishy" in spots from the improperly lensed transfer, contains every last minute described for an English language presentation -- Almost twenty minutes longer, including the burlesque scene and a good old knock down drag out barroom brawl that has more in common with THE WAR WAGON than it does with THE FORGOTTEN PISTOLERO. But that's sort of the charm: Seeing all those guys scurrying around dressed in those silly outfits, trying to be Cowboys rather than just existing as the larger than life iconic figures we usually think of in reference to Spaghetti Westerns ... Thank God for Franco Nero, I guess.
*** out of ****