Sergio Martino and his movies

Last time we had a look on the movies by the Italian cult filmmaker Umberto Lenzi. This time let's look on the filmography of Sergio Martino, another Italian cult filmmaker. Just like Lenzi, Martino did just every single genre. He was too young to make a peplum film, but maybe he wrote some of them. He begun with the mondo films, then made his name with gialli before stepping into the genres of police thrillers, sex comedies and in the 80's sci-fi action flicks. Martino's brother Luciano (1933-2013) was a producer, a head of the Dania company, and Sergio made most of his movies for him, usually casting Luciano's wife Edwige Fenech. Maybe that was also his break that forced him to do just everything and remaining as just one of the many genre directors, although he was definitely talented.

MONDO SEX (1969)
a.k.a. Mille peccati... nessuna virtù. One of the mondo movies that exploited different cultures and portrayed various countries as places full of criminal activities, drugs and perverted sex. I haven't watched any of them and I probably won't.

ARIZONA COLT RETURNS (1970)
Sergio's first scripted movie was a spaghetti western, using themes from various previous movies and making just a regular Anthony Steffen spag. Lots of action, lots of coolness, not much of plot. Co-starring Roberto Camardiel as not very funny sidekick, Marcella Michelangeli as the good girl, Rosalba Neri as the bad girl and Aldo Sambrell as the villain. The most memorable thing is the goofy title song by Bruno Nicolai. "I guess I've gotta get my gun, I guess I'v gotta shoot someone bang bang yeah yippee yippeayay..."

THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH (1971)
One of the best gialli combining the erotic drama Lenzi style and murder mystery Argento style, presenting Edwige Fenech with everything we love about her and putting her into a team with George Hilton and Ivan Rassimov. One of Martino's best.

THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL (1971)
His second giallo is good, but not great. I guess it's the story, that tries to imitate Psycho with following Ida Galli in the beginning and killing her after 30 minutes, then presenting new leads George Hilton and Anita Strindberg this time. And I can't choose - I'd love to spend more time with Strindberg, but also with Galli. Besides Galli, Strindberg and mostly Hilton we are also following the police and also the killer of course. Too many paths to follow. But in the end it's effective.

ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972)
They're coming to get you! Not a typical giallo, rather a horror movie with a giallo ending. If we didn't have enough of Edwige in Wardh, we have even more of her this time. She basically oesn't leave the screen. George Hilton plays just the second fiddle, although being credited as the first actor. We get Ivan Rassimov with very blue eyes, and two more giallo queens, Nieves Navarro and Marina Malfatti. The shining star is of course Edwige herself.

YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972)
I wrote twice about this movie here, so I won't be writing much more than it's a good movie, this time Anita Strindberg being the lead and Edwige Fenech just a support.

TORSO (1973)
Very popular among horror movie fans, but I don't like it that much. The second half in the house is amazing, but the first part is boring. Yes, a lot of nude girls with big breasts, but I don't watch horror movies for that. 

THE VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS (1973)
Martino's first poliziottesco and second collaboration with Luc Merenda. The same year he also made his first sex comedy with Fenech. I haven't watched any of those movies.

SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A MINOR (1975)
A mix of poliziotteschi and gialli, this time starring Claudio Cassinelli. Not great, but good enough. The same year Martino did two poliziotteschi more, both starring Luc Merenda, Silent Action and Gambling City. I haven't watched any of them.

 
SEX WITH A SMILE (1976)
A sex comedy starring Fenech, Milian, Bouchet and other actors of Italian genre movies. And also starring Marty Feldman, which is odd. I won't watch it. Never.

MANNAJA (1977)
Martino's second and last western starring, surprisingly, Maurizio Merli, who rarely left the poliziesco genre. A good western from the late "twilight" era. John Steiner does a great villain.

THE SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD (1978)
And Martino goes even more trashy with a cannibal movie, starring Ursula Andress, Stacy Keach and Claudio Cassinelli. I haven't watched it, I probably won't. 

THE BIG ALLIGATOR RIVER (1979)
More trashy horrors, this one and Island of the Fishmen, both starring Barbara Bach and Claudio Cassinelli. I haven't watched them and I probably won't.

SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS (1982)
After a series of sex comedies with Edwige Fenech Martino sort of returned to gialli, but this time covering under the pseudonym of Christian Plummer. In the 80's he suddenly begun to use americanized names, mostly Martin Dolman. This movie is not supposed to be good. There's again Claudio Cassinelli in the cast.

2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK (1983)
A very trashy copy of Escape from New York. But Michael Sopkiw isn't Kurt Russell, George Eastman isn't Isaac Hayes and some midget isn't Ernest Borgnine. Boring cheap trash. 

DEVIL FISH (1984)
It seems like this clone of Jaws was co-directed by Martino and Lamberto Bava. Both made a movie with Sopkiw, who made just four of them, including this one.

HANDS OF STEEL (1986)  
And this is an Italian Terminator, starring Daniel Greene. Who's he, you're asking? Well, the VHS cover says that he's star measurable with Sylvester Stallone. The movie itself is a very trashy fun with George Eastman as a mean truck driver who loves armwrestling, John Saxon as the bad guy and Claudio Cassinelli again. Sadly he died in a helicopter accident during making this movie. 

UPPERCUT MAN (1988)
A sport movie starring Greene again with Ernest Borgnine and Giuliano Gemma. Probably the cast is better than the movie deserves.

 
CASABLANCA EXPRESS (1989)
A war movie starring son of Sean Connery and Donald Pleasence. I don't have anything to add.

THE SMILE OF THE FOX (1992)
Martino returned to gialli in the early 90's and made two movies with two hot girls of their time. In this one it's Debora Caprioglio, former girlfriend of Klaus Kinski and proprietor of huge breasts, in Craving Desire (93) it was Vittoria Belvedere, not so busty, but hotter than Caprioglio. In the second one is co-starring Serena Grandi, so I guess you won't be missing huge breasts at all.

THE FISHMEN AND THEIR QUEEN (1995)
After 15 years Martino returned to his 1979 horrors with Barbara Bach and made a third one. No one notable in the cast. Edwige Fenech was supposed to star, but refused.

MOZART IS A MURDERER (1999)
And this is the very last giallo Martino has made. After that he directed a few more movies, but they were all done for TV. So this would be the last (at least a bit) interesting Sergio Martino movie.

As you can see, his filmography is mostly interesting till 1977. After that it seems mostly mediocre at best. Some of the trash is funny, but not as good as his gialli. His westerns weren't bad either, and I need to watch more of his poliziotteschi.

Heroes of the West - part 10

The last of the old parts was dedicated to Randolph Scott, sort of a poor man's John Wayne.

Sartana - the complete rewatch

When Arrow Video released their Complete Sartana Blu Ray boxset, I got in the mood to rewatch all of the movies. Since I don't own a blu ray player, I couldn't purchase the boxset, but I got to the HD versions anyway. For four of them I even had to sync the subtitles and for one I had to translate them again, because the translation of the old ones was poor.  I watched the Garko movies for the first time ten years ago, second time some five or six years ago, so I didn't remember all of it. I watched the Hilton movie only once, five years ago. So how did I enjoy the movies this time?

If you meet Sartana, pray for your death (1968)

Actually, this movie gets better and better witch each rewatch. For the first time I didn't like it at all. Second time it was slightly better, but for some reason I thought there was not enough of our hero. Why? As I watched it now, I noticed that at least in the first half of the movie he's almost all the time on screen. But the movie is shared with William Berger's Lasky, Sydney Chaplin, Gianni Rizzo and Fernando Sancho as a Mexican general for a change. Too many players, confused plot, but now I almost got it apart from the beginning scene. Did it have any relation to the rest of the movie? Kinski's in it, just a little screentime, not much talking, but he's very effective. Great sets and costumes, awful locations. That sandpit looks really out of place.

I am Sartana, your angel of death (1969)

I always liked it, but this time it was quite boring. Maybe it did not very good subtitles, not matching the poor English audio, maybe it's just a little bit boring. The best scenes contain Klaus Kinski as a misfortuned bounty killer, a rather positive character this time. The worst scenes don't contain neither Sartana, nor Frank Wolff as his shabby partner, nor Kinski, just the bad guys. That means the first cca 12 minutes of the movies are overlong. The story is too complicated once again, but this time I didn't feel like many scenes were appearing later in the film than they should have. I regret I didn't wait for the HD version containing one scene more that presents us the villains, maybe with that it makes more sense. The final shootout in the church is not very suspenseful though.

Have a good funeral, my friend, Sartana will pay (1970)

I skipped the George Hilton movie for a while and watched all the Garko's Sartanas first. An entertaining one, not very complicated, action packed, great music, good cast (Wang, Giordano, Ressel, Induni, Liné). Confucius is wise, Sartana is wiser. Garko kicks ass. Not the best movie, but yes, the second best.

Light the fuse, Sartana is coming (1971)

Finally, at the fifth and last movie the production was joined by Spanish and so it has got much bigger budget, much better locations and slightly more stellar cast (Nieves Navarro, Piero Lulli - ok, he was in the Hilton movie, Frank Braña, Bruno Corazzari). Garko is at his coolest, the movie is fast paced and never drags, although the prologue in the jail is much more brutal than the rest of the movie. Several funny scenes, great music (Bruno Nicolai again), good cinematography, overall a very entertaining movie. And with cannons and machine gun disguised as a pipe organ! Priceless.

Sartana's here, trade your pistol for a coffin (1970)

Finally I got to rewatch the Hilton movie. It doesn't feel like a Sartana movie at all. Hilton just isn't Sartana. Bad guys aren't convincing, sets aren't convincing, the story is pretty lame and for most part is completely missing. No mystery this time. There's a scene with spaghetti regulars Federico Boido and Luciano Rossi as two very violent brothers, trying to torture Erika Blanc - this scene is in this mostly tongue in cheek movie absolutely out of place, but being one of the most memorable ones. It isn't one of the worst spaghetti westerns, far from it, but it's definitely the weakest official Sartana. Still better than any Sartana directed by Demofilo Fidani.

My ranking from top to bottom after this rewatch:
Light the fuse, Sartana is coming
Have a good funeral, my friend, Sartana will pay
If you meet Sartana pray for your death
I am Sartana, your angel of death
Sartana's here, trade your pistol for a coffin