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Death Rides a Horse, 1967
As a child, Bill (John Phillip Law) watches in horror as his father is murdered, his mother and sister are raped and murdered, and then their house is burned to the ground by a gang of vicious men. As an adult, Bill is an aspiring lawman who has not forgotten the men who massacred his family, remembering them in flashes of a facial scar, a tattoo, a distinct set of spurs, etc. Discovering that recently released convict Ryan (Lee Van Cleef) also has some unresolved beef with the gang, Bill follows Ryan and Ryan reluctantly accepts their partnership.
This was a lot better than I expected it to be, though at the same time it's frustratingly held back from greatness by a few core flaws.
The film has several things going for it. The main positive is Van Cleef's performance as Bill's reluctant mentor. We've all seen that film where the tough guy ends up in charge of some child and grudgingly comes to have affection for the little guy/gal, right? Well, that's basically this movie, except that it's a 20-something year old man-child in the form of a doggedly determined Bill. There's something nicely enigmatic about the way that Van Cleef plays the character and his feelings about the whole situation. He spends a lot of energy keeping Bill away from the action---is this because he wants to keep Bill safe, or because he doesn't want Bill cramping his style? His exact motivations remain unknown until the last act, and the character's progression has a satisfying payoff.
I also really liked some of the imagery in the film. The very first shot, a group of men on horseback appearing over the top of a hill, sets a nicely menacing tone. As a rainstorm pours down, the look in through the window at the unsuspecting family. The attack on the family is shot from the only partially comprehending point of view of the young Bill. As his eyes dart from one moment to the next, the scene manages to avoid feeling too exploitative and instead focuses on flashes of what sticks with the child: the men sweeping clean the dining table to push his mother down on it, his sister's confused and terrified expression as hands hold her down, bits of conversation between the men. And while it was a bit overused on the whole, I did like some of the scenes where Bill would see something (a scar, a tattoo) and flash back to the murders. On the whole, the story is satisfying.
There are two downsides for me. The first is that Bill himself is kind of a dull character and Law's performance is extra wooden next to the much more memorable Van Cleef. To give you a sense of how flat his character was, I had to look up the character's name on the IMDb. I just finished the film like 20 minutes ago. Bill should be raw and impulsive and hurting and driven. It's there, sort of, in the writing, but it utterly fails to translate as anything electric. There's a scene where he's buried up to his chin in sand, his mouth stuffed with salt, and he at most manages to look kind of annoyed.
I also felt as if there was kind of a lull in the pace around the transition between the second and third acts. Just all of a sudden I was struggling to pay attention. Things pick up again in the last 20 minutes or so.
A solid western, but with a better written and better acted lead character I think it could have really been something special.
Death Rides a Horse, 1967
As a child, Bill (John Phillip Law) watches in horror as his father is murdered, his mother and sister are raped and murdered, and then their house is burned to the ground by a gang of vicious men. As an adult, Bill is an aspiring lawman who has not forgotten the men who massacred his family, remembering them in flashes of a facial scar, a tattoo, a distinct set of spurs, etc. Discovering that recently released convict Ryan (Lee Van Cleef) also has some unresolved beef with the gang, Bill follows Ryan and Ryan reluctantly accepts their partnership.
This was a lot better than I expected it to be, though at the same time it's frustratingly held back from greatness by a few core flaws.
The film has several things going for it. The main positive is Van Cleef's performance as Bill's reluctant mentor. We've all seen that film where the tough guy ends up in charge of some child and grudgingly comes to have affection for the little guy/gal, right? Well, that's basically this movie, except that it's a 20-something year old man-child in the form of a doggedly determined Bill. There's something nicely enigmatic about the way that Van Cleef plays the character and his feelings about the whole situation. He spends a lot of energy keeping Bill away from the action---is this because he wants to keep Bill safe, or because he doesn't want Bill cramping his style? His exact motivations remain unknown until the last act, and the character's progression has a satisfying payoff.
I also really liked some of the imagery in the film. The very first shot, a group of men on horseback appearing over the top of a hill, sets a nicely menacing tone. As a rainstorm pours down, the look in through the window at the unsuspecting family. The attack on the family is shot from the only partially comprehending point of view of the young Bill. As his eyes dart from one moment to the next, the scene manages to avoid feeling too exploitative and instead focuses on flashes of what sticks with the child: the men sweeping clean the dining table to push his mother down on it, his sister's confused and terrified expression as hands hold her down, bits of conversation between the men. And while it was a bit overused on the whole, I did like some of the scenes where Bill would see something (a scar, a tattoo) and flash back to the murders. On the whole, the story is satisfying.
There are two downsides for me. The first is that Bill himself is kind of a dull character and Law's performance is extra wooden next to the much more memorable Van Cleef. To give you a sense of how flat his character was, I had to look up the character's name on the IMDb. I just finished the film like 20 minutes ago. Bill should be raw and impulsive and hurting and driven. It's there, sort of, in the writing, but it utterly fails to translate as anything electric. There's a scene where he's buried up to his chin in sand, his mouth stuffed with salt, and he at most manages to look kind of annoyed.
I also felt as if there was kind of a lull in the pace around the transition between the second and third acts. Just all of a sudden I was struggling to pay attention. Things pick up again in the last 20 minutes or so.
A solid western, but with a better written and better acted lead character I think it could have really been something special.