Mill Creek Entertainment released this Blu-ray double feature, highlighting two exemplary Spaghetti Westerns. The first is The Grand Duel (1972), notable as one of Quentin Tarantino's favorites, and also notable for star Lee Van Cleef, who had been in two of the three Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood movies. And even director Giancarlo Santi had worked with Leone as an assistant director.
In The Grand Duel, a man called Philipp Wermeer (played by Alberto Dentice under the name "Peter O'Brien") is falsely accused of murder. The three sons of the murder victim, the Saxons, team up to catch Wermeer. But an ex-sheriff (Van Cleef) decides to defend Wermeer, traveling all the way to Saxon City with him for a showdown with the brothers... and the truth.
Santi's work here is solid. He keeps referring to a flashback of the murder with the mysterious killer framed in shadow, and keeps the mystery until the end. There are plenty of chases and escapes as the two heroes learn to trust one another, the pacing is fine, and the action is clean. Composer Luis Bacalov later won an Oscar for Il Postino (1994) and Tarantino borrowed bits of his score for KillBill - Vol. 1 (2003).
The second feature is Keoma(1976), starring Franco Nero (Django) and directed by Enzo G. Castellari. This one came fairly late in the Spaghetti Western cycle, and is something of a mashup of styles, including memorable slow-motion shootouts, and a mysterious witch that suddenly appears from time to time (perhaps representing death).
Nero plays a half-breed who looks and sounds nothing like a Native American. Keoma was adopted and raised by a white man, who had three biological sons. He returns home after the Civil War to find that his "brothers" have joined forces with a local villain, and he vows revenge. While he's at it, he rescues a beautiful pregnant woman (Olga Karlatos), who has been mistakenly rounded up and exported with a group of plague victims. Woody Strode (Once Upon a Time in the West) plays a former ranch hand who helps out.
Aside from the peculiar mismatching of Nero and his role, the movie's almost random collection of elements gives it an appealing recklessness and energy that sells it. The main drawback is the music; every so often the action stops for clunky, badly-written songs that describe the action as we're seeing it -- or worse, the feelings of the characters -- and sung by singers who can't sing. These wince-inducing moments nearly sink the movie, but fortunately, it's cool enough to survive.
The Blu-ray has no extras, but getting two cool movies for a decent price is bonus enough.
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