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Sadly Over-hyped

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A Man Called SledgeThe main proponent of laxed prison sentences is always the man who prints the Wanted Posters.Mind you, the outlaw in this Western doesn't need any likeness to land him in jail – just the promise of untold riches.Tipped off to a regular gold shipment that is locked up overnight at the nearby prison, notorious bandit Luther Sledge (James Garner) rounds up his gang (Dennis Weaver, Claude Akins) and plots to purloin the bullion by getting himself apprehended.Incarcerated, Sledge frees the inmates and escapes with the booty during the melee.However, infighting amongst Sledge's men over the gold during a poker game results in bloodshed, and the kidnapping of Sledge's prostitute girlfriend.An unorthodox Western thanks to its substantial Italian influence, A Man Called Sledge features a refreshing departure from the affable gunslinger characters that Garner usually played.Furthermore, pioneer prisons were notoriously ineffective on account of their sod roofs.Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

Shot in Spain and Italy (check out all the Italian names in the credits) with American stars and director, this is one unusual psychotronic Spaghetti western ! As an actor himself, Morrow can get the best performances out of his cast but his direction is sometimes great, sometimes surprisingly sloppy. He's way too fond of hand-held 360 degree shots (something he also used many times in the few COMBAT shows he directed. While it might have been relevant in a war environment, in a western it's highly unusual and distracting for the viewer). He also often disregard the old rule of "not crossing the axis" with the camera, which makes for startling camera placement ! Only western I know that goes from western, to men-in-prison film, to film noir (check out the nighttime prison scene where all other prisoners suddenly start howling at the moon !! ) to a very nasty STRAW DOGS style revenge movie (with a Mexican Death Ceremony thrown in near the end) ! Soundtrack goes from efficient, to unusually jazzy to down right silly, the theme song being particularly atrocious ! A few years before he was to find a bloody horse head in his bed in THE GODFATHER, veteran actor John Marley (as the Old Man) shows us he could actually ride one for real ;) Finally, I don't care what the credits say, this is definitely NOT gorgeous Italian beauty Laura Antonelli playing Ria (Sledge's girlfriend) ... I mean COME ON ! This girl is borderline ugly !

Two kinds of movies we like are (1) westerns, and (2) movies from 30 or 40 years ago. We ought to have liked A Man Called Sledge; BUT.....BUT... this picture is disagreeable, annoying and stupid from start to finish. Since there is nobody in the story (good or bad) to warm up to, there is nobody to motivate the necessary suspense to keep the viewer interested. No camaraderie among the guys trying to steal the gold, and no camaraderie among those trying to protect it. Sledge has a pretty girl friend, but there's no reason why she slobbers all over the guy or why she wants to be in the same room with this no-account pig.The film also suffers from an intrusive and gawdawful musical score, and from extremely bad writing and direction by Vic Morrow.Of the last 30 older movies rented from Netflix or Video Vault, this was the rock bottom, the only true dud in the bunch.

"A Man Called Sledge" is unique among the spaghetti westerns I have seen so far because it is the only one directed by an American. Vic Morrow must have been a big fan of spaghetti westerns himself, because he really got it right. It must have been a lot of fun for an American director to go to Spain and Italy to shoot an authentic spaghetti western back when the genre was still being pumped out.I wasn't expecting much spaghetti style from this film because I knew it was by an American director with mainly American actors, but the movie really surprised me. It's nowhere near the very top of the spaghetti meter, but on the other hand you would never mistake this one for a Hollywood western. It's got Italian written all over it. The music score by Gianni Ferrio is quite good. A couple of parts sound a little too much like jazz for me, but most of it is well-suited for the genre, especially the tunes with vocals and over-the-top cheesy lyrics.Don't let the fact that this movie is one of the later-era spaghetti westerns and has James Garner in it fool you into thinking it's one of those goofy comedy type of Euro-westerns. There are a couple of funny lines in the film, but overall it's very serious and tragic with plenty of violence and action. This is not a happy film at all, which is definitely a good thing in this case.The production values and acting are above-average for a Eurowestern. James Garner and Dennis Weaver, both of whom have usually portrayed happy/funny do-gooders in American films and television shows, do an excellent job here in their roles as seriously bad people. Casting them for those parts was probably done for effect. It reminds me of how Leone used Henry Fonda as the evil character in Once Upon a Time in the West.This is one that is definitely worth seeing if you are into Euro-westerns.