I was sold by the first few minutes of the spaghetti western, Mannaja (1977) aka A Man Called Blade, when a fugitive runs through a foggy, misty forrest and is attacked by a silhouetted bounty hunter – Blade (Maurizio Merli) – whose whole thing is that he uses hatchets as a weapon. However, I think I truly fell in love with the movie when the title credits kicked in and you hear ‘Wolf’, the theme song, a moody dirge by the composers Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, which has its detractors amongst spaghetti western fans. There are two vocalists, the second has a strong voice, the first… well, he sounds like a drunk zombie at karaoke attempting to do Leonard Cohen impression. And I couldn’t get enough of this song, which was good as it was used a lot in the movie. Directed by Sergio Martino (who I know more for his great giallo movies like All The Colors Of The Dark and Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have A Key) at the tail-end of the Italian western genre, the movie is an atmospheric, mud-soaked tale cut from the Django cloth. Blade comes to a mining town run by a rich man in a wheelchair named McGowan (Philippe Leroy – fun layer for any Perth viewers to hear characters keep saying that name, “McGowan runs this town!” – re: Mark McGowan is the premiere of WA) and whose crew of gunslingers are led by a snide German stereotype Valler (Jon Steiner) with a cape and two fearsome dogs at his command. There’s also a outlaw gang in the mountains, a wagon filled with sex workers, and an uprising by overworked miners. I really enjoyed this one, particularly the thick smoke vibe and the grimy violence, which follows the Django playbook in having your hero go through hell before emerging to settle the score. The blonde Merli is an attractive, roguish lead, his white teeth and movie star eyes peaking through the tanned, mud-stained face. The score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis adds so much. Available to stream on Tubi. Recommended.
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