''Sugar Colt'' is a 1966 Italian and Spanish
spaghetti Western
The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
directed by
Franco Giraldi, produced by
Franco Cittadini and
Stenio Fiorentini, written by
Sandro Continenza
Sandro Continenza (13 July 1920 – 21 November 1996) was an Italian screenwriter. He wrote for 142 films between 1949 and 1982. He was born in Rome, Italy.
Selected filmography
* '' Toto Looks for a Wife'' (1950)
* '' Appointment for Murd ...
,
Augusto Finocchi,
Giuseppe Mangione
Giuseppe Mangione (15 March 1908 – 19 September 1976) was an Italian screenwriter.Davis p.196
Selected filmography
* '' Headlights in the Fog'' (1942)
* '' In the Name of the Law'' (1949)
* '' Barrier to the North'' (1950)
* '' Against the Law' ...
and
Fernando Di Leo, composed by
Luis Enríquez Bacalov, filmed by
Alejandro Ulloa and starred by
Jack Betts
Jack Betts, also credited as Hunt Powers, is an American character actor. He has acted in film, on stage, and on television. He starred in several Spaghetti western films such as '' Sugar Colt''.
Career
Betts was raised in Jersey City, New J ...
,
Joaquín Parra,
Soledad Miranda,
Georges Rigaud,
Antonio Padilla,
Giuliano Raffaelli and
Hunt Powers.
It is the Giraldi's second film after ''
Seven Guns for the MacGregors
''Seven Guns for the MacGregors'' () is a Technicolor 1966 Spaghetti Western. It is the directorial debut film of Franco Giraldi (here credited as Frank Garfield), who was Sergio Leone's assistant in ''A Fistful of Dollars''. The film gained a g ...
''. The film represents the cinematographical debut for
Jack Betts
Jack Betts, also credited as Hunt Powers, is an American character actor. He has acted in film, on stage, and on television. He starred in several Spaghetti western films such as '' Sugar Colt''.
Career
Betts was raised in Jersey City, New J ...
, here credited as Hunt Powers, and it is also
Erno Crisa
Erno Crisa (10 March 1914 – 4 April 1968) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in more than 50 films between 1944 and 1968. His last film was the spaghetti western '' Sugar Colt''.
Partial filmography
* '' Sideral Cruises'' (1942) - L'h ...
's last film.
Plot
Rocco – also called the man with two faces – is visited by Pinkerton, who wants him to investigate the disappearance and possible kidnapping of some soldiers. Rocco declines, as he has a good life teaching women self-defence. When Pinkerton is assassinated, Rocco changes his mind and goes to Snake Valley disguised as a doctor. He uses a narcotic gas to loosen tongues and gets help from a sidekick and two women at the saloon. He is exposed and heavily beaten, but eventually frees the hostages while the big boss, who is responsible, gets killed.
Cast
Production
Filming
It was filmed in
Tabernas, in the town of
El Fraile, in the lodge Los Arcos and in
Almería
Almería (, , ) is a city and municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain, located in Andalusia. It is the capital of the province of Almería, province of the same name. It lies in southeastern Iberian Peninsula, Iberia on the Mediterranean S ...
.
Music
With his
modernist
Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
sheet music
Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed Book, books or Pamphlet, pamphlets ...
,
Luis Bacalov created the characters of ''Sugar Colt'', ''
Django'', ''
I quattro del pater noster'', ''
Chapaqua'', ''
Lo chiamavano King'' and ''
The Man Called Noon''.
Reception
''Sugar Colt'' was generally well received by critics, and
Tullio Kezich
Tullio Kezich (17 September 1928 in Trieste – 17 August 2009 in Rome) was an Italian people, Italian screenwriter and playwright, best known as the film critic for ''Corriere della Sera'' and for his biography of Italian director Federico F ...
defined it as a "little masterpiece".
[ Over 40 years after it was made, Sugar Colt was screened at the 2007 Venice Film Festival in a Spaghetti Western retrospective. Director Franco Giraldi and star Jack Betts were in attendance.
In his investigation of narrative structures in ]Spaghetti Western
The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
films, Fridlund ranges ''Sugar Colt'' among Spaghetti Westerns heavily influenced by secret-agent films, because the hero is shown in company with beautiful women, works to uncover a mystery and - unlike the protagonists in ''A Fistful of Dollars
''A Fistful of Dollars'' (, (''For a Fistful of Dollars'')) is a 1964 spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role, alongside Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Si ...
'' and '' Django'' - does not have any complicating secondary motive.
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
*{{IMDb title, 0061040
1967 films
English-language Italian films
Spaghetti Western films
Films directed by Franco Giraldi
1967 Western (genre) films
Films scored by Luis Bacalov
Films scored by Ennio Morricone
Films shot in Almería
Cultural depictions of Allan Pinkerton
1960s English-language films
1960s Italian films
English-language Western (genre) films