Bandolero! (1968)

In 1968 the western was a genre in a state of transition. In Hollywood the classic western was about to give way to the revisionist western (a tedious sub-genre and ultimately rather pointless since John Ford had been making revisionist westerns like Fort Apache since the late 1940s). The spaghetti western seemed like it might breathe new life into the genre although the spaghetti western itself would quickly become an overly politicised dead end. 

Bandolero! shows a certain degree of spaghetti western influence and also in some ways anticipates the revisionist western but without the pretentiousness.

Bandolero! belongs to a different sub-genre, the quirky offbeat western. It’s never quite sure how seriously it wants to take itself. It would make rather a good double feature with a movie like Shalako.

Bandolero! was directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, arguably the best action movie  director of his era (with terrific movies like The Wild Geese and ffolkes to his credit), and it boasts an interesting cast headlined by James Stewart, Dean Martin and Raquel Welch.

The movie hits the ground running with a bank robbery that goes spectacularly wrong. Dee Bishop (Dean Martin) and his gang are soon behind bars and are awaiting the arrival of a traveling hangman. The hangman arrives but he’s not what he seems to be and Dee and his cronies have cheated death, not for the first time.

Sheriff July Johnson (George Kennedy) does not take kindly to seeing outlaws escaping from under his nose and he vows to pursue them even if his pursuit takes him into neighbouring Mexico. In fact he is determined to continue the pursuit indefinitely. This might sound like the sheriff is a dedicated if somewhat obsessed lawman but that’s only part of the truth. The main reason for his relentless pursuit is that Dee Bishop has taken wealthy Mexican widow Maria Stoner (Raquel Welch) as a hostage. And the sheriff is suffering from a severe case on unrequited love as far as the Widow Stoner is concerned.

Playing a rather ambiguous part in these events is Dee Bishop’s brother Mace (James Stewart). Mace is the sensible, law-abiding older brother. At least that’s what everyone always assumed. It turns out Mace is a bit more complicated than people thought.

The chase into Mexico takes both pursuers and pursued deep into bandit country. And these are bandits who enjoy killing gringos even more than they enjoy killing the locals. Both Dee’s gang and Sheriff Johnson and his posse will soon have their hands full.

Dean Martin spent of his film career either just going through the motions or gleefully sending himself up (as he does in the wonderful Matt Helm movies like The Wrecking Crew). On the rare occasions when he actually took a rôle seriously he delivered some unexpectedly fine performances, none finer than his turn as the reformed alcoholic sheriff’s deputy in Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo. He takes his rôle in Bandolero fairly seriously. It offers him the opportunity to display some emotional depth while at the same time having some tongue-in-cheek fun.

James Stewart made something of a specialty of complicated western heroes and Bandolero! allows him to be complicated whilst also indulging himself in a bit of fun. The movie does not make too many demands on Raquel Welch’s acting abilities and she does a more than competent job. 

Andrew V. McLaglen was an exceptionally good action director and he pulls off some fairly impressive visual set-pieces. McLaglen always understood the importance of pacing and he keeps things moving in a very satisfactory manner.

This movie’s biggest problem is its tone. At times it seems to want to be dark and edgy and at other times it want to be light-hearted and witty and tongue-in-cheek. It’s at its best when it’s being gently amusing. Sadly the nihilism and cynicism that were eating away at the vitals of American cinema like a cancer manage to push this movie too much into pointless despair territory.

Notwithstanding this unfortunate circumstance Bandolero! still has much to recommend it. It’s fast-paced and stylish, it boasts some impressive location shooting, it’s well-acted and the action sequences work well.  

Bandolero! is included in the Raquel Welch Collection DVD boxed set. The set also includes Fathom (a fun caper movie), The Lady in Cement (a noirish crime thriller in which he co-stars with Frank Sinatra) and the 1966 science fiction classic Fantastic Voyage. 

The set illustrates rather well the surprising diversity of her career and all four movies are worth seeing. I highly recommend the boxed set. And despite some minor reservations Bandolero! is also recommended.

Flareup (1969)

Raquel Welch may not be the world’s greatest actress but her career includes quite a few surprisingly interesting movies. Unfortunately Flareup is not one of them.

Flareup is a thriller, with Las Vegas go-go dancer Michele (Welch) on the run from crazed killer Alan Moris (Luke Askew). Moris has been divorced by his wife Nikki and he blames her friends Michele and Iris (Pat Delaney) for turning Nikki against him. In fact of course the truth is that nobody needed to turn Nikki against him. Moris is a crazy dangerous loser and Nikki figured that out by herself. Now Moris has flipped out completely and is planning to kill his ex-wife and her two friends. And anybody else who gets in his way. Michele decides that it might be a good idea for her to get out of Las Vegas. The police have offered her protection and they need her as a material witness but when Moris goes after Iris Michele decides she doesn’t trust the police to protect her. She heads for LA.

In LA she has no trouble getting another job as a dancer and she meets Joe Brodnek (James Stacy). Joe is obviously pretty keen on her and although he’s a little odd he seems to be odd in a harmless and rather engaging way and Michele thinks he’s kind of cute. Joe is a model aeroplane enthusiast, something that amuses Michele but also makes him seem more appealing.

There isn’t much time for romance though since Moris is still at large and now he’s turned up in LA.

The plot unfolds in a fairly routine way with Moris stalking Michele while the cops are stalking him. Routine is unfortunately a word that comes to mind quite often in regard to this movie. The chase scene through the old zoo is one of the better moments and the climactic scene is quite effective although it perhaps needed a bit more of a buildup.

Director James Neilson had a prolific career in television. In the 60s he made a few not very distinguished feature films. He was competent but uninspired and Flareup tends to be more of a fizzle-out than a flareup.

The action scenes are handled adequately but they lack any real imagination and are a bit perfunctory.

Welch was a capable enough actress in the right movie but her problem here is that her character is seriously underwritten. Michele is supposed to be a free spirit but the script tells us that fact rather than giving Welch the opportunity to demonstrate it. The script really gives her very little to work with and she seems unsure of herself, as if she wasn’t quite clear what was expected of her.

Unfortunately the other actors are even weaker and the other characters are even sketchier. We should care what happens to Michele and Joe but we don’t really know them enough to be particularly interested. 

The movie’s main strength is the amusing glimpse it gives us of the LA and Las Vegas night-club scene in the late 60s and it does manage to capture the seedy glamour of that scene quite well. The clubs Michele works in are topless bars and there’s plenty of topless go-go dancing. Miss Welch of course does not appear topless. She was smart enough to figure out early in her career that if you want to have a really sexy image you’re better off keeping your clothes on - leave something to the imagination. She does however contribute a fairly enthusiastic go-go dancing scene.

The Warner Archive made-on-demand DVD is quite acceptable. They’ve made an effort to maintain a high standard with this series and all their releases are at the very least reasonably good, and most are excellent. It has to be said though that this is one of their lesser efforts. It’s rather grainy and the colours perhaps could have been a little more vibrant.

Flareup is strictly a movie for Raquel Welch completists, or for very keen fans of 1960s go-go dancing. It’s mildly entertaining at best. Anyone interested in exploring Welch’s filmography is well advised to seek out some of her other better movies such as Kansas City Bomber, Fathom (a fun tongue-in-cheek caper movie which displays her proficiency at light comedy), the gritty revenge western Hannie Caulder (in which she plays one of the more convincing lady gunslingers) or The Lady in Cement (a fine slightly neo-noirish crime thriller which pairs her quite successfully with Frank Sinatra).

Hannie Caulder (1971)

During their very brief existence Tigon British Films were responsible for some of the very best gothic horror films ever made, including Witchfinder-General and Blood on Satan's Claw. In 1971 they decided to try their hands at what was in effect a British spaghetti western. I guess you could call it a bangers-and-mash western. The movie was Hannie Caulder and it’s definitely worth a look.

Spaghetti westerns tended to focus rather heavily on the revenge theme. The twist in Hannie Caulder is that it’s not about a man seeking revenge when his wife and children get murdered, it’s about a woman doing the same thing. Three rather incompetent but very violent bandits, the Clemens brothers, on the run after a bungled bank robbery, kill Hannie Caulder’s husband and rape her. Now Hannie (Raquel Welch) intends to hunt them down and kill them.

The plan starts to take shape in her mind after a chance encounter with bounty hunter Thomas Luther Price (Robert Culp). As bounty hunters go he’s a fairly nice guy. He’s the kind of bounty hunter you could take home to meet Mother. Well, sort of. Hannie tries to persuade him to teach her to be a killer. At first he refuses, mainly because he really doesn’t want to see her get hurt. When he discovers what actually happened to her he changes his mind. He realises it’s something she has to do, and he intends to make sure she’s equipped to do it successfully.

The bulk of the film is taken up by Hannie’s training. Price gets his gunsmith friend Bailey (Christopher Lee) to make custom-made guns for her. Then she’s ready for the showdown.

The plot is one that became more or less standard for 1970s rape revenge movies, such as Bo Arne Vibenius’s stylish 1974 Thriller: A Cruel Picture. Hannie Caulder does have some claims to being the first representative of this genre.

Director Burt Kennedy handles the action sequences very satisfactorily. The fight scenes are not especially gory but they’re undeniably effective.

Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam and Strother Martin play the Clemens brothers, and they play them partly for laughs but they’re still vicious hoodlums and Borgnine in particular is genuinely menacing. Look out for Diana Dors in a minor supporting role.

More problematic is the casting of Robert Culp as Thomas Luther Price. He’s mostly quite good but he has some trouble convincing me he’s really the kind of guy who kills men in cold blood for money. On the other hand he does make a change from excessively macho western heroes and it is interesting to see a bounty hunter portrayed so sympathetically. He’s really a guy with strong moral principles, and killing bad guys is after all performing a community service. He comes across as being more like a freelance cop than a mere killer.

Of course a movie like this ultimately will stand or fall on the performance of the lead actress. She has to be able to convince us she really could take on hardened bad guys in a gunfight and win and at the same time she has to retain our sympathies. Raquel Welch is more than equal to the challenge. Apart from the superb Kansas City Bomber this is perhaps her finest straight dramatic role.

What makes it interesting is that she has difficulty in becoming a perfect killing machine. She becomes an expert gunfighter certainly but she really doesn’t like killing. She kills because she feels compelled to do so but she has to force herself to overcome her squeamishness. She retains a certain vulnerability but she has the strength of character to carry out her task anyway.This makes her a more convincing heroine than the protagonists in most similar movies. At the risk of sounding incredibly old-fashioned she remains a woman, and when she kills she has to convince herself that it’s absolutely necessary.

This movie’s sexual politics are more complex than you find in the average rape-revenge movie. There’s no simplistic assumption that all men are violent thugs. This type of movie can all too easily descend into a depressing and hopeless nihilism, leaving the viewer feeling that the world is a cesspool and there is little than can be done to change it. Hannie Caulder avoids this pitfall. We’re left not only with some hope for the world, but with some hope for Hannie as well. She has not lost all faith in human beings and she has not lost her own humanity.

While rape revenge movies are often justified as being empowering for women they rarely feel that way. This one actually does.

Umbrella’s Region 4 release is in the correct Cinemascope aspect ratio and looks extremely good.