Screen Picks

by Sam Adams

Beyond Leone: Lost Spaghetti Western Classics (Thu.-Sat., July 26-28, 7 p.m., $5-$7, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 215-895-6542, www.ihousephilly.org) Curated by Exhumed Films' Harry Guerro, International House's "Beyond Leone: Lost Spaghetti Western Classics" unearths a half-dozen prints from the glory days of the post-dubbed oater. In the late 1960s, visions of an American utopia were beginning to unravel. Reflecting the death of a founding myth, the Stateside Westerns of Monte Hellman and Sam Peckinpah turned self-critical, sometimes self-loathing and occasionally downright mean. In Italy, directors like Sergio Leone and writers like Franco Solinas began to tell their own version of North American history, one that got progressively stranger and more warped as demand outstripped the number of available plots.

Day of Anger, which opens the series, begins, appropriately enough, with the disposal of small-town shit. In a town where the local lawman can't remember to pack a pistol, it's left to seasoned gunman Lee Van Cleef to teach the rules of engagement to a streetwise orphan (Guiliano Gemma). Tonino Valerii apprenticed under Leone, and he clearly saw enough of Van Cleef's scowl in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to know he'd be right for the role of an amoral master whose student learns his lessons only too well. The movie lacks Leone's galvanizing madness, but its final showdown is a minor classic, with Gemma recalling Van Cleef's lessons as he picks off enemies one by one. The print is Quentin Tarantino's own; watch for "scene missing" cards.

Showing with Day of Anger is The Ruthless Four, an unofficial remake of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with Van Heflin as a prospector lugging gold through the desert, and Klaus Kinski as a menacing blond villain who dresses in a priest's collar. Exactly what Kinski and the star of 3:10 to Yuma are doing in the same movie will have to wait until Thursday, since the movie is sadly unavailable for review.

Friday's program pairs two films from the near-endless Sartana series: Gianfranco Parolini's If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death (with Kinski yet again) and Django Challenges Sartana, which is the spaghetti-Western equivalent of Godzilla vs. Mothra. The series closes with a double-bill of tomato-flavored caper movies: Five Man Army, starring Peter Graves and co-scripted by Dario Argento, and They Call Me Hallelujah, also known as Heads You Die, Tails I Kill You.

(s_adams@citypaper.net)