Review of The Grand Duel

Never consider a gun empty and never think that Spaghetti Westerns ran out of idea bullets. It's never empty of a good story, even if it's presented in a lousy matter. Yes, this movie is deprived of historical accuracies, strange anachronisms and filled with clichés like one kill shots, but it's still worth watching if you like the genre. This film doesn't feature a lot of originality in it, so it's somewhat empty. Director Giancarlo Santi create this film, after years of being assistant-director to Sergio Leone and Giulio Petroni. The Grand Duel might not live up to Sergio Leone's films, but at least it's not the worst. There is a bit of pretentious and silliest in this film. The film starts out with an ex-sheriff name Clayton (Lee Van Cleef) arrived by stage coach, to find out that an escape convict, Phillip Vermeer (Alberto Dentice AKA Peter O'Brien) is hiding out in his town. He is wanted for murdering a local patriarch and even so persecuted by a group of bounty hunters, paid by the patriarch's sons, the Saxons. Clayton believes that Vermeer is innocent, and wants to prove it. The action is well-executed, but way too cheesy. There is a scene where Vermeer shot a man off a building where the man's body fell on a wagon, that slingshot Vermeer over a building, while doing a somersault shot another man from the other side of the room. Yes, totally outlandish acrobatic feats. There are odd scenes, where Vermeer seem dead, and somehow these bounty hunters had no idea to check if he was really dead. Come on, movie! Do you think we're that dumb? At less, the elaborated striptease scene that he had to do, didn't make it to any known final cut of the movie. I don't want to see his hairy nude body around. The only good part about the film is that film turn into a murder mystery. Lee Van Cleef has more a reason to be there and more to do. Half of the time, his character seem bored, and lazy. The final twist, although a bit obvious, is told in a series of flashbacks, shot in de-saturated, heavily filtered colors. It's get really annoying, as the colors change throughout the flashbacks. I would rather those scenes in black and white. It does looks better. The Saxon Brothers are particularly well-cast; and my favorite characters in this film. There is David Saxon (Horst Frank) who plays both the patriarch and his oldest son, a cunning, knowing man with political ambitions, who bides his time; then the middle child, Sheriff Eli Saxon (Marc Mazza) who is a simple and impatient man of action, and then the youngest brother, Adam Saxon (Klaus Grünberg) who steals the movie with his portrayal of a homosexual maniac who kills an entire community of Dutch immigrants just for fun, in a scene so over the top it will leave you cringing. I love how he plays with his scarf all the time, and his face rippled with zits. I love how nearly all the brothers wear white suits. I love how Adam putt on white gloves before executing a defenseless old man, so that it doesn't dirty his hands. Very sinister. The camera angles and shots are just too close or too far away. I can barely see what it is going on. There are scenes with both of them talking to each other, but the other man is not in the shot. I think the main reason why people might remember this movie is because of the score. Director Quentin Tarantino used a part of it for 2003's Kill Bill. This score is attributed to both Luis Bacalov and Sergio Bardotti, but Bacalov sustains he wrote all compositions. According to O'Brien, the music played over the end credits was written by the De Angelis brothers. Edda Dell Orso voice is Italy's greatest treasure, what a voice! She is just amazing in all the work she has done with the great Ennio Morricone and Luis Bacalov. This piece of music in the film is so strong and primitive, you can see the big blue sky, and feel the scorching sun, as sand grates against your pupils. Your eyes squint, sweat trickles down your trigger hand, the whooshing wind taunts your ears and your mind with the gravity of your own mortality. You stare down the would be killer. The music fits in with the final duel in the film. The movie can be found in anything, do to it, being in the public domain. I found my copy on 5 dollar bin at Wal-Mart. The quality copies are below any acceptable standards. The audio is awful. Lot of cackle, crackle noises. The dubbing to English is pretty odd in a way as they left in Italian and Croatian languages without sub-titles. The film footage is full of scratches and blemishes. The 'bloody hand print' shot present in the US trailer is missing from most versions of the US copies. You can find the film on the internet if you want to. The movie has different titles in some recopies and prints out there. In the United States, the film is known as Grand Duel, Storm Rider, the Loner, and the Big Showdown. In the U.K, it's known as Hell's Fighters. Plus, to let you know, Grand Duel is not Big Gundown like some critics say. I watched the Big Gundown version and it's not the same movie. So heads up about that. So check out the film, if not, there is a pretty cool game of Checkers, you can play with glasses of whiskey that I have learned from the film.