FASTHAND IS STILL MY NAME (Copercines Cooperativa Cinematográfica,1973)

Mi chiamavano “Requiescat”…ma avevano sbagliato; Mano rápida

D: Mario Bianchi. P: Gianfranco Batistini. W: Alberto Cardone, Eduardo Manzanos Brochero. Ph: Emilio Foriscot. M: Gianni Ferrio. St: Alan Steel [Sergio Ciani] (Cpt. Jeff Madison), William Berger (Machedo), Frank Braña (Quincy), Fernando Bilbao (Duero), Gilberto Galimberti [Gill Roland] (Harrueco)

 

 

“The war ain’t over yet.”

After the ghoulish In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Colt and the mysterious Kill the Poker Player, Bianchi completed a trilogy of skewed but convoluted westerns by dragging brawny Alan Steel through one of the genre’s bleakest landscapes. The peplum veteran’s physique was tailor-made to battle against such foes as Moon Men or Black Pirates. Here, as a typical Euro-western protagonist – an avenger seeking to settle accounts with the men who almost tortured him to death – he couldn’t rely on his pectorals to smooth over the cracks in his acting talent.

 

 

Captain Madison’s trail of vengeance is grafted onto a cheaply conceived postbellum aesthetic. Demented rebel soldier Machedo murders the commander of a Union fort and takes its entire infantry prisoner. Madison is apprehended by Machedo’s henchmen and tortured at the fort while his fellow soldiers are slaughtered. Shot through the hand, Madison is left to die while Machedo conducts a reign of terror, burning and looting the properties of private citizens.

 

 

Indubitably one of the spaghetti western’s meanest examples, the film’s bilious atmosphere is rendered even uglier by a production that is grungy on a visual as well as a thematic level. Its cheap, dilapidated sets intensify the sense of decay that courses through the saga. Actors are badly framed or obscured by shadows, the product of fast or ill-conceived camera set-ups rather than artistic design. An anachronistic jazz soundtrack drifts in and out; while displaced soundtracks are common to the genre, here it’s often distracting. The poorly choreographed action sequence that begins the film – a shootout between Union and Confederate soldiers – doesn’t bode well, until the dust-caked uniforms and excessive bloodletting hint that Fasthand is treading far different territory than the more light-hearted westerns produced in Italy at the time.

It’s Madison’s gruelling torture at the hands of Machedo’s gaggle of grotesques that distinguishes the film as particularly noxious. Steel’s acting efforts may be under par, but there’s no doubt he immerses himself in this hellish experience as he’s tethered to stakes and spat on by Machedo’s men. His subjugation is hard to watch; the sight of an actor being handled in such a manner feels more unpleasant than any excessive use of blood squibs or gore. This vile business culminates in a motif that echoes throughout the film as Madison, blindfolded, helplessly hears the chime of Machedo’s spurs before his gun hand is shot through.

 

 

Having made a fatal (and clichéd) mistake of not killing Madison, however, Machedo allows the recovering soldier (inexplicably wearing a black cape, à la Django) to observe his murderous activities while plotting his revenge. As Machedo, Berger devours the scenery while conjuring a memorable study of deluded villainy. Despite his cruel behaviour, he still insists to his lover, “I’m a very loveable guy.” His delusion turns to full-blown insanity in the final gunfight with Madison in a creepy ghost town, when he imagines his nemesis appearing like a phantom.

 

 

The curious inclusion of a Native American – Swan (Celine Berry) is Madison’s Indian girlfriend and, as we discover, rescued him after being tortured – could have further differentiated Bianchi’s film from the pack. The possibility of examining Indian culture or miscegenation is squandered, however, and she remains just another female stereotype, her love for the hero going unrequited.

Better written and served by the actors are the characterisations of Machedo’s appalling henchmen, while two recognisable spaghetti-western faces add to the film’s squalid texture. Francisco Sanz, a recurring bearded crackpot (most notably as Hagerman in Django Kill … If You Live, Shoot), performs well as Madison’s garrulous sidekick, an ex-soldier who removes two of the hero’s foes with a sawn-off shotgun. And Spanish actor Lorenzo Robledo, who was so often maimed and martyred in the genre (For a Few Dollars More, Cut Throats Nine, Four of the Apocalypse), appears uncredited as Jack, a member of Machedo’s gang who is tortured with a red-hot iron.
Clark Hodgkiss