Massacre Time (1966)

Italian Westerns have a somewhat ambiguous middle ground. At the top of the genre there are decently budgeted classics like Sergio Leone's oeuvre, alongside many of Sergio Corbucci's, Sergio Sollima's, and some others' films. The bottom of the genre gets pretty cheap with films basically made in a sandpit near Rome, but within this subset there are some quality films too, on par with a decent US B-Western. The middle ground is often problematic, since there isn't quite enough budget to produce a genuine top-quality product, the flaws are largely a bit too obvious, and often they're slightly uninspired (unlike the best of the low budget films, which are only remembered because they're the exceptions).

Unfortunately, Massacre Time fits slightly into this middle category. There's quite a bit to enjoy here, some well-staged action, reasonable acting (given who was involved), a coherent story, and interesting camera-work in places. However, it never quite comes together as a whole. Additionally, with the exception of the Western town (one of the standard ones for Spaghetti Westerns), the locations rarely look really convincing.

Franco Nero and George Hilton play brothers (I'm omitting some details here for the sake of avoiding giving away the whole plot), with Nero returning home at the request of a family friend to find the town—including the family ranch—taken over by "Mr. Scott" and his sadistic son and his brother now an alcoholic. Needless to say, he sets out to right these wrongs. Due to the plot details I'm omitted from this review, there's a reasonably amount of family feuding and associated angst.

The film is pretty violent in places, especially one notable whipping scene. It has many of the hallmarks of the classic Italian Western: the over-the-top ballad over the introduction, the costume that looks quite like Clint Eastwood's, the music integrated into the action (Mr. Scott's son's organ music, and a bit of harmonica early on). George Hilton is pretty good as the alcoholic brother. He's clearly got a wider acting range than Franco Nero, and although I've got no great love for his later comedy styles, he's pretty decent given a good role.

The Wild East DVD is probably the best version. It looks slightly faded, as does the Italian DVD (see here for screenshots of the Italian one). It also contains two different English dubs: thus far I've only listened to one (the ``International'' one), and wasn't hugely impressed with the quality of the dub. Opinions on the internet seem slightly divided as to which one's best, but comes down in favour of the US dub. Perhaps that would improve my opinion of the film?

Pictures