Yankee (1966)

Made by Tinto Brass, who is—I believe—a noted pornographer, Yankee is light on pornography (short of a few shots that linger on breasts), but is visually distinctive with lots of close-ups and quick cuts.

The plot is fairly slight: it concerns an American (Philippe Leroy) who decides to take on a Mexican bandit gang led by The Big Concho (Adolfo Celi) for the bounty money. Despite the simplicity I actually found it a bit hard to follow in places: the dialogue seems to want to talk in metaphors such as "nightingales", "frame salesmen" and "safes", which left me slightly confused as to what was going on and why Yankee had gone to his adversaries' base to tell them about his plans. Some of this could be due to a poor English translation – it's hard to tell.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the visual style here – while some shots genuinely look quite good, I found the quick cuts between close-ups tiring to watch.

On a positive note, Philippe Leroy looked (and acted) the part and made an effective hero, despite how little he had to do. The Koch DVD also really looked quite good, with just a tiny amount of damage at the start.

Pictures