April 15, 2025 • 40 mins
Physical media expert Ryan Verrill joins me to discuss Duccio Tessari's spaghetti western, A Pistol for Ringo.
Follow The Disc-Connected: https://linktr.ee/discconnected
Become a Disc-Connected Patron: https://www.patreon.com/DiscConnected
Buy the Physical Media Advocate: https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1utJN
Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys Social Media
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tumbleweedsandtvcowboys/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tumbleweedsandtvcowboys
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/TumbleweedsTV/
X: https://x.com/TumbleweedTVpod
Email: tumbleweedsandtvcowboys@gmail.com
Someone's Favorite Productions: https://www.someonesfavoriteproductions.com/
Follow The Disc-Connected: https://linktr.ee/discconnected
Become a Disc-Connected Patron: https://www.patreon.com/DiscConnected
Buy the Physical Media Advocate: https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1utJN
Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys Social Media
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tumbleweedsandtvcowboys/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tumbleweedsandtvcowboys
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/TumbleweedsTV/
X: https://x.com/TumbleweedTVpod
Email: tumbleweedsandtvcowboys@gmail.com
Someone's Favorite Productions: https://www.someonesfavoriteproductions.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome back to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys, a classic Western
film and TV podcast. My name is Hunter. This week
we're talking about a spaghetti Western Duccio Tasory's a Pistol
for Ringo. Joining me for this conversation is Ryan Verel,
one of the founders of the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast
network and the man behind the great YouTube channel That Disconnected.
Ryan is so passionate about physical media and movies, and
(00:39):
I've gotten to know him in the past couple of
years and he's a great guy. I'm so happy we
had the opportunity to talk about this movie. Here is
our conversation on a Pistol for Ringo. Ryan, Thanks for
coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Hi excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.
I've been eager to hear your first episode and can't
wait to see these be released.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeo, I'm very excited to have you on tonight. We're
going to be discussing is it now? I actually have
a question. You're very good with non American names. Duccio Tasory.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Uh So, the way that I researched today, I had
heard it two different ways, Duccio, I believe is correct.
But I've heard the the stress on the last name
as Tessari but also Tessai. I cannot find out which
one it specifically was by him, but to me, like
through through my my eyes of what I do, I
(01:33):
would have said Tasory same way that you did, but honestly,
as an Italian name, it might be more Tessari.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
All right, well, I'll sleep with Tasorry because that that
just sounds right to me when hearing it sounds good,
sounds stronger. Yes, Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you
about his first spaghetti Western epistol for Ringo. And yeah,
I've been following your YouTube channel for maybe like three
years at this point, and then and I reached out
(02:01):
to you maybe a couple of years ago. We've become friends. Yeah,
I've been on Reconnected a few times, which I lose
more hair every time I'm on, because my anxiety goes
sky high as soon as we go live in front
of your audience.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, to hopefully display some empathy, I want everybody to know,
and I try to explain this before we go live.
I still feel that every single week, I still fear
looking like a complete idiot. I still fear that I'm
going to say something wrong. I still fear that I'm
gonna forget how to do the things that I've been
doing every single week for three and a half years.
(02:38):
And it's obviously unfounded, and it's unfounded for you to
have super anxiety. But we both deal with it and
we push through.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, it does not cut. I've never seen it come
across with you on the live stream.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
For sure, fake it till you make it.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
But yeah, but you do so much more than your
weekly live show.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Ryan.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Can you tell us about yourself and your work in
physical media releases?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Sure? So I started my my YouTube channel and podcast
here in early twenty twenty one. I was posting, like
on social media accounts some of the physical media announcements
and deals and stuff like that, sharing pictures of my collection,
and was, you know, sitting at home in COVID and figured, Hey,
I kind of want to do some more with this
(03:22):
and I feel like I could do it better than
some people out there. So I started my show and
quickly I had people asking for a live show. They
wanted more personal interaction, so I brought that on and
that just evolved into bringing on guests, and so I
started doing these interviews where I would bring on somebody
from the industry, whether they be filmmakers or somebody from
physical media, and that led to a number of close relationships.
(03:47):
At this point, I mean, I've stayed at people's houses
that I, you know, four years ago, never would have
imagined that I would have even you know, had the
pleasure of speaking to these people. And now I've shared
a meal at their dinning their dinner table. It's it's crazy.
So now I'm producing discs for multiple companies. I own
a production company called Someone's Favorite Productions, and we are
(04:08):
working on bonus features for visual essays, audio commentaries, interviews,
even some sort of innovative ways to express some of
these films in a new contextual fashion that we've not
seen on many discs. So doing our best to try
new things there. But on top of all that, I
(04:28):
also publish a magazine about ten nine or ten times
a year called The Physical Media Advocate, and I bring
in writers from all over the world to share some
of their passions, and it's in physical stores across the
US and even some in Canada. I'm working on expanding
that but you can also pick it up on Amazon worldwide.
There's probably more I'm forgetting, but yeah, it's a very
(04:52):
busy period of my life I can say that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well it's been so cool. I mean, as someone who's
been you know, familiar with your channel for a while,
to see it grow and to see you get involved
with all of these labels, I mean, I couldn't be
happier for you. I think it is just awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I appreciate that, and you truly have been there almost
since the beginning, so it's nice to have a kinship
and a genuine friendship with somebody like you, and it's
wonderful to see you get into the creative community again
with me and stuff like this. Can't wait to see
how this podcast grows.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, I'm excited. It should be fun. It's going to
be a lot of people on the someone's favorite podcast network,
so that'll be cool. Now, I'd like to hear something
some about your history with the Western genre. Can you
tell us about that?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Sure, I came from I hate to use the term
broken home, but I had this really weird history when
I was a child. My dad had a bunch of
heart problems and actually not to be morbid at the
beginning of this ranking. My dad died twice when I
was a kid. He died in the hospital once and
then died at home at the dinner table once. And
he's still alive today, so it's not too morbid. But
(06:00):
because of that, I kind of got passed around to
family members that could deal with a young child. I
was literally like two to four years old during this time,
so I would stay with grandparents, go to aunts and
uncles for like literally a couple weeks at a time,
and just sort of get passed around where it went.
But one of the people that I stayed with the
most was my great grandparents, and my great grandfather was
(06:23):
a massive Westerns fan. We're talking We lived in southern California,
and he wore belt buckles and cowboy hats and had
paintings of desert skyscapes and had Westerns playing literally almost
all day long. So as a child, I witnessed a
lot of these movies, and I don't remember most of them.
(06:43):
I just remember when I was a child really hating
them because they were the most boring thing in the world.
But I've been trying to expand that palette as an
adult and get past the mindset of this is not
fun instead of trying to teach myself now of there's
a lot to learn to this. I mean, there's so
(07:04):
much foundations of film within each of these that not
only are there great filmmakers, but great actors that got
their start in these, and really trying to push past
some of those that I overlooked for so long because
of that excellent.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, I know the Hollywood westerns are not really your
thing that you enjoy some spaghetti westerns. What are some
of your favorite spaghetti westerns.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I mean it's cliche as hell, but I fell in
love with Jango the first time I saw it, primarily
because I got the four K release that came out
from Aero Video of Django and was just mystified by
how great it looked for a film that came out
in nineteen sixty six to literally be able to posit
(07:49):
and point out specific pebbles in the mud was amazing
to me that it was preserved like that. And then
the fact that I could go look in the special
features and here from Franco Nero himself and have him
explain how it was to lug a coffin around for
a couple hours and really dive into what was the
(08:10):
history of that filmmaking. Really made me appreciate that, and
it's still my favorite to this day. But even then,
I've truly enjoyed like The Man with No Name trilogy obviously,
and then of course with the Djengo release that came
from Arrow that also came with Texas Audios. It was
a double feature, and I didn't enjoy that one as
(08:30):
much as Jingo, but it was still like a really
well made, fun movie to watch.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, those are some good ones. I mean Django and
I mean obviously The Dollar's Trilogy is great. Yeah, Jango
is a really that's a good one, especially for people
who are mostly drawn to cult movies, because it is
a little more grim. It's got kind of a dirtier asthetic.
But yeah, yeah, those movies are great. All right, Well,
(08:56):
we're gonna jump into our review of A Pistol for Ringo,
And this is the first western Duccio Tasari directed, but
he had previously co written A Fist Full of Dollars, right,
and like Leoni, he also his first movies that he
directed were Peplums and then he made spaghetti westerns. But
he also made some spy movies and comedies, and then
(09:18):
in the seventies he started making jalli and crime movies.
And for me, his best movie is Tony Arzenta, which
is also known as Big Guns, but it stars Alan
de Lan. It's a great crime movie and it got
a release from Radiance recently. Actually, but are you familiar
with Tasari's other work or is this like your first
(09:39):
time checking out one of his movies.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
I mean, other than his writing work for Fistful, of course, Yes,
this is the first one. But I'm pretty stoked to
be able to see this one. I really thought this
was a unique entry from everything that I've seen, not
only with it being a Christmas story, but just the
story itself. So excited to dive into.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
That nice All right, well, there is definitely there's a
few people in the crew who will be familiar to
fans of Italian genre cinema. And Enya Morconi composed the score,
and Bruno Nikolai is credited as the musical director, and
he's a great composer in his own right. And then, okay,
we've got another Italian name I may need help with,
is it Giuliano?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Giuliano Jemma, Yes, Juliana Jemma.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Okay, and most people might recognize him. I mean he's
younger here, but most people might recognize him from Tenebrae.
He plays the detective in what might be my favorite
Argenta movie. It's definitely up there. And the name Ringo
comes from an actual Old West gunfighter, Johnny Ringo, and
there are a ton of westerns with characters inspired by him.
(10:41):
And because this is a successful Italian movie and they
love capitalizing on a trend, other westerns started coming out
with Ringo and the title, including Tassari's The Return of Ringo,
which is actually not a sequel to this movie, even
though it has a lot of the same cast, they're
all playing different character. And I want to quickly name
(11:02):
I mentioned a couple other people. I think it's Naives Navarro, Yes,
how you say it. She's in some pretty well known
Italian genre movies. She's in All the Colors of the
Dark and The Big Gun Down. And then Jose Manuel Martin,
he's in one of my favorite Louis Bounoel movies. He's
in Vera Diana and he's also in Cutthroats nine. And
(11:23):
then yeah, from there, I'm going to read this is
very brief. The synopsis from Letterbox. It's Juliano Jimma stars
as a cool, cocky mercenary enlisted by a sheriff to
infiltrate a ruthless gang of outlaws. All right, well, Ryan,
what are your thoughts on a pistol for ringo and
what made you choose this for our discussion.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
I am, like many other people with a very large
physical media collection, guilty of having things on my shelf
that I've not watched for a long time that I've
meant to, and this is one that I bought because
of all the things that we've said so far, with
all of the cult ties to this film. For example,
Navarro that you mentioned, not only is she from a
(12:04):
couple of the Big Gun Down and what you mentioned,
but tons of jolly. I mean, she's on death walks
on high hills, deathwalks at midnight, forbidden photos of a
Lady above suspicion, and from a couple of those. I
was mesmerized by the way that she owned the screen
when she was in that and really wanted to see
what she could do here. But aeroed, especially back then
(12:27):
when they released this double feature which I think it
was originally from like twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, something like that.
They did a really good job of selling these titles,
not only with their copy, but with really great art
and making sure that people know what these are attached to.
And when I'm reading the names like the Bloodstained Butterfly
(12:48):
that Tasori also did and death occurred last night, and
of course more Coney, who can say no to that,
But then Juliano Jemma, who has been tied to so
many amazing movies the day. It's one that I desperately
wanted to see, and unfortunately, right after I got it
in my life took off and I was incredibly busy,
(13:09):
and so I just never got a chance to do it.
And this was the perfect opportunity to force myself to
ingest it. I once again, I think I had gone
into this expecting something different, just based on what I'd
seen in the past for my taste. But that being said,
there was a lot to like in here. It's probably
not one I would revisit quickly, but for other people
(13:32):
that love the genre, I could tell this what I
would guess is probably a favorite of many people, because again,
like I brought up earlier. The first of all, just
the unique storyline. Yeah, don't get many things like this
where it feels like a complete departure from the classic
revenge story. This is more of, I don't know, like
an undercover story to begin with. But Jemma's just acting
(13:57):
in this entire thing is a blast, and I really
just paying attention to him, really found an appreciation of
almost every single scene. But I'm sure we're going to
get into two specific things and cinematography and all that
as we go on.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, I enjoyed this. I this was one that I
hadn't seen before. I thought Juliana Jemma was very good
as Ringo. Yes, and I haven't seen him in a
movie where he's the lead before, at least not that
I can remember. And he's actually not in it a
whole lot for the first twenty minutes or so, but
once the main plot is set into motion, he's pretty
(14:32):
much in every scene, and I think the movie really
takes off from there. And I do think you can
tell that Tasori wrote this like it was inspired by
the success of A Fist Full of Dollars, because he's
almost he doesn't he's not like playing against having two
sides play against each other necessarily like the Man with
No Name does, right, but there's a little bit of that.
(14:53):
But I like how different he is as a hero
compared to the Man with No Name. Like he's he's
charming and talkative, energetic, like he's just very different than
that character. And I found it to be just very entertaining.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I mean, even our introduction to him as a character
is completely against type from what we had seen through
things like The Man with No Name trilogy, because you
see him playing a game with kids and that that
seems like the sort of thing that would not be
in many of those other westerns just because it, you know,
looks weak or is an maybe you would see after
(15:29):
they've developed the character quite a bit. But for that
to be the intro, that was a definitely a bold
step I think for this character.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Oh yeah, I thought the intro is excellent. Yes, yeah,
And I think I think there's actually some It's not
like a there's kind of a high body count. It's
not a very violent movie, but there are there is
some surprising some one scene in particular that surprised me,
like considering the tone of the movie. You know, there's
(15:57):
the gang that Ringo infiltrates has taken hostages at a
wealthy family's house. And while they're there, they're killing a
hostage every morning and evening. Yes, And in one scene
they kill a male hostage and the main villain played
by Fernando Sancho and he's actually playing a character named Sancho.
He then kills the man's wife, saying he thinks it's
(16:19):
cruel to leave a loved one behind or something like that.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And then it cuts to a shot of a child
crying and Ringo tells the kid not to cry for
the dead because it's meaningless. And I thought, this is
that's a pretty cold, violent scene for an otherwise kind
of lively and fun movie.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Very cold, yeah, especially for a movie that start literally
the very first thing you see is two people approaching
each other in the middle of a road like a
town square, where in any other Western it would have
started with them squaring off against each other, guns drawn,
and all they do is wish each other on Merry Christmas.
And then you get a scene like that. Yeah, it's
a big turn.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, And I and you know, I wouldn't say this
is like one of the greats of the genre, but
I did think it was very entertaining, and I don't
have a whole lot of negative things to say about it.
My main problem is actually with the end of the movie,
which I thought was just exceptionally goofy, Like shooting that
tiny bell and having a bullet ricochet off of it
(17:20):
and kill someone is impossible and kind of stupid.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah, but that is a very exact note that I
wrote down. I wrote down impossible and idiotic, and I
love that you just said almost the exact same thing.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, but of course I can let it go. This
isn't like the most serious movie ever, and it definitely
didn't ruin it.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
For me for sure, definitely didn't ruin it. But it
is out of place when the rest of the movie
plays it fairly straight. I mean there's a couple, yeah,
there's a couple like comedy breaks, I guess where they
kind of tell a joke, But this one is just
so out of the field of complete unreality that it
does not make sense with the rest of the film.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, I agree. Now, a couple of things that separate
kind of spaghetti westerns from Hollywood westerns at the time
is like the action in the visual style like Leoni
really changed what a hero in a western looks and
acts like. And he brought like an operatic visual style
to the genre that really just didn't exist in Hollywood
(18:21):
at the time. But what did you think of the
action in this and Tasorry's direction.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
I'll start with the direction here, because there was a
couple of things that stuck out for me here as well.
I'm not usually one for establishing shots. Usually, I think
a lot of that is unnecessary, and I want you
to give that to me in the in the sense
that the scene plays itself out and if you want to,
you know, show the complete area that we're filming this in,
(18:51):
you do it in a way where you, I don't know,
maybe get a crane shot as somebody's you know, walking
away on a horse or something like that. But something
about Tasari's direction here. He takes a few shots before
we dive into like the house where the hostages are,
and shows you the lay of the land in a
way that feels more artistic than a lot of the
(19:13):
other spaghetti westerns that I've seen. I really appreciated how
he did that. One of the other things, too, is
everything felt it felt unique, even though there were so
many references to everything else, and I really think that
was just him being able to give this special flare
to it, which is hilarious because even like Ringo, he
(19:34):
is wearing almost the exact costume out of High Noon
that Gary Cooper was wearing looks almost identical, and beyond that,
he still comes across as this completely separate, like his
own style of individual even though it's kind of like
a tie to those Hollywood westerns, everybody else that's watching these,
you know, you got a little door into the genre
(19:55):
now because you're, hey, this looks sort of familiar. So yeah,
I feel like he found unique ways to to make
it his own while also giving helpful nods and maybe,
you know, fixing a bridge towards the fans that were
not watching spaghetti westerns regularly, because it works on many
of those levels.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
For me, Yeah, I actually agree with the uh this
being kind of like a bridge from like Hollywood to
Italian westerns. There there's it looks like some westerns, like
Hollywood westerns from the fifties to me a little bit. Now,
there are some moments I don't this might just be
the restoration where it goes kind of desaturated, like really
(20:36):
desaturated in some shots.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yep, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
There's and there's like multiple elements that were pulled. When
it's not that, when it doesn't have that desaturated look,
I think it looks way more like a fifties not
quite Technicolor, but just more like a Hollywood Western. And
I did read that the costuming was inspired by Gary
Cooper's in High Noon. Yeah, and he's also kind of
(20:59):
like a swath, clean cut hero, much more like a
Hollywood Western than an Italian Western. But yeah, I thought
I thought that he did some good work here. For sure.
I thought it was well well directed. I mean, it's
not Leoni, it's not Corbucci. I wouldn't put it on
that level, but I think that it is pretty solid.
(21:21):
Some of the action is maybe a little I don't know,
it's it's certainly not innovative. He'll see somebody shoot a
gun and then it cuts to a shot of the
person falling, like you know, it's not like very stylized.
But overall I still think it was. It was well
made for sure.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yes, as far as the action, the only thing that
really stuck out is I hate to use the word
impressive because obviously making this was difficult, not taking that
away from him, but there was one very specific shot
where Ringo he shoots somebody that was sort of at
close range, and then somebody on a roof across the
street steps out and Ringo takes him out quickly. And
(22:00):
this was a second story roof, so it's quite high,
and they mostly showed the entire stunt. The guy on
the roof falls and does a flip on the way down,
and you can almost see like it's barely hidden by
a brush or the edge of a fence or something
like that, and you can see and hear the guy
essentially hit the ground, And so I'm like, how did
(22:22):
they hide whatever padding this guy landed on? Because that
genuinely like took me by surprise that it looked that
great for a film like this, because he again, he
wasn't taking many many risks at least, and some of
these other scenes where you would have thought, hey, this
is probably gonna be a memorable action set piece. Let's
make this one special, and then they all just sort
(22:44):
of were vary by the book.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, that stunt definitely stood out to me. It actually
reminded me of have you seen a Millionaire's Express the
same o'hung movie.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, a while ago.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, there's a scene where U and Biao jumps off
of a building and you see him land and he
kind of like rolls up onto his feet. And in
the commentary, Frank Jang says that they actually have there's
a specific name for it, but on under the dirt
they buried a thin Japanese mattress. I can't remember what
(23:18):
those mattresses are called. And so he did land on
a mattress, but he had to land perfectly. Oh yeah,
Giuliano Jimma, he actually started his career as a stunt man.
Oh yes, And there's a scene where he dismounts from
a horse that's moving very fast. Yep, that is really impressive.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, Gemma does a lot of his own stunts through
most of his films, I believe, until oh gosh, I
don't remember the year, but it was a while after
this one. He was pretty much always down to try
anything because he'd done, if I remember, write some circus work. Okay, actually,
and he funny enough. I should probably tell the story now.
Back in July of twenty twenty four, I went to
(24:04):
Los Angeles for some of the production work that I'm doing,
and one of the things that I was able to
do was go to a showing at the Los Felese
three Theater and they were showing a film called Vera.
Now I did not know what this was. I read
the synopsis. It sounded like some sort of odd documentary
and I show up and watch the film and it's
(24:26):
about this woman named Vera and she's living under the
shadow of her father who used to be an actor,
and she is trying to get by in life without
being a star because some people won't hire her. And
then some people come along and they see her and
they put her in this movie where she's essentially playing herself.
(24:48):
And this woman was via Gemma. This is Juliano Jemma's daughter,
and the movie was incredible, Like the entire film is
shadowed by the fact that Juliano Jima is this massive
name and this woman she feels like she doesn't have
much talent. She's facing a lot of really hard things
that were inspired by her real life activities. And the
(25:09):
film itself was done in a very Sean Baker like
cinema verite style where they redid things that actually happened
to her and made her face that emotion again and
it was such a compelling story, and she did a
Q and A afterwards. She was there with Sean Baker actually
doing the QA and hearing her speak about her father
(25:30):
and the life that she's had to face doing some
of the same things. She went and did some circus
work like her father did. She wanted to do acting,
She's wanted to do some other stuff, and it took
something like this to get a film made that was
for her. And even now she's not a young individual,
she's not super old or anything, but it took a
while for her to get this sort of a break.
(25:51):
But that was an incredible bridge moment for me to
have that happen this year and then watch this film,
which is Giuliano Jima a young age and seeing that
it gave me just this massive sense of appreciation for
everything I've been able to experience over these last six months.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
All right.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Now, I do want to spend a little time talking
about Lorille de Luca. She plays Ruby and she was
actually married to Duccio Tasorry and I want and Naives
Navarro's I want to talk about you know, there to
those two characters. So yeah, de Luca plays Ruby and
whose family is being held hostage by this violent gang,
and Navarro's character is part of the gang but is
(26:34):
sort of being romanced by Ruby's father and the women
in these movies, they don't always get to play the
most interesting characters. But I actually thought both of these
gals were one. I thought they were both really good,
especially de Luca. I thought I had never seen her before,
at least I don't. I don't think I have, and
I thought she was great. But I thought they were
both like pretty strong and well written characters. What did
(26:58):
you think of their portrayals in this?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
I was impressed. I think they both had at least
a couple of standout scenes and then some scenes that
were you could tell just sort of glossed over in
the script. But the fact that the writing for this
was done in a way that made the women more
than just your classic damsel in distress, which most of
these films did, was so interesting. And the best thing
(27:22):
is that changed the dynamic of many scenes because there's
you know, there's a scene at dinner where there's multiple females,
and generally they would be completely overlooked. It would be
just the men, And funny enough, they lean into that stereotype.
They make it look like the controlling brutish man that
is the quote anti hero or bad guy or whatever.
Here is somebody that's going to take control of the
(27:44):
situation and he's going to make it terrible for everybody,
and the women start to stand up for the men
and do what they can to be their own imposing
force there and it works. You're there questioning like, well,
before I thought I knew what was going to happen. Well,
now if we're giving them actual pages of script to
(28:05):
live and develop, I don't even know what's going to happen.
So the next scene could be so much more compelling
because who knows what they're gonna have him do.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I did wonder if Navarro's character did she kind of
fall for Ruby's father. Was it maybe a little too
easy or do you think that the way he treated
her was just so like refreshing basically that she just
had that she had never like experienced this kind of treatment,
and so that's why it was so easy for her
(28:33):
to kind of be attracted to him.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
All right, look, hunter, we can't get past all of
the tropes. Yeah, that's true. I mean it's yeah, it
stuck out obviously is a little out of place from
from where they were going. With the rest of it, however,
I mean taking up an emotion. Yeah, I could maybe
see him, see him really really feeling it in that moment.
Who knows.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I think you mentioned earlier it does take place during
the holidays, and there as seen actually where they I
think they're singing Silent Night, Holy Night, and it cuts
to another location and Morricone uses the melody from the
song in his score for a moment, and I thought
it worked like beautifully. I love that he did that.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
I'm just gonna say, yeah, all of the scenes that
referenced Christmas, I think is what really made this feel
more unique to me, because obviously you've got great snow
Westerns that already exist, But something about this being in
a complete like warm desert landscape and having it still
be Christmas time, and realizing that is the case for
(29:37):
many people, especially when this is set in Texas. Supposedly
that is life like most people in Texas are not
experiencing a snowy Christmas, and so having them to lean
into the season without leaning into the weather aspect. I
think really sets it apart because I was not going
into this expecting a Christmas movie.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I could be right, all right, So yeah, and then
the next thing I was going to ask, would you
consider this a Christmas movie?
Speaker 3 (30:09):
I mean absolutely. The movie starts with two individuals wishing
them each other Merry Christmas, and they even like they
sing a hymn together. Not to mention, we see decorations
throughout that. There's quite a bit that makes this Christmas story.
And beyond that, I think the fact that it's not
the classic revenge type story makes it feel even more
(30:30):
like a Christmas movie because it is sort of, you know,
let's let's get somebody out of jail who was put
in there by self defense with the world's fastest trial,
which I absolutely loved, and then he's put in a
situation where he's there to essentially rescue a family, and
(30:50):
that itself where it's I mean kind of like borderline
many of the other Christmas action flicks that we would
talk about is this Western Diehard almost it's him acting,
you know, solo in another group of people trying to
break them out of something that feels like a dire situation.
I mean, it's a great Christmas movie. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Absolutely, yeah. Now this is something I struggle with because,
like die Hard, I do not consider a Christmas movie,
even though a lot of people like to say they
think of it as a Christmas movie and they can't say.
They can say that, and that's fine, but for me,
I think a Christmas movie you should only feel comfortable
(31:35):
watching during the holiday season, and so this is a
movie I could watch any time of the year.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
My criteria for that has always been to have it
be a Christmas story. You can't be able to remove
the entire aspect of Christmas and have the plot still
makes sense. So I'm not a huge Diehard fan at all. However,
it makes sense to me as a Christmas film because
(32:06):
without it being Christmas, not Katomi Plaza would have been
full of people. It's the only way that the story
makes sense.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Okay, that's a good point.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
And so with this film, I think a lot of
the aspects of it being a Christmas film actually do
lend to the plot. I mean, they continuously in this
film talk about how people are interacting with each other,
and people are leaving but going to come back because
it's Christmas and people are spending time together as a
(32:34):
family because of Christmas.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, you are right, man, I have to agree with you.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Yeah, It's not something that I ever really put too
much thought in. But if I mean this for some reason,
that silly question comes up every single year around the
holiday season for people, And you're right. You know, just
having Christmas lights in the background does not make it
a Christmas movie. But if Christmas is essential to the plot,
even if I'm watching it in June, it does feel
(33:04):
like a Christmas movie.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
All right, Well that makes sense. Well, I actually don't
really have anything else to add. Do you have any
final thoughts before we wrap up?
Speaker 3 (33:15):
I mean, since I am the ignoramus here that has
not spent a lot of time with westerns, what about
yourself as somebody that has such a huge history with
the Hollywood westerns. How does this stack up for you?
Does it feel like an entry that does feel more
like a Hollywood Western and bridges the gap for people
like I thought, or does this feel still very separate
from the rest of the Hollywood Westerns. I think it.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Bridges the gap very nicely. I mean I think I think,
like we said earlier, I think the fact that the
hero is like a clean cut and likable guy. And
I think that there are very clear heroes and villains.
There's really no ambiguity about not at all who's good
(33:59):
and who's And I even think the holiday element is
a little more Hollywood. Let's say, I even think the
Searchers I even think has a Christmas scene if I
remember correctly. So that does feel way more in line
with Hollywood than with spaghetti westerns to me, right, But yeah,
(34:23):
I think so. Yeah, I think, like we've kind of said,
it's a great bridging between the Hollywood and in Italy
for sure.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
One thing we forgot to mention, and for those that
have not seen it, this is how clean cut Ringo is.
I love how they specify that he only drinks milk.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yes, that that is a tremendous little detail with that character.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
It was so unnecessary the script, but sorry, I was like,
you know what, You're only going to drink milk?
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Does it any say? Why doesn't he say something about
like he wants to be sober for a specific reason.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yeah, something like that. But it's just such a funny
like character development piece that it really doesn't add that much.
But the funny thing is it's memorable. Something about it
makes it feel like, well, no, he's serious, he's actually
a good guy. He's not there ordering whiskey like the
rest of them. Right.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, that's I'm glad that you brought that up, because yeah,
that is definitely a pretty cool, like memorable element of
that character for sure.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Well, and I know that on the show you're gonna
be talking about many different types of Westerns, but as
the ignoramus again, I got to find out for you.
That's you know, you have seen me develop my taste
over the last three years. What do you think is
the most go to answer for a Western that you
think I would genuinely like. For the things that you
(35:56):
know that I've seen, the things that you know that
I've liked, what do you think you'd recommend is the
one to make me fall in love with westerns?
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Okay, so Hollywood westerns. I would go with Day of
the Outlaw, okay, which I believe has a release from
Keino and maybe from Eureka, directed by Andre de taf
And it is a pretty dark, like your serious dramatic
(36:27):
western and it and it does have snow and kind
of you know, I don't know, I guess, and kind
of harsh environment which I always like in any movie,
really like if it's come and see, like a war
movie or a Western or whatever. That's just something that
(36:51):
I'm drawn to. And it is like a bleak and
very mature, like adult movie. I think you would really
like Day of the Outlaw. Did you have any other
final thoughts or was that pretty much it?
Speaker 3 (37:06):
H That was pretty much it. I would say as
somebody that does not love a lot of Westerns, it's
it was still something that I appreciated, and for somebody
that loves physical media, I am just completely stoked that
companies like Aro will put the time into giving a
new two K restoration to both of these films in
this set that you know, as you said, they don't
(37:27):
look perfect, but they look pretty good, and they look
for sure, they're fairly consistent. But for something that at
this point is literally about to be sixty years old, Yeah,
that was from a cult area that they weren't keeping
super great conditions of the reels, these look pretty magnificent.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
All right, Ryan, Well, where can people find you on
social media?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
If you want to find my stuff related to the
disconnected or physical media advocates. The magazine I publish everywhere
is under the disconnected or disc connected, depending on where
social media is handled that for the production company. Generally
it's under Someone's Favorite Productions or Twitter at slash xss
some fave prod. But the biggest thing is we have
(38:15):
a website, Someone's Favorite Productions dot com. You can find
a list of all of the Blu rays that we have,
extras Honor that we've produced. You can find ways to
get in contact with us if you would like us
to do extras for you, or if you're interested in
working on extras with us. We have hired many people
that probably would not have been able to get a
foot into the industry, and that is one of our
missions to make sure that voices that would not have
(38:37):
had a chance get a chance, and we will continue
to do that as long as we can.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Very cool, all right, Ryan, Well this was excellent. Thank
you so much for doing this.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Thank you so much. This was an honor and I
appreciate people like you that forced me to get out
of my comfort zone.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
I hope you enjoyed our conversation. Thank you to Ryan
for guesting on the show. I had a blast talking
about this movie with him and I'm looking forward to
having him on again in the future. What did you
think of the episode and what are your thoughts on
epistol for Ringo. You can let me know by emailing
me at Tumbleweeds and Tvcowboys at gmail dot com. You
can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and x All the
links are in the show notes. Next week I have
(39:17):
a new guest, Jim Laskowski from The Director's Club podcast
is joining me for discussion on Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar.
Until then, if you're looking for more film related podcasts,
please check out other shows on the Someone's Favorite Productions
podcast network. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
Are you a film fan who loves the ultimate home
video experience, look no further than the Discconnected. Your host,
Ryan Verel, is your go to source for the latest
and most accurate information on home video releases, exclusive interviews
with industry insiders and filmmakers, and has established a thriving
community where every film and physical media enthusiast feels welcome.
(39:56):
From hidden gems to Blockbuster hits, The Disconnected brings you
insider knowledge and a welcoming space to share your love
of cinema. Watch every Thursday night at nine thirty eastern
six thirty Pacific for the live announcements show, and follow
the Discconnected on social media to stay updated. Subscribe to
The Disconnected on YouTube or on the podcast provider of
(40:18):
your choice and dive into a world where every movie
night is an adventure.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Thank you for listening. To hear more shows from the
Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network, Please select the link in
the description.
You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome back to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys, a classic Western
film and TV podcast. My name is Hunter. This week
we're talking about a spaghetti Western Duccio Tasory's a Pistol
for Ringo. Joining me for this conversation is Ryan Verel,
one of the founders of the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast
network and the man behind the great YouTube channel That Disconnected.
Ryan is so passionate about physical media and movies, and
(00:39):
I've gotten to know him in the past couple of
years and he's a great guy. I'm so happy we
had the opportunity to talk about this movie. Here is
our conversation on a Pistol for Ringo. Ryan, Thanks for
coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Hi excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.
I've been eager to hear your first episode and can't
wait to see these be released.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeo, I'm very excited to have you on tonight. We're
going to be discussing is it now? I actually have
a question. You're very good with non American names. Duccio Tasory.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Uh So, the way that I researched today, I had
heard it two different ways, Duccio, I believe is correct.
But I've heard the the stress on the last name
as Tessari but also Tessai. I cannot find out which
one it specifically was by him, but to me, like
through through my my eyes of what I do, I
(01:33):
would have said Tasory same way that you did, but honestly,
as an Italian name, it might be more Tessari.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
All right, well, I'll sleep with Tasorry because that that
just sounds right to me when hearing it sounds good,
sounds stronger. Yes, Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you
about his first spaghetti Western epistol for Ringo. And yeah,
I've been following your YouTube channel for maybe like three
years at this point, and then and I reached out
(02:01):
to you maybe a couple of years ago. We've become friends. Yeah,
I've been on Reconnected a few times, which I lose
more hair every time I'm on, because my anxiety goes
sky high as soon as we go live in front
of your audience.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, to hopefully display some empathy, I want everybody to know,
and I try to explain this before we go live.
I still feel that every single week, I still fear
looking like a complete idiot. I still fear that I'm
going to say something wrong. I still fear that I'm
gonna forget how to do the things that I've been
doing every single week for three and a half years.
(02:38):
And it's obviously unfounded, and it's unfounded for you to
have super anxiety. But we both deal with it and
we push through.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, it does not cut. I've never seen it come
across with you on the live stream.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
For sure, fake it till you make it.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
But yeah, but you do so much more than your
weekly live show.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Ryan.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Can you tell us about yourself and your work in
physical media releases?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Sure? So I started my my YouTube channel and podcast
here in early twenty twenty one. I was posting, like
on social media accounts some of the physical media announcements
and deals and stuff like that, sharing pictures of my collection,
and was, you know, sitting at home in COVID and figured, Hey,
I kind of want to do some more with this
(03:22):
and I feel like I could do it better than
some people out there. So I started my show and
quickly I had people asking for a live show. They
wanted more personal interaction, so I brought that on and
that just evolved into bringing on guests, and so I
started doing these interviews where I would bring on somebody
from the industry, whether they be filmmakers or somebody from
physical media, and that led to a number of close relationships.
(03:47):
At this point, I mean, I've stayed at people's houses
that I, you know, four years ago, never would have
imagined that I would have even you know, had the
pleasure of speaking to these people. And now I've shared
a meal at their dinning their dinner table. It's it's crazy.
So now I'm producing discs for multiple companies. I own
a production company called Someone's Favorite Productions, and we are
(04:08):
working on bonus features for visual essays, audio commentaries, interviews,
even some sort of innovative ways to express some of
these films in a new contextual fashion that we've not
seen on many discs. So doing our best to try
new things there. But on top of all that, I
(04:28):
also publish a magazine about ten nine or ten times
a year called The Physical Media Advocate, and I bring
in writers from all over the world to share some
of their passions, and it's in physical stores across the
US and even some in Canada. I'm working on expanding
that but you can also pick it up on Amazon worldwide.
There's probably more I'm forgetting, but yeah, it's a very
(04:52):
busy period of my life I can say that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well it's been so cool. I mean, as someone who's
been you know, familiar with your channel for a while,
to see it grow and to see you get involved
with all of these labels, I mean, I couldn't be
happier for you. I think it is just awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I appreciate that, and you truly have been there almost
since the beginning, so it's nice to have a kinship
and a genuine friendship with somebody like you, and it's
wonderful to see you get into the creative community again
with me and stuff like this. Can't wait to see
how this podcast grows.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, I'm excited. It should be fun. It's going to
be a lot of people on the someone's favorite podcast network,
so that'll be cool. Now, I'd like to hear something
some about your history with the Western genre. Can you
tell us about that?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Sure, I came from I hate to use the term
broken home, but I had this really weird history when
I was a child. My dad had a bunch of
heart problems and actually not to be morbid at the
beginning of this ranking. My dad died twice when I
was a kid. He died in the hospital once and
then died at home at the dinner table once. And
he's still alive today, so it's not too morbid. But
(06:00):
because of that, I kind of got passed around to
family members that could deal with a young child. I
was literally like two to four years old during this time,
so I would stay with grandparents, go to aunts and
uncles for like literally a couple weeks at a time,
and just sort of get passed around where it went.
But one of the people that I stayed with the
most was my great grandparents, and my great grandfather was
(06:23):
a massive Westerns fan. We're talking We lived in southern California,
and he wore belt buckles and cowboy hats and had
paintings of desert skyscapes and had Westerns playing literally almost
all day long. So as a child, I witnessed a
lot of these movies, and I don't remember most of them.
(06:43):
I just remember when I was a child really hating
them because they were the most boring thing in the world.
But I've been trying to expand that palette as an
adult and get past the mindset of this is not
fun instead of trying to teach myself now of there's
a lot to learn to this. I mean, there's so
(07:04):
much foundations of film within each of these that not
only are there great filmmakers, but great actors that got
their start in these, and really trying to push past
some of those that I overlooked for so long because
of that excellent.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, I know the Hollywood westerns are not really your
thing that you enjoy some spaghetti westerns. What are some
of your favorite spaghetti westerns.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I mean it's cliche as hell, but I fell in
love with Jango the first time I saw it, primarily
because I got the four K release that came out
from Aero Video of Django and was just mystified by
how great it looked for a film that came out
in nineteen sixty six to literally be able to posit
(07:49):
and point out specific pebbles in the mud was amazing
to me that it was preserved like that. And then
the fact that I could go look in the special
features and here from Franco Nero himself and have him
explain how it was to lug a coffin around for
a couple hours and really dive into what was the
(08:10):
history of that filmmaking. Really made me appreciate that, and
it's still my favorite to this day. But even then,
I've truly enjoyed like The Man with No Name trilogy obviously,
and then of course with the Djengo release that came
from Arrow that also came with Texas Audios. It was
a double feature, and I didn't enjoy that one as
(08:30):
much as Jingo, but it was still like a really
well made, fun movie to watch.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, those are some good ones. I mean Django and
I mean obviously The Dollar's Trilogy is great. Yeah, Jango
is a really that's a good one, especially for people
who are mostly drawn to cult movies, because it is
a little more grim. It's got kind of a dirtier asthetic.
But yeah, yeah, those movies are great. All right, Well,
(08:56):
we're gonna jump into our review of A Pistol for Ringo,
And this is the first western Duccio Tasari directed, but
he had previously co written A Fist Full of Dollars, right,
and like Leoni, he also his first movies that he
directed were Peplums and then he made spaghetti westerns. But
he also made some spy movies and comedies, and then
(09:18):
in the seventies he started making jalli and crime movies.
And for me, his best movie is Tony Arzenta, which
is also known as Big Guns, but it stars Alan
de Lan. It's a great crime movie and it got
a release from Radiance recently. Actually, but are you familiar
with Tasari's other work or is this like your first
(09:39):
time checking out one of his movies.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
I mean, other than his writing work for Fistful, of course, Yes,
this is the first one. But I'm pretty stoked to
be able to see this one. I really thought this
was a unique entry from everything that I've seen, not
only with it being a Christmas story, but just the
story itself. So excited to dive into.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
That nice All right, well, there is definitely there's a
few people in the crew who will be familiar to
fans of Italian genre cinema. And Enya Morconi composed the score,
and Bruno Nikolai is credited as the musical director, and
he's a great composer in his own right. And then, okay,
we've got another Italian name I may need help with,
is it Giuliano?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Giuliano Jemma, Yes, Juliana Jemma.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Okay, and most people might recognize him. I mean he's
younger here, but most people might recognize him from Tenebrae.
He plays the detective in what might be my favorite
Argenta movie. It's definitely up there. And the name Ringo
comes from an actual Old West gunfighter, Johnny Ringo, and
there are a ton of westerns with characters inspired by him.
(10:41):
And because this is a successful Italian movie and they
love capitalizing on a trend, other westerns started coming out
with Ringo and the title, including Tassari's The Return of Ringo,
which is actually not a sequel to this movie, even
though it has a lot of the same cast, they're
all playing different character. And I want to quickly name
(11:02):
I mentioned a couple other people. I think it's Naives Navarro, Yes,
how you say it. She's in some pretty well known
Italian genre movies. She's in All the Colors of the
Dark and The Big Gun Down. And then Jose Manuel Martin,
he's in one of my favorite Louis Bounoel movies. He's
in Vera Diana and he's also in Cutthroats nine. And
(11:23):
then yeah, from there, I'm going to read this is
very brief. The synopsis from Letterbox. It's Juliano Jimma stars
as a cool, cocky mercenary enlisted by a sheriff to
infiltrate a ruthless gang of outlaws. All right, well, Ryan,
what are your thoughts on a pistol for ringo and
what made you choose this for our discussion.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
I am, like many other people with a very large
physical media collection, guilty of having things on my shelf
that I've not watched for a long time that I've
meant to, and this is one that I bought because
of all the things that we've said so far, with
all of the cult ties to this film. For example,
Navarro that you mentioned, not only is she from a
(12:04):
couple of the Big Gun Down and what you mentioned,
but tons of jolly. I mean, she's on death walks
on high hills, deathwalks at midnight, forbidden photos of a
Lady above suspicion, and from a couple of those. I
was mesmerized by the way that she owned the screen
when she was in that and really wanted to see
what she could do here. But aeroed, especially back then
(12:27):
when they released this double feature which I think it
was originally from like twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, something like that.
They did a really good job of selling these titles,
not only with their copy, but with really great art
and making sure that people know what these are attached to.
And when I'm reading the names like the Bloodstained Butterfly
(12:48):
that Tasori also did and death occurred last night, and
of course more Coney, who can say no to that,
But then Juliano Jemma, who has been tied to so
many amazing movies the day. It's one that I desperately
wanted to see, and unfortunately, right after I got it
in my life took off and I was incredibly busy,
(13:09):
and so I just never got a chance to do it.
And this was the perfect opportunity to force myself to
ingest it. I once again, I think I had gone
into this expecting something different, just based on what I'd
seen in the past for my taste. But that being said,
there was a lot to like in here. It's probably
not one I would revisit quickly, but for other people
(13:32):
that love the genre, I could tell this what I
would guess is probably a favorite of many people, because again,
like I brought up earlier. The first of all, just
the unique storyline. Yeah, don't get many things like this
where it feels like a complete departure from the classic
revenge story. This is more of, I don't know, like
an undercover story to begin with. But Jemma's just acting
(13:57):
in this entire thing is a blast, and I really
just paying attention to him, really found an appreciation of
almost every single scene. But I'm sure we're going to
get into two specific things and cinematography and all that
as we go on.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, I enjoyed this. I this was one that I
hadn't seen before. I thought Juliana Jemma was very good
as Ringo. Yes, and I haven't seen him in a
movie where he's the lead before, at least not that
I can remember. And he's actually not in it a
whole lot for the first twenty minutes or so, but
once the main plot is set into motion, he's pretty
(14:32):
much in every scene, and I think the movie really
takes off from there. And I do think you can
tell that Tasori wrote this like it was inspired by
the success of A Fist Full of Dollars, because he's
almost he doesn't he's not like playing against having two
sides play against each other necessarily like the Man with
No Name does, right, but there's a little bit of that.
(14:53):
But I like how different he is as a hero
compared to the Man with No Name. Like he's he's
charming and talkative, energetic, like he's just very different than
that character. And I found it to be just very entertaining.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I mean, even our introduction to him as a character
is completely against type from what we had seen through
things like The Man with No Name trilogy, because you
see him playing a game with kids and that that
seems like the sort of thing that would not be
in many of those other westerns just because it, you know,
looks weak or is an maybe you would see after
(15:29):
they've developed the character quite a bit. But for that
to be the intro, that was a definitely a bold
step I think for this character.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Oh yeah, I thought the intro is excellent. Yes, yeah,
And I think I think there's actually some It's not
like a there's kind of a high body count. It's
not a very violent movie, but there are there is
some surprising some one scene in particular that surprised me,
like considering the tone of the movie. You know, there's
(15:57):
the gang that Ringo infiltrates has taken hostages at a
wealthy family's house. And while they're there, they're killing a
hostage every morning and evening. Yes, And in one scene
they kill a male hostage and the main villain played
by Fernando Sancho and he's actually playing a character named Sancho.
He then kills the man's wife, saying he thinks it's
(16:19):
cruel to leave a loved one behind or something like that.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And then it cuts to a shot of a child
crying and Ringo tells the kid not to cry for
the dead because it's meaningless. And I thought, this is
that's a pretty cold, violent scene for an otherwise kind
of lively and fun movie.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Very cold, yeah, especially for a movie that start literally
the very first thing you see is two people approaching
each other in the middle of a road like a
town square, where in any other Western it would have
started with them squaring off against each other, guns drawn,
and all they do is wish each other on Merry Christmas.
And then you get a scene like that. Yeah, it's
a big turn.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, And I and you know, I wouldn't say this
is like one of the greats of the genre, but
I did think it was very entertaining, and I don't
have a whole lot of negative things to say about it.
My main problem is actually with the end of the movie,
which I thought was just exceptionally goofy, Like shooting that
tiny bell and having a bullet ricochet off of it
(17:20):
and kill someone is impossible and kind of stupid.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah, but that is a very exact note that I
wrote down. I wrote down impossible and idiotic, and I
love that you just said almost the exact same thing.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, but of course I can let it go. This
isn't like the most serious movie ever, and it definitely
didn't ruin it.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
For me for sure, definitely didn't ruin it. But it
is out of place when the rest of the movie
plays it fairly straight. I mean there's a couple, yeah,
there's a couple like comedy breaks, I guess where they
kind of tell a joke, But this one is just
so out of the field of complete unreality that it
does not make sense with the rest of the film.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, I agree. Now, a couple of things that separate
kind of spaghetti westerns from Hollywood westerns at the time
is like the action in the visual style like Leoni
really changed what a hero in a western looks and
acts like. And he brought like an operatic visual style
to the genre that really just didn't exist in Hollywood
(18:21):
at the time. But what did you think of the
action in this and Tasorry's direction.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
I'll start with the direction here, because there was a
couple of things that stuck out for me here as well.
I'm not usually one for establishing shots. Usually, I think
a lot of that is unnecessary, and I want you
to give that to me in the in the sense
that the scene plays itself out and if you want to,
you know, show the complete area that we're filming this in,
(18:51):
you do it in a way where you, I don't know,
maybe get a crane shot as somebody's you know, walking
away on a horse or something like that. But something
about Tasari's direction here. He takes a few shots before
we dive into like the house where the hostages are,
and shows you the lay of the land in a
way that feels more artistic than a lot of the
(19:13):
other spaghetti westerns that I've seen. I really appreciated how
he did that. One of the other things, too, is
everything felt it felt unique, even though there were so
many references to everything else, and I really think that
was just him being able to give this special flare
to it, which is hilarious because even like Ringo, he
(19:34):
is wearing almost the exact costume out of High Noon
that Gary Cooper was wearing looks almost identical, and beyond that,
he still comes across as this completely separate, like his
own style of individual even though it's kind of like
a tie to those Hollywood westerns, everybody else that's watching these,
you know, you got a little door into the genre
(19:55):
now because you're, hey, this looks sort of familiar. So yeah,
I feel like he found unique ways to to make
it his own while also giving helpful nods and maybe,
you know, fixing a bridge towards the fans that were
not watching spaghetti westerns regularly, because it works on many
of those levels.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
For me, Yeah, I actually agree with the uh this
being kind of like a bridge from like Hollywood to
Italian westerns. There there's it looks like some westerns, like
Hollywood westerns from the fifties to me a little bit. Now,
there are some moments I don't this might just be
the restoration where it goes kind of desaturated, like really
(20:36):
desaturated in some shots.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yep, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
There's and there's like multiple elements that were pulled. When
it's not that, when it doesn't have that desaturated look,
I think it looks way more like a fifties not
quite Technicolor, but just more like a Hollywood Western. And
I did read that the costuming was inspired by Gary
Cooper's in High Noon. Yeah, and he's also kind of
(20:59):
like a swath, clean cut hero, much more like a
Hollywood Western than an Italian Western. But yeah, I thought
I thought that he did some good work here. For sure.
I thought it was well well directed. I mean, it's
not Leoni, it's not Corbucci. I wouldn't put it on
that level, but I think that it is pretty solid.
(21:21):
Some of the action is maybe a little I don't know,
it's it's certainly not innovative. He'll see somebody shoot a
gun and then it cuts to a shot of the
person falling, like you know, it's not like very stylized.
But overall I still think it was. It was well
made for sure.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yes, as far as the action, the only thing that
really stuck out is I hate to use the word
impressive because obviously making this was difficult, not taking that
away from him, but there was one very specific shot
where Ringo he shoots somebody that was sort of at
close range, and then somebody on a roof across the
street steps out and Ringo takes him out quickly. And
(22:00):
this was a second story roof, so it's quite high,
and they mostly showed the entire stunt. The guy on
the roof falls and does a flip on the way down,
and you can almost see like it's barely hidden by
a brush or the edge of a fence or something
like that, and you can see and hear the guy
essentially hit the ground, And so I'm like, how did
(22:22):
they hide whatever padding this guy landed on? Because that
genuinely like took me by surprise that it looked that
great for a film like this, because he again, he
wasn't taking many many risks at least, and some of
these other scenes where you would have thought, hey, this
is probably gonna be a memorable action set piece. Let's
make this one special, and then they all just sort
(22:44):
of were vary by the book.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, that stunt definitely stood out to me. It actually
reminded me of have you seen a Millionaire's Express the
same o'hung movie.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, a while ago.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, there's a scene where U and Biao jumps off
of a building and you see him land and he
kind of like rolls up onto his feet. And in
the commentary, Frank Jang says that they actually have there's
a specific name for it, but on under the dirt
they buried a thin Japanese mattress. I can't remember what
(23:18):
those mattresses are called. And so he did land on
a mattress, but he had to land perfectly. Oh yeah,
Giuliano Jimma, he actually started his career as a stunt man.
Oh yes, And there's a scene where he dismounts from
a horse that's moving very fast. Yep, that is really impressive.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, Gemma does a lot of his own stunts through
most of his films, I believe, until oh gosh, I
don't remember the year, but it was a while after
this one. He was pretty much always down to try
anything because he'd done, if I remember, write some circus work. Okay, actually,
and he funny enough. I should probably tell the story now.
Back in July of twenty twenty four, I went to
(24:04):
Los Angeles for some of the production work that I'm doing,
and one of the things that I was able to
do was go to a showing at the Los Felese
three Theater and they were showing a film called Vera.
Now I did not know what this was. I read
the synopsis. It sounded like some sort of odd documentary
and I show up and watch the film and it's
(24:26):
about this woman named Vera and she's living under the
shadow of her father who used to be an actor,
and she is trying to get by in life without
being a star because some people won't hire her. And
then some people come along and they see her and
they put her in this movie where she's essentially playing herself.
(24:48):
And this woman was via Gemma. This is Juliano Jemma's daughter,
and the movie was incredible, Like the entire film is
shadowed by the fact that Juliano Jima is this massive
name and this woman she feels like she doesn't have
much talent. She's facing a lot of really hard things
that were inspired by her real life activities. And the
(25:09):
film itself was done in a very Sean Baker like
cinema verite style where they redid things that actually happened
to her and made her face that emotion again and
it was such a compelling story, and she did a
Q and A afterwards. She was there with Sean Baker actually
doing the QA and hearing her speak about her father
(25:30):
and the life that she's had to face doing some
of the same things. She went and did some circus
work like her father did. She wanted to do acting,
She's wanted to do some other stuff, and it took
something like this to get a film made that was
for her. And even now she's not a young individual,
she's not super old or anything, but it took a
while for her to get this sort of a break.
(25:51):
But that was an incredible bridge moment for me to
have that happen this year and then watch this film,
which is Giuliano Jima a young age and seeing that
it gave me just this massive sense of appreciation for
everything I've been able to experience over these last six months.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
All right.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Now, I do want to spend a little time talking
about Lorille de Luca. She plays Ruby and she was
actually married to Duccio Tasorry and I want and Naives
Navarro's I want to talk about you know, there to
those two characters. So yeah, de Luca plays Ruby and
whose family is being held hostage by this violent gang,
and Navarro's character is part of the gang but is
(26:34):
sort of being romanced by Ruby's father and the women
in these movies, they don't always get to play the
most interesting characters. But I actually thought both of these
gals were one. I thought they were both really good,
especially de Luca. I thought I had never seen her before,
at least I don't. I don't think I have, and
I thought she was great. But I thought they were
both like pretty strong and well written characters. What did
(26:58):
you think of their portrayals in this?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
I was impressed. I think they both had at least
a couple of standout scenes and then some scenes that
were you could tell just sort of glossed over in
the script. But the fact that the writing for this
was done in a way that made the women more
than just your classic damsel in distress, which most of
these films did, was so interesting. And the best thing
(27:22):
is that changed the dynamic of many scenes because there's
you know, there's a scene at dinner where there's multiple females,
and generally they would be completely overlooked. It would be
just the men, And funny enough, they lean into that stereotype.
They make it look like the controlling brutish man that
is the quote anti hero or bad guy or whatever.
Here is somebody that's going to take control of the
(27:44):
situation and he's going to make it terrible for everybody,
and the women start to stand up for the men
and do what they can to be their own imposing
force there and it works. You're there questioning like, well,
before I thought I knew what was going to happen. Well,
now if we're giving them actual pages of script to
(28:05):
live and develop, I don't even know what's going to happen.
So the next scene could be so much more compelling
because who knows what they're gonna have him do.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I did wonder if Navarro's character did she kind of
fall for Ruby's father. Was it maybe a little too
easy or do you think that the way he treated
her was just so like refreshing basically that she just
had that she had never like experienced this kind of treatment,
and so that's why it was so easy for her
(28:33):
to kind of be attracted to him.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
All right, look, hunter, we can't get past all of
the tropes. Yeah, that's true. I mean it's yeah, it
stuck out obviously is a little out of place from
from where they were going. With the rest of it, however,
I mean taking up an emotion. Yeah, I could maybe
see him, see him really really feeling it in that moment.
Who knows.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I think you mentioned earlier it does take place during
the holidays, and there as seen actually where they I
think they're singing Silent Night, Holy Night, and it cuts
to another location and Morricone uses the melody from the
song in his score for a moment, and I thought
it worked like beautifully. I love that he did that.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
I'm just gonna say, yeah, all of the scenes that
referenced Christmas, I think is what really made this feel
more unique to me, because obviously you've got great snow
Westerns that already exist, But something about this being in
a complete like warm desert landscape and having it still
be Christmas time, and realizing that is the case for
(29:37):
many people, especially when this is set in Texas. Supposedly
that is life like most people in Texas are not
experiencing a snowy Christmas, and so having them to lean
into the season without leaning into the weather aspect. I
think really sets it apart because I was not going
into this expecting a Christmas movie.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I could be right, all right, So yeah, and then
the next thing I was going to ask, would you
consider this a Christmas movie?
Speaker 3 (30:09):
I mean absolutely. The movie starts with two individuals wishing
them each other Merry Christmas, and they even like they
sing a hymn together. Not to mention, we see decorations
throughout that. There's quite a bit that makes this Christmas story.
And beyond that, I think the fact that it's not
the classic revenge type story makes it feel even more
(30:30):
like a Christmas movie because it is sort of, you know,
let's let's get somebody out of jail who was put
in there by self defense with the world's fastest trial,
which I absolutely loved, and then he's put in a
situation where he's there to essentially rescue a family, and
(30:50):
that itself where it's I mean kind of like borderline
many of the other Christmas action flicks that we would
talk about is this Western Diehard almost it's him acting,
you know, solo in another group of people trying to
break them out of something that feels like a dire situation.
I mean, it's a great Christmas movie. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Absolutely, yeah. Now this is something I struggle with because,
like die Hard, I do not consider a Christmas movie,
even though a lot of people like to say they
think of it as a Christmas movie and they can't say.
They can say that, and that's fine, but for me,
I think a Christmas movie you should only feel comfortable
(31:35):
watching during the holiday season, and so this is a
movie I could watch any time of the year.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
My criteria for that has always been to have it
be a Christmas story. You can't be able to remove
the entire aspect of Christmas and have the plot still
makes sense. So I'm not a huge Diehard fan at all. However,
it makes sense to me as a Christmas film because
(32:06):
without it being Christmas, not Katomi Plaza would have been
full of people. It's the only way that the story
makes sense.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Okay, that's a good point.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
And so with this film, I think a lot of
the aspects of it being a Christmas film actually do
lend to the plot. I mean, they continuously in this
film talk about how people are interacting with each other,
and people are leaving but going to come back because
it's Christmas and people are spending time together as a
(32:34):
family because of Christmas.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, you are right, man, I have to agree with you.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Yeah, It's not something that I ever really put too
much thought in. But if I mean this for some reason,
that silly question comes up every single year around the
holiday season for people, And you're right. You know, just
having Christmas lights in the background does not make it
a Christmas movie. But if Christmas is essential to the plot,
even if I'm watching it in June, it does feel
(33:04):
like a Christmas movie.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
All right, Well that makes sense. Well, I actually don't
really have anything else to add. Do you have any
final thoughts before we wrap up?
Speaker 3 (33:15):
I mean, since I am the ignoramus here that has
not spent a lot of time with westerns, what about
yourself as somebody that has such a huge history with
the Hollywood westerns. How does this stack up for you?
Does it feel like an entry that does feel more
like a Hollywood Western and bridges the gap for people
like I thought, or does this feel still very separate
from the rest of the Hollywood Westerns. I think it.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Bridges the gap very nicely. I mean I think I think,
like we said earlier, I think the fact that the
hero is like a clean cut and likable guy. And
I think that there are very clear heroes and villains.
There's really no ambiguity about not at all who's good
(33:59):
and who's And I even think the holiday element is
a little more Hollywood. Let's say, I even think the
Searchers I even think has a Christmas scene if I
remember correctly. So that does feel way more in line
with Hollywood than with spaghetti westerns to me, right, But yeah,
(34:23):
I think so. Yeah, I think, like we've kind of said,
it's a great bridging between the Hollywood and in Italy
for sure.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
One thing we forgot to mention, and for those that
have not seen it, this is how clean cut Ringo is.
I love how they specify that he only drinks milk.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yes, that that is a tremendous little detail with that character.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
It was so unnecessary the script, but sorry, I was like,
you know what, You're only going to drink milk?
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Does it any say? Why doesn't he say something about
like he wants to be sober for a specific reason.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yeah, something like that. But it's just such a funny
like character development piece that it really doesn't add that much.
But the funny thing is it's memorable. Something about it
makes it feel like, well, no, he's serious, he's actually
a good guy. He's not there ordering whiskey like the
rest of them. Right.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, that's I'm glad that you brought that up, because yeah,
that is definitely a pretty cool, like memorable element of
that character for sure.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Well, and I know that on the show you're gonna
be talking about many different types of Westerns, but as
the ignoramus again, I got to find out for you.
That's you know, you have seen me develop my taste
over the last three years. What do you think is
the most go to answer for a Western that you
think I would genuinely like. For the things that you
(35:56):
know that I've seen, the things that you know that
I've liked, what do you think you'd recommend is the
one to make me fall in love with westerns?
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Okay, so Hollywood westerns. I would go with Day of
the Outlaw, okay, which I believe has a release from
Keino and maybe from Eureka, directed by Andre de taf
And it is a pretty dark, like your serious dramatic
(36:27):
western and it and it does have snow and kind
of you know, I don't know, I guess, and kind
of harsh environment which I always like in any movie,
really like if it's come and see, like a war
movie or a Western or whatever. That's just something that
(36:51):
I'm drawn to. And it is like a bleak and
very mature, like adult movie. I think you would really
like Day of the Outlaw. Did you have any other
final thoughts or was that pretty much it?
Speaker 3 (37:06):
H That was pretty much it. I would say as
somebody that does not love a lot of Westerns, it's
it was still something that I appreciated, and for somebody
that loves physical media, I am just completely stoked that
companies like Aro will put the time into giving a
new two K restoration to both of these films in
this set that you know, as you said, they don't
(37:27):
look perfect, but they look pretty good, and they look
for sure, they're fairly consistent. But for something that at
this point is literally about to be sixty years old, Yeah,
that was from a cult area that they weren't keeping
super great conditions of the reels, these look pretty magnificent.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
All right, Ryan, Well, where can people find you on
social media?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
If you want to find my stuff related to the
disconnected or physical media advocates. The magazine I publish everywhere
is under the disconnected or disc connected, depending on where
social media is handled that for the production company. Generally
it's under Someone's Favorite Productions or Twitter at slash xss
some fave prod. But the biggest thing is we have
(38:15):
a website, Someone's Favorite Productions dot com. You can find
a list of all of the Blu rays that we have,
extras Honor that we've produced. You can find ways to
get in contact with us if you would like us
to do extras for you, or if you're interested in
working on extras with us. We have hired many people
that probably would not have been able to get a
foot into the industry, and that is one of our
missions to make sure that voices that would not have
(38:37):
had a chance get a chance, and we will continue
to do that as long as we can.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Very cool, all right, Ryan, Well this was excellent. Thank
you so much for doing this.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Thank you so much. This was an honor and I
appreciate people like you that forced me to get out
of my comfort zone.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
I hope you enjoyed our conversation. Thank you to Ryan
for guesting on the show. I had a blast talking
about this movie with him and I'm looking forward to
having him on again in the future. What did you
think of the episode and what are your thoughts on
epistol for Ringo. You can let me know by emailing
me at Tumbleweeds and Tvcowboys at gmail dot com. You
can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and x All the
links are in the show notes. Next week I have
(39:17):
a new guest, Jim Laskowski from The Director's Club podcast
is joining me for discussion on Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar.
Until then, if you're looking for more film related podcasts,
please check out other shows on the Someone's Favorite Productions
podcast network. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
Are you a film fan who loves the ultimate home
video experience, look no further than the Discconnected. Your host,
Ryan Verel, is your go to source for the latest
and most accurate information on home video releases, exclusive interviews
with industry insiders and filmmakers, and has established a thriving
community where every film and physical media enthusiast feels welcome.
(39:56):
From hidden gems to Blockbuster hits, The Disconnected brings you
insider knowledge and a welcoming space to share your love
of cinema. Watch every Thursday night at nine thirty eastern
six thirty Pacific for the live announcements show, and follow
the Discconnected on social media to stay updated. Subscribe to
The Disconnected on YouTube or on the podcast provider of
(40:18):
your choice and dive into a world where every movie
night is an adventure.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Thank you for listening. To hear more shows from the
Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network, Please select the link in
the description.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!