Audience Member
Well worth a watch James Welch, Henderson, Arkansas, June 7, 2023
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
06/09/23
Full Review
Taylor L
"There's nobody out here left to be killed in your place!"
For decades, people acted as if John Wayne was the biggest name in Westerns, Mr. Big Studio, big-talking Big Jake. Then, audiences took a shine to the silent Clint Eastwood and the wave of movies coming out of Italy, but most of the classics are remakes of Kurosawa films. Now, it's clear that Lee Van Cleef was the man all along - calm, cool, and collected, never a hero, always with an edge.
Day of Anger was a big disappointment for me. It's got outlaw Talby (Van Cleef) taking in a young runt (Giuliano Gemma, of Ringo fame) as his rough-and-tumble gunfighter protégé, Scott. That's awesome, and Talby as a character is great - teaching brutal 'lessons' to his pupil as he becomes a hard-nosed killer, only to inevitably find himself on the other end of those deadly pointers later in the film. Unfortunately, there's a lot more in the mix that makes the winning premise feel unwieldy, particularly an unnecessarily long runtime, a whole conspiracy angle that allows Talby to gain control over a whole town, and bad action choreography. Scott is hard to root for as a protagonist because he is so comically looked down on throughout most of the movie, with virtually every person in town looking for any excuse to punch and spit on him for virtually no reason. Plus, some of the visual design is questionable - Talby's saloon is gaudy and dumb with the massive gold guns out front, makes the story feel fake through visual cues alone.
Van Cleef is great, but simple themes and a lot of misguided fluff make what should have been a Spaghetti classic into a bloated mess. (3/5)
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/07/23
Full Review
matthew d
Furious men ready to open fire in a deadly world!
Italian director Tonino Valerii's spaghetti Western film Day of Anger (1967) is an enthralling story surrounded by bullets. Valerii's direction is very stylish with harsh desert terrain and a gunslinger hiding around every corner awaiting his next chance to shoot. There's plenty of action by way of random encounters with crooks and lawmen ready and willing to shoot first in an era of lethal interactions in American history. Day of Anger has all sorts of neat lighting, close-ups, and duels with trick shots and clever subversions of what you'd expect that kept me entertained.
I love cinematographer Enzo Serafin's framing of the camera behind the hip or hand before a quickdraw. His close-ups of tense, sweaty faces right before a firing duel are striking and suspenseful. Franco Fraticelli's editing uses fast cuts to really make every bullet feel massive and significant as you see bodies drop and faces react to every sudden hand movement. Tonino Valerii must have learned a lot when he was an assistant director for Sergio Leone on A Fistful of Dollars as Valerii's direction is sterling and stylish for Day of Anger.
Writers Renzo Genta, Ernesto Gastaldi, Tonino Valerii, and Rolf Becker craft a cool Western tale about a young gunslinger that gets mentored by an infamous quickdraw robber. I felt real sympathy for the young man as his life was awful and everyone beats him up as he must learn sage wisdom from Lee Van Cleef's wicked villain. It's all about morality and the hard choices we must make in life. I found the dialogue grounded, honest, and smart with incredible set-ups for action shootouts. The finale shootout and quickdraw duel is as great as Leone's classic Westerns. It's a brilliant and creative story that I found gripping.
Lee Van Cleef is fearsome as crook Frank Talby with his shrewd advice and hardened persona. Cleef's eyes just look evil with his wry smirks and bitter dialogue. Cleef is awesome as he guns down tons of men in his path towards reclaiming money he stole. I found him actually compelling as a gunslinging mentor with masterful advice rules about surviving in the brutal Western world. Giuliano Gemma is very likable and sympathetic as the intensely frustrated and angry stable hand Scott Mary, who becomes a brilliant quickdraw in his own right. I liked the dynamic between Cleef and Gemma of comradery like they were father and son. Walter Rilla is excellent as the kind and wise old marshall who clearly cares about Gemma's hero Scott. Christa Linder is stunning as one of the ladies that approaches Scott in his stay at this dusty old town. The acting is very strong in Day of Anger.
Composer Riz Ortolani's score is exciting and playful. His lively music has that mid 1960's mod flavor with fun brass horn bursts, fast guitar strums, and staccato drumming. It sounds almost like surf rock that's very memorable and moody for Day of Anger. Ortolani's score works wonders to add intensity and suspense to Day of Anger. Piero Filippone's production design creates an entire old Western town with a parlor, bar, bank, stable, courthouse, and plenty more rustic areas to get shot up.
In short, Day of Anger is everything you'd want from a Lee Van Cleef Western picture. Cleef's sneering villain and fast quickdraw is a clever and trigger happy rival for Giuliano Gemma's naive hero and would-be gunslinger.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
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