It's a Shaturday Night Special in The Dungeon, because if you thought "The Intruder" was strange, just wait until you see The Shat in "White Comanche!"
On top of everything else, the music in "White Comanche" is not like anything you're ever likely to hear in a cowboy movie now or ever again, and was written by French composer Jean Ledrut! Listen to this short segment, and let me know if you disagree!
On top of everything else, the music in "White Comanche" is not like anything you're ever likely to hear in a cowboy movie now or ever again, and was written by French composer Jean Ledrut! Listen to this short segment, and let me know if you disagree!
"Comanche Blanco" or "White Comanche" is a Spanish film made in 1968 that stars William Shatner in the role of two brothers that are half white and half Comanche. One leans one way, the other goes to the other side! It's also well known as "Rio Hondo!" Here's the whole story in one sentence!
They don't like each other!
They don't like each other!
Ladies and Gentlemen, without further adieu, here's William Shatner again in another one of his underappreciated but amazing accomplishments!
This is The Shat as gunslinger Johnny Moon!
This is The Shat as Johnny's brother Notah Moon, an unmercilessness killer, and the leader of a small group of Indians that are more like an 1800's biker gang than a tribe!
They could have just done it up right and ended it right here, but Johnny tells Notah to meet him in four days in a little town called Rio Hondo, and they can settle their differences once and for all! Notah's girlfriend is pretty Perla ("Espionage In Tangiers!") Cristal as White Fawn.
You gotta admit that Bill makes a damn fine lookin' cowboy!
As an Indian, not so much!
Curiously enough, Notah never puts on a shirt at any time in the movie, but he does like to eat Peyote, which was interesting, but of no consequence. Unlike a lot of films that feature the same person as more than one character, the only scenes that the two brothers appear in together, one of them is off in the distance and is an unrecognizable stunt man!
The small but mighty core cast includes Joseph (Citizen Kane, Soylent Green) Cotten and Rosanna (Kiss Me Monster) Yanni! Sure, it might not be their finest moments, but this is a cowboy movie, what do you expect? I was raised on a steady diet of western movies and TV shows, and "White Comanche" isn't all that bad, believe me!
I read somewhere that they called "White Comanche" one of the worst 100 movies ever made! Whoever said that has evidently not watched as many bad movies as me, because this really doesn't deserve that rating!
"White Comanche" has some classic looking shots like this that make it easy to watch!
On a Dungeon Pop Culture Scale of one to ten, having William Shatner and Rosanna Yanni in a scene like this together is at least a nine and a half!
This shot of Bill and Joe is so cool, it doesn't even look real!
Rosanna Yanni just might be Wesen! She's not really that good looking, and she's not that great of an actress, but she's got something red-blooded guys just have got to have!
If there is a genre of film making called "Early Spanish Western Giallo" then "White Comanche" is a leader in the field! I think it's either five or six guys who get shot right between the eyes like this!
They break the cardinal rule when an innocent kid gets killed in the crossfire of a shootout!
I had to watch this sequence four or five times in a row. That guy back there gets shot and topples over that bale of hay head over heels! It's pretty slapstick!
Aw, Damn! He's back!
Just like Adam Cramer, Notah has to deliver a sermon to his followers to get them all fired up to take over!
For the final duel between the twin brothers, they both go shirtless, so you'll just have to guess who wins!
Jeez, life without William Shatner would go on, but it sure wouldn't be the same!
6 comments:
Yep, that's pretty crazy music for an..."Early Spanish Western Giallo!"
As for Rosanna Yanni, she's actually pretty hot! IMHO of course. Reminds me a lot of an actress popular in the '60s named Laura Devon.
Nice looking print of the film, the best I've ever seen for sure.
Thanx KD! Nice to know that somebody actually listens to a soundclip once in a while. I adore Rosanna and I do agree she's hot, but she's just not my type! That was fun, I had a chance to search our own site for Laura Devon because I wasn't struck by the name at first! Chamber of Horrors - pretty blue eyes. That video was taped off TCM and looks considerably better than the one being offered by Amazon Prime.
I'm prefer brunettes (the missus is a brunette!), but I thought of a Laura Devon resemblance, an actress who was in episodes of Twilight Zone, The Fugitive, and The Invaders in the '60s. I tend to do that (associate people with other people they resemble in my own mind's eye), but I had to look up Rosanna Yanni, and sure enough there are recent photos and video clips of her online. She looks a bit more like Angie Dickinson lately...and here she is in 2015, very soft-spoken, interviewed in Spanish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXfGmAHzCiM
Hair color doesn't matter much once you're into your 60's or 70's. She still looked fun at 76!
True. And I love the fact that she apparently doesn't feel the need to spend millions on plastic surgery. Viva, Rosanna! (Oh, and she's been in other, more "genre" films!) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0946184/
The Shat does a Spaghetti Western with a good twin / evil twin theme? Folks, it doesn't get any better than this.
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