The Grand Duel

Over the holidays, I stumbled across a collection of movies at Best Buy that caught my eye.  It was one of those public domain sets that featured 44 spaghetti westerns (some of which I'd seen) for just $14.99.  Now I've been burned by collections like this in the past.  There's a reason many of these movies are available on the public domain, starting with the actual visual quality of the movies has gone downhill quickly over the years.  Some prints are just plain bad, low-quality transfers from old VHS tapes.  But reviews were kind to this set, stating that a fair share of the flicks were in very watchable widescreen versions with solid audio.  Besides for $15, it's hard to beat 44 movies even with a few duds.

First up of the 44 movies was 1972's Grand Duel, an average spaghetti western aided by the always entertaining Lee Van Cleef as the star.  For the most part, the Italian western genre was on the decline by 1972. After the mega successful Sergio Leone Dollars trilogy, the market was flooded with rehashes, remakes and knock-offs over a several year span.  That's not to say there aren't some winners among the 600 or so spaghettis that were made.  Some were classics of the sub-genre, others were god awful examples of how not to make a movie, and I imagine there will be a few in this collection.  For Grand Duel, it falls in between the two. Solid and entertaining, but never amounts to a highly memorable finished product. Still, it's Lee Van Cleef!

Having been on the trail for several weeks, Sheriff Clayton (Van Cleef) finally catches up with wanted outlaw, Phillip Wermeer (Alberto Dentice in his only film role) at a stagecoach way-station. The only problem? A gang of bounty hunters is also waiting to bring in the infamous outlaw. Clayton helps Phillip escape the gang, but they're close on the unlikely duo's tale.  Phillip is wanted for the murder of a noted (if corrupt) family patriarch in a neighboring town even though he claims his innocence.  Clayton believes him and knows who actually killed the old man.  Forming a partnership with quite a few betrayals and backstabbings, Clayton and Phillip ride for the town of Saxon where the three Saxon brothers are looking to exact revenge.  With a hidden silver mine on the line that only Phillip knows about, the stakes just got a little bigger.

It's hard to fault anyone for trying to duplicate success, but this flick feels like a definite rehash of a handful of other spaghettis I've seen. The older gunslinger teaming up with the younger unproven gunslinger was especially nothing new to Van Cleef (see For a Few Dollars More, Face to Face, Death Rides a Horse among others). The bad guys looking to make a legit business and not caring who gets killed in the process has been done at well.  The music while good (especially the main theme, listen HERE) sounds like any number of Morricone scores, although the comedic-sounding portions are incredibly out of place.  Still, there's something to be said for being familiar with a formula and sticking with it.  Yes, if you've seen even a few spaghetti westerns, this will seem like old hat, but it's in a good way.

For Lee Van Cleef, this is Colonel Mortimer, Sabata, and several other of his notable characters rolled into one.  Down to the black outfit with the flat-brimmed hat, Van Cleef looks like he raided the wardrobe of his previous movies.  But with that evil-looking smirk and hawk nose, seeing this western veteran in even an average movie is a welcome addition.  He's cool just standing there doing nothing.  Give his character a secret about a murder everyone is curious about, and thinks just got that much better.  The reviews are mixed on Dentice as Phillip, but for a guy who never made another movie, I thought he was pretty decent.  He plays off Van Cleef well, and you know from the start he's innocent.  It's just a matter of who actually shot the old man. 

One of the best things to come out of the spaghetti western genre was villains so bad, so over the top evil that there's just no way anyone this bad ever existed.  In Grand Duel, it's three baddies, the Saxon brothers ruling this western town with an iron fist with hopes of amounting to something in both business and politics.  First, there's David (Horst Frank), the politician of the group, the unofficial leader who puts everything into motion. Second, there's Eli (Marc Mazza), the muscle and intimidation now working as sheriff of the town.  And saving the best for last, there's Adam (Klaus Grunberg), the possibly albino or at least very pale, very effeminate gunman with a face scarred by small pox. In the over the top department, there's Grunberg's Adam brazenly gunning down a wagon train full of women and children with a very historically accurate machine gun.  Looking for quality villains, this is a good place to start.

While the middle portions of the movie can be a little slow, director Giancarlo Santi bookends his movie with great openings and closings.  The opener at the desert way station is full of tension and beautifully shot even if it does use some gymnastic, acrobatic techniques in the gunfights. The finale, Clayton vs. the three Saxon brothers, is almost a shot-for-shot re-do of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly's cemetery shootout, but it's still quality.  And in a spaghetti western made on a limited budget, there's not much more you can ask for. Average but worthwhile for a watch.

Grand Duel <---trailer (1972): ** 1/2 /****