These were movies that at first glance look and feel like a hard-hitting, dark spaghetti western. Give it a closer look though, and things are a little different. The casts lean more toward American actors and actresses for one, and for the most part, they ease up on the gas. So with that, you see movies like 100 Rifles and El Condor among others. Of course, some went all-in, throwing all their chips in, taking everything that made the spaghetti westerns so good and taking it up a notch or two. I saw the end to 1969's Land Raiders a hundred times or so growing up on TBS' Afternoon Movie, and thanks to Netflix Instant watch, I caught up with it this week in its entirety.
In the Arizona territory in the 1870s, Vince Carden (Telly Savalas) has assembled millions of acres of land, his Carden Ranch dominating the area. He has hopes of building the ranch bigger and bigger, making himself the richest man around. His younger brother, Paul (George Maharis), has ridden back to see his ailing father after several years away from the ranch, a falling out with his brother driving the family apart. Paul still despises his brother for what he did in the past, but their family problems look ready to be swept away. An Apache war party is terrorizing the territory, and Vince sees the potential to wipe out every Apache for hundreds of miles around. His plan though has the potential to backfire, putting the lives of everyone else in the territory at risk.
Writing past reviews of spaghetti westerns, I haven't been shy about my love for the genre. This darker, even harsher quasi-spaghetti is going to fall under that category. It isn't a particularly good movie with its fair share of cheese, bad acting, and low-budget qualities. I still like it though. Director Nathan Juran uses a handful of familiar locations in Almeria, albeit the greener, more picturesque areas of the region. I recognized the town from Django Kill! (among others), and the church from Guns of the Magnificent Seven. Composer Bruno Nicolai's score -- a frequent collaborator with spaghetti master Ennio Morricone -- seems to sample from a long list of spaghetti scores, but it's good samples if nothing else. I can't place the main theme (listen HERE), but even its familiar tune (especially the quieter moments) work well.
Like many westerns, 'Raiders' has its roots in some Greek tragedy, even Biblical roots with Maharis as the Prodigal Son returning home after years away from his family. In the darker, almost gothic tones of the movie, you get that sense of Greek tragedy, the family tearing itself apart, the individual members on the brink of killing each other. The motivating force here is a mystery with a young Mexican girl, Luisa (Jocelyn Lane), who was engaged to Paul but died under mysterious circumstances, apparently linked to Vince. A handful or so of grainy, fuzzy flashbacks pepper the story, adding a second layer to the proceedings even if it is clear what actually happened right away. I'm not saying Land Raiders is any sort of modern classic -- far from it -- but it is interesting, striving for something more than just a 90-minute shoot 'em up.
With the idea of the quasi-spaghetti comes the casting of two American actors as the leads, one a future TV star and the other a TV star of the past. Savalas is one of my favorites, a versatile actor who could play good, bad, amoral, and in between. Here, he's fully embracing his epically bad side. There is not a redeeming character about his Vince character, and that's the beauty of it. He's one bad dude, and you know karma is coming around to kick him square in the butt. Five years removed from Route 66, Maharis was still trying to become a bigger star, something he never really attained. His Paul is the more sympathetic of the two Carden/Cardenas brothers, even if Maharis makes a pretty bad attempt at a heavy Spanish accent and looks like a gay caballero all duded up immaculately in clothes that look like they've never seen the trail.
Trying to one-up the spaghetti westerns, 'Raiders' certainly does its best to push the boundaries as so many movies did in the late 1960s. This movie has it all, surprising amounts of language (Savalas even calls a woman a bitch), some gratuitous nudity, and over the top violence that uses squibs and gallons of that ultra-red blood-like substance. Where other movies edit this type of thing into the movie in a subtle fashion, 'Raiders' doesn't really care. A woman captured by Apaches has her shirt ripped off. Oh, a topless woman! The camera lingers a little too long. The violence is a little shocking, some graphic depictions of scalpings, among other things. Changing times for the western genre, and Land Raiders doesn't disappoint in trying to do something very different.
Leading into the supporting cast, one odd note. Character actor Paul Picerni plays two parts in a bizarre fashion, no explanation provided. The studio clearly thought it could pull a fast one, listing one character as played by Picerni, the other by H.P. Picerni. One character is a murdering gunman working for Vince, the other an old fun-loving Mexican friend of Paul's. Too weird, just one of those things I guess. Other parts worth mentioning include Arlene Dahl as Martha, Paul's wife, Janet Landgard as Kate, a young girl all grown up with a crush on Paul, Guy Rolfe as Major Tanner, the local cavalry commander, and Phil Brown as Sheriff John Mayfield, Kate's father caught in the middle of a situation with no easy way out. Even look for spaghetti regular Fernando Rey as what else? A priest. A good western that isn't really that good at all, but it's a solid guilty pleasure.
Land Raiders <---trailer (1969): ***/****
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