THE MOVIES OF MY LIFE PHASE ONE: Hannie Caulder (1971)

It's only until you watch the movie that
you realize how fucked up and dishonest
this poster really is.

I did not get the experience that I expected out of this film.  And even though what it is is flawed, I actually think it’s a better experience than what I was looking for.

This may be the only ‘Fish And Chips Western’; it was produced by Tigon Pictures, which I’ve called in the past the mentally challenged brother of Hammer.  Tigon made some seriously silly horror movies, but their best--Blood on Satan’s Claw (which I discussed here) and Michael Reeves’ The Witchfinder General--were period pieces, which gives their choice to do a western a crazy sort of sense.  And while most of this was shot in Spain, there are some scenes shot in Twickenham Studios.  So...Fish And Chips Western.  I didn’t know such things existed.

Anyway, I expected one of these awkward American attempts to catch up with the deconstructionist double attack of Spaghetti Westerns on one side and Peckinpah’s violent flicks on the other.  But this film is much more Spaghetti than Traditional, even though it has traditional elements (including a score that just sounds out of place here).  It actually turns out to be a fairly sober revenge flick with a real engaging double act from Raquel Welch and Robert Culp.

Obviously, this film was greenlit on the fact that Raquel Welch Is Real Hot.  I think she’s the last of the Great Cinematic Sex Symbols, but she has this air about her that gives her a regality and dignity that adds to her appeal.  And she’s a better actor than people may give her credit for if she’s given the right actor to bounce off of--which is why she’s particularly good here.  You can see the thought process going on in the head of Hanna Caulder at all times, and the give and take she has with Culp is so lively it drives the film forward.  And God Bless director Burt Kennedy and David Haft (writing under the pseudonym Z.X. Jones) for never giving into the temptation to make the relationship between Welch and Culp sexual.  There are moments where the script teases the idea--Hell, Caulder pretty much offers her body as payment when she first meets Culp’s Thomas Price--but the relationship that does develop is more that of master and apprentice. or knight and squire.  It’s funny that throughout the film I wondered if Quentin Tarantino patterned the relationship between Christoph Waltz and  Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained after these two--it turns out Tarantino consciously aped this relationship in the scenes between Uma Thurman’s Bride and Sonny Chiba’s Hanzo in Kill Bill!

However...as good and as nuanced as Welch and Culp are, there are flaws.  The villians--played by three of the most Western of Western Actors Alive at the time (Ernest Borgnine!  Jack Elam!  Strother Martin!)--do some truly horrific things in the first ten minutes of the film to establish their credentials and then spend the rest of the film acting like goofs.  Every once in a while, director Kennedy cuts to the trio behaving like total idiots, and I got the queasy feeling those scenes were meant to be...funny?  But I found myself unable to see humor in their antics, considering I watched them kill a bunch of people in cold blood, gang rape Welch and then set her house on fire with her in it less than an hour ago.  There’s also a character called ‘The Preacher’ played by Stephen Boyd, who might as well have ‘Deus Ex Machina’ written across his chest.  He shows up as Culp and Welch are staying at Christopher Lee’s house to glare at them, then pops up to shoot Ernest Borgnine at a key moment in the climax.  Why?  Damned if I know.  Then there is the previously mentioned score, which sometimes is aping traditional western soundtracks (more than once I got a feeling of Magnificent Seven to the trumpet and percussion) and sometimes plays odd, light comedy music at weird times (like when we’re watching Welch rise up from a bathtub....)

Chistopher Lee is in a Western...because he's Christopher Lee
and can do whatever he Damn Well Pleases.

What?  Yeah, Christopher Lee is in this film.  It was his only Western, and he seems to be having a Ball playing a gunsmith who custom designs Hannie’s pistol.  And adding him into the mix for a big chunk of the second act only elevates Welch’s and Culp’s game.  There is one scene where Culp and Lee are having a discussion about something, but Lee’s gaze is on Welch, sizing her up...and Welch sizes him up right back.

This was actually a pleasant surprise, something that certainly hewed close to the Spaghetti Western template while doing it from a different angle.  It apparently did very poorly here in the States, but I certainly recommend it for students of Westerns, and maybe others as well.  You can do a Lot Worse than spend time with Hannie Caulder.