Django (1966)

Film: Django (1966)

Stars: Franco Nero, Jose Bodalo, Loredana Nusciak, Angel Alvarez, Eduardo Fajardo

Director: Sergio Corbucci

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Franco Nero: click here to learn more about Mr. Nero (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As I mentioned in our kickoff article for this month, we're moving into the New Hollywood portion of the western, when the genre would undergo a seismic shift before losing its cache by the late 1970's, and so far not becoming a staple again in film since (though the gargantuan success of the Yellowstone franchise clearly indicates there's an appetite for this type of story if anyone wants to pick up the baton).  The transition was helped by the phenomenon of the spaghetti western, which was a trend in the mid-to-late 1960's of westerns, to try to have cheaper production budgets, being filmed in Italy.  Thanks to the success of A Fistful of Dollars in 1964 (which would make Clint Eastwood a movie star), the genre became big business in the United States, spawning a slew of films starring Eastwood, as well as actors who looked like Eastwood.  It also was host to Once Upon a Time in the West in 1968, generally considered to be the greatest spaghetti western of the era and, depending on the day, my favorite movie (of any genre) of all-time.  One of those actors who looked like Eastwood was Franco Nero, who in 1966 starred in one of the most profitable westerns of the era, and in the process became a star in Italian cinema as the titular Django.

(Spoilers Ahead) Most spaghetti westerns have a similar plot if we're being honest, and while we're only going to cover one of Nero's westerns in the spaghetti western format this month, know that when we get to more later this year, this has a formula.  Django (Nero, who is sexy AF in this movie) opens the film by saving Maria (Nusciak), a prostitute, from Major Jackson (Fajardo) crucifying her (the film ain't subtle).  Django is notable to the townspeople for carrying around a coffin, which we soon learn contains not a dead body but a machine gun, when he kills a bunch of Jackson's men in a fight they assume they can easily win against one man.  They use the machine gun by joining forces with General Rodriguez (Bodalo), who is trying to stage a coup against the Mexican government.  Rodriguez betrays Django, who then runs off with his share of the gold, and in the process of getting it back the gold falls into quicksand and both Django & Maria are wounded.  In a final showdown (in a cemetery), though, Django kills Major Jackson in revenge, his hands now broken but him free of the coffin he carried.

The movie's violence is its most noted trait-it was actually banned in the United Kingdom for decades because it couldn't get a certificate to be seen there.  It is jarring to see actual blood in a western of this time period (the American western wouldn't really come-of-age for a few more years with The Wild Bunch), as it's more realistic than even a post-Code Hollywood seemed willing to embrace for its iconic heroes.  The movie's plot isn't original or particularly compelling, but the blood and gore is the calling card, even if it's sometimes unnecessary (genuinely could've done without the guy eating his own sliced-off ear and then getting shot two seconds later).  The cinematography, especially the final scene, is exquisite, and makes up for a rudimentary plot.  It also has maybe the best western theme ever put to movie screens.

We'll obviously talk about Nero's career the rest of the month, but while he will be associated with Django for the rest of his life (it will undoubtedly be the first line in his obituary), he wasn't part of the many, many (well over thirty) sequels, just coming back for one film, 1987's Django Strikes Again which was ill-regarded by critics and read more like a failed comeback attempt for the actor.  Quentin Tarantino, someone who has been an ardent public fan of the spaghetti western, also used him in his film Django Unchained, where he got a cameo opposite Jamie Foxx as the titular Django in that movie, where he memorably asks him to spell his name, and after Foxx said "the 'D' is silent," Nero says "I know" and saunters off, back to the camera, the same way he did in this picture.  The iconic theme music would serve as the theme of Tarantino's film as well.