Blindman / il cieco / Blindman, the executors - Italy-USA 1971 - Director: Ferdinando Baldi - Produced by: Tony Anthony, Allen Klein, Saul Swimmer - Story: Tony Anthony - Book: Tony Anthony, Pier Giovanni Anchisi, Vincenzo Cerami - Camera: Riccardo Pallottini - Music: Stelvio Cipriani - Cast: Raf Tony Anthony ("Blindman"), Ringo Starr ("Candy"), Lloyd Battista ("Domingo"), Magda Konopka ("Sweet Mama"), Baldassarre (Mexican general), Agneta Eckemyr Others - Length: 105 min - Format: Techniscope, 2.35:1 - German Premiere: 06.08.1972 - DVD by Sony (unedited, in its original format, including bonus material and original version with subtitles)
The idea, as protagonists of a Western gunslinger a blind use, should be one of the most abstruse ideas in the history of the genre. And accordingly it is not surprising that behind the programmatic title Blindman no American Genre post is hidden, but a largely Italian-funded Western. The idea for this movie was the team of actor / co-producer / co-authors Tony Anthony probably during the filming of lo straniero Tues silenzio aka the silent stranger (The nightmare of Kung-Fu, 1968), the first Spaghetti Westerns, the twisting not only in Japan but also thematically with the chambara Western all'italiana combined. It has a long tradition of Japanese genre films about the blind samurai (and masseur) Zatôichi, which has produced to date more than twenty films and the direct model to Ferdinando Baldi Blindman represents.
actually began in the late 1960s and early 70s, Asian cinema increasingly responded to the Spaghetti Western. In Zatôichi to yôjinbô (Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, 1970), the twentieth film Zatôichi series, referred the order four coffins no longer limited to Kurosawa yojimbo (1961), but also to the corresponding scene from the European remake per un Pugno Tues Dollari (For a Fistful of Dollars, 1964; R: Sergio Leone). Influences of the spaghetti western to Japanese Kozure Okami - series (1972ff.), the Hong Kong productions of the Shaw Brothers and its rival company Golden Harvest, as well as John Woo's kinetic force ballets and Tsui Hark's Wuxia movies are also unmistakable. For example, quoting Bruce Lee in Rome turned directing meng long guo jiang (The Dragon strikes again; 1972) several times musically C'era una volta il West (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968; R: Sergio Leone) . Films like zhan shen tan (The Thunder Bay of Shaolin, 1973) referred explicitly to Leone's "Dollar" trilogy and Lung Chien tang ren piao ke (Wang Yu - More than 1,000 kamikaze; 1973) used as Morricone's title theme by il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (Bad and the Ugly, 1966). Especially the Hong Kong productions of the 60s and 70s, integrated international Influences. The Shaw Center, the mid-50's musicals, melodrama, opera adaptations, martial-arts - and produced wuxia films began in the late 60s to participate in international hybrids. The films of Chang Cheh and King Hu took over as motifs from the Japanese genre cinema and the Western all'italiana , including the exaggerated sound effects, new camera and editing techniques and the use of the zoom . parallel originated in Italy Westernmixturen with Japanese actors, such as Tonino Cervis oggi a me ... domani a te (Today I, tomorrow you; 1968) with Tatsuya Nakadai, the villains from yojimbo , and Terence Young's soleil rouge / sole rosso (red sun rivals, and in 1971 ) in the Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune, Alain Delon took over the lead roles. early 70s appeared more Italo Western martial-arts -crossings, such as il mio nome è Shangai Joe ( The man with the ball whip; 1972) botte and che, ragazzi (two through thick and thin; 1975). The Shaw Brothers involved at this time also in co-productions with the British Hammer studio produced, now Italian-Chinese community projects such as là dove non batte il sole (The Stranger and the Gunfighter, 1974) with Lee Van Cleef and Lo Lieh, Golden Harvest funded similar hybrids .
Inspired by the Zatôichi- series Blindman is thus at least in terms of its genesis is not as far fetched as it first may seem. He is not a direct continuation of the "Stranger" films, has directed the former Method actor Tony Anthony before with Luigi Vanzi (next lo straniero Tues silenzio the team created the minimalist low-budget Western Dollaro tra i denti un [A dollar between the teeth; 1967] and un uomo, un cavallo, una pistola [Western Jack, 1967]). Although Anthony's protagonist has here, as in the previous films no name. But even in his dress is different, the blind gunman, who took over for 50 000 dollars a task, 50 mail order bride (!) By the desert to drive and to deliver it to a group of Texan miners: instead of the torn Stetson of "Strangers" Anthony with this time a monster on the head that looks a little like a melted, brown carpenter's hat and is additionally provided with a small ammunition. Even the pink shirt, poncho and a black mare of the previous figure are missing. Instead, he has a blind horse, a disabled compass, a tattered duster and a bolt action rifle with a bayonet attachment, which serves as the cane.
Like the "Stranger" is the protagonist a hero is anything but sovereign and is hardly ever taken seriously by his environment. In general, the Plot as largely meaningless sequence of humiliation and retaliation is created. Even as we meet the blind, it has carved its partners over the ear and the sight, when he bitterly clinging to the tail of his horse in a city is just pathetic. Although the blind men who robbed him of the women (played by Beatles producer Allen Klein and the Beatles' roadie Mal Evans), blow it up. The 50 women, however, are now in the hands of psychotic bandit Domingo (Lloyd Battista), his moronic brother Candy (Ringo Starr [!] in his only western role) and their sadistic S chwester Sweet Mama (Magda Konopka). Together with the village beauty (Agneta Eckemyr) and a Mexican general (Raf Baldassarre) can be "Blindman" off while Domingo and company, at the end of him, the women, however, stolen by the Mexicans. As in previous Vanzis anti-Western, the hero at the end of the losers.
Anthony described his role now as a more everyday heroes: "He's not your typical gunslinger. He's more of an existential hero [...]. I never wanted to be a superhero;. I felt audiences could relate to me as someone in the street "Indeed I think the actor and his director Baldi with this film have created probably the most vulnerable Italo-Western protagonists. The film takes an amazing amount of space to put the handicap of the blind man in the picture, as when he relates a hotel room or difficulty without his gun and horse wanders helplessly. Ultimately Blindman but above all, a large-scale action Western that may come up because of the enormous budget with some impressive crowd scenes and good sets, by the bizarre elements of the film are still more evident. The principle described Anthony once as: "Everything was exaggerated, then played straight." Sun inhabit the baddies around a medieval castle, the bulk of the band seems less like Mexicans, but more like a cross between hippies and heavy-metal-barbarians. Otherwise, Baldi proves to be Champion in setting up more or less metaphorical castration pictures. As the blind man with "Sweet Mama" is fighting, biting him as this between the legs. After he broke her neck with his legs, said he shocked (!): "Being without eyes is one thing, but without that whew ..." The subject of necrophilia is touched also when the village beauty to be forced into a large-scale wedding scene to marry the now dead Candy. The detailed sequence in which 50 women will be dressed naked in a giant laundry for sale and to buckets doused with water breathing, similar to the sequence in which they half naked driven through the desert, the spirit lowest Exploitation cinema.
in the U.S. was $ 1,300,000 for the twisted and critics unanimously panned film no great success. A reviewer (Donald Mayerson) decried the "excessive, pointless, and sadistic violence, as well as [a penchant for] undraping women in the most humiliating way. " This can hardly be contradicted, especially since this was probably exactly the goal of the filmmakers. Outside the U.S., however, the film played over 15 million and has been a huge commercial success. In the Pakistani city Karachi, he was reportedly as many as six consecutive months in an always sold-out cinema. Today he is a curiosity from a time when the European genre films were produced on an assembly line, which despite its often crude plots crafted amazingly well and worked as an entertainment films work very effectively.
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