The Grand Duel

• Italian: Il Grande duello
• Also known as Storm Rider and The Big Showdown
• Directed by Giancarlo Santi
• December 29, 1972

A sheriff seeks justice for a man accused of murder.

Having been diving into the Western filmography of Lee Van Cleef lately I have come to understand while he was consistently entertaining, his movies were either really good or bad yet watchable because of him. Like The Grand Duel.

The movie starts by setting up what should be a dangerous and tense situation with everybody waiting to shoot it out. Things take a turn for the silly when a man falls from a high place into a cart and another man uses that cart (maybe on purpose) as a catapult to launch himself over a wall and engages in some shooting and acrobatics that would make a superhero envious.

It doesn’t pick up until Sheriff Clayton (Lee Van Cleef) becomes more significant to the story. Then again Lee Van Cleef was like bacon. He could make almost anything better and this slightly stumbling and at times unfocused Spaghetti Western certainly needed some Lee Van Cleef. Clayton is a disgraced sheriff seeking to bring back Philip Wermeer/Philip Premier (Alberto Dentice credited as Peter O’Brien) who is accused of murder yet didn’t actually kill the person. Clayton knows that! The thing is the guy generally is a killer but is innocent this one crime-I think. He may not even be a killer at all.

The Grand Duel is more focused on tough scenes and dangerous sounding dialogue than it is on a coherent or just good story. Physical violence is ridiculously casual. Every few seconds produces something. You have to wonder if the West really was this violent how did anybody live? It makes the movie a bit comical. Love and hate are both communicated with fisticuffs. That is a bit of hyperbole but it does make my point.

The main thrust of the story is every character in one way or another dancing around who the real killer of the family patriarch is. They all know it but are willing to hang an innocent man. If you can’t figure out the real killer by the first black and white flash back where they show the distinct silhouette of the man then I cannot help you. That was really a mistake. I think even if they hadn’t shown the audience would only have their suspicions. It removed an element of emotional investment in the story for the audience. 

There’s not too much story here. It’s a simple idea stretched out into barely 90 minutes. I could see this as an episode of any old Western series with half of it chopped out and it would be much better. Maybe that’s because of all the dubbing of the Italian actors. But that is not the worst of it.

Plot elements are just tossed in but because director Giancarlo Santi was more concerned about demonstrating violence than actually telling a good story they go nowhere. Such as the clearly homosexual Adam Saxon (Klaus Grünberg) who is a member of the Saxon Family that runs Saxon City. Was his marriage to Elisabeth (Dominique Darel) meant to coverup that he was gay or was the character meant to be effeminate yet straight and not gay? Were his affectations meant as humorous or mocking?

There is some good here but none of it ever gets built on. It’s just not brought into focus as any part of the narrative. The mystery is not really a mystery. And there’s way too much goofiness in what should be a much more dangerous feeling movie. If they had worked on some of that stuff I think it could’ve been a great low budget classic.

The Grand Duel is adequate but far from great. Its saving grace is Lee Van Cleef being tough as only he could. Entertaining but ultimately forgettable.