Keoma

• Directed by Enzo G. Castellari
• November 25, 1976 (Italy)

An ex-Union gunfighter tries to save his plague infected hometown from being taken over by his racist half-brothers and a Confederate soldier.

The first thing I can say about Keoma is that it is a very spaghetti Spaghetti Western. It is heavily dubbed with few if any actors actually speaking English. Combine that with the then new techniques of slow motion and close/medium panning shots definitely separate it from anything American. But wait! There’s more!

Franco Nero sings a few songs in English for the soundtrack using some of the most strained English you will hear in a film. I’m sure in his native Italian he has a good singing voice but his thick accent is very noticeable. Not to mention it makes the lyrics unintentionally funny.

Keoma Shannon (Franco Nero) is supposed to be part-Indian and part-white (often referred to in the film as a half breed) but he looks more like one of The Oak Ridge Boys or somebody playing Jesus. I could even buy an outdoorsman but certainly not anything else. No hair dye or a beach to tan on was available? Guess not.

Keoma faces off against his three brothers Butch (Orso Maria Guerrini), Lenny (Antonio Marsina), and Sam (John Loffredo) who have joined forces with the tyrannical Caldwell (Donald O’Brian) that controls Keoma’s hometown and is sequestering plague victims in a nearby mine to die. Beyond letting the people die I do not know what Caldwell’s goal is. Either it is not mentioned or the film does a poor job of communicating it. The violemce was more important than the why of it.

For their part Keoma’s siblings are upset because daddy (William Berger) didn’t love them enough. Or paid too much attention to Keoma. Daddy for his part is sick of their whining crap but has no real interest in what they do to him or his other son, their half-brother Keoma. He is not too caring about the town either.

This is one of those movies that feels like it was done on the fly. They had access to sets and props with the director having a rough idea of what he wanted but no idea of what was going to be done. That leads to problems. Keoma’s brothers clearly hate him but they’re okay with dad who was messing around on mom maybe? And they waffle on the hate as the point in the plot dictates rather than through development between being okay with him and wanting to kill him.

There is a recurring apparition (Gabriella Giacobbe) of a woman that saved him during a massacre at an Indian camp. What does she contribute? Weirdness in a failed attempt to make this artistic. We have a pregnant woman (Olga Karlatos) from the town that Keoma save who shows up often and then dies right after she gives birth. What was the point? This has a nice budget, nice production values, and the music (what is not sung) isn’t bad but it strives to be more art than Western with the aforementioned elements. I guess it’s the European nature of this movie.

There was the beginning of a very good Spaghetti Western here but somewhere along the way director Enzo G. Castellari and friends got a little lost. The story lost focus and rather than artfully present a story he inserted odd things to try and make this look artful. I enjoyed myself well enough but felt disappointed over the wasted potential.

Keoma didn’t feel like a complete waste, but if I had an inkling beforehand of what I got when I watched I would not have. Then again, this was included with The Big Showdown so maybe I should’ve known. Skip.