No sooner has he arrived back in town than Cuchillo (Tomas Milian), the knife-wielding rogue introduced in The Big Gundown finds himself in jail again, for yet another crime he didn't commit. Cuchillo's cellmate, Ramirez, is a dissident intellectual whom the government has uncharacteristically pardoned. He knows, however, that they are only freeing him so he can lead their men to $3 million of hidden gold intended for the revolucion , and so gets Cuchillo to help him escape.
Mission accomplished the two men head for Ramirez's village base. Immediately Santilla (John Ireland) and his bandits show up and begin shooting villagers in a bid to force Ramirez to reveal the gold's location. Fortunately some of Ramirez's fellow revolutionaries, along with an enigmatic gringo named Cassidy (Donal O'Brien) also arrive to force Santilla's men to retreat, but are too late to prevent Ramirez being fatally wounded. Before dying he manages to tell Cuchillo the exact location of the gold, a printers in the Texas town of Burton City.
Thus Cuchillo goes for the gold, Santilla, government agents, Cassidy and – last but not least – his loyal, long-suffering, fiancée Dolores (Chelo Alonso) in hot pursuit…
Sergio Sollima's third and last spaghetti western downplays the radical politics of its predecessors The Big Gundown and Face to Face somewhat, instead favouring a more straightforward picaresque adventure in the spirit of Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More and, especially, The Good the Bad and the Ugly .
Politics aside, Sollima shows an assured grasp the iconography of the spaghetti, uses the widescreen canvas to good effect and successfully handles the ritualised corridas and other stock situations.
Milian, deploying the Method to convey Cuchillo's innate, animal-like cunning, and O'Brien, managing to simultaneously do a fine Lee Van Cleef impersonation while also making the Van Cleef role his own, deliver fine performances.
One of those seemingly effortless Morricone scores (Bruno Nicolai was credited for contractual reasons), including a very catchy title theme to which Milian contributes vocals, provides the icing on the cake.
The only obvious weakness is a slight flabbiness. On this showing Sollima lacks his namesake's ability to deliberately pace a film. Something always has to be happening, leading to an excess of 'out of the frying pan into the fire' incidents for Cuchillo and some unpredictable, at times unconvincing, shifts in allegeiance. (It's worth noting here how Cuchillo's frequent costume changes – back and forth between the garb of a Mexican peon, Salvation Army soldier (!) and Texan Cowboy – are reminiscent of those undertaken by the trio in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.)
All told, Run Man Run is an enjoyable, well-made spaghetti. The only group I'd hesitate to recommended it to are the hardcore politicos, who might find Face to Face or even Jean-Luc Godard's Wind from the East preferable.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD from Blue Underground presents Run, Man, Run fully uncut and in its original 2.35:1 glory, enhanced for 16:9 televisions.
Picture quality is remarkably good considering the film's vintage and relative obscurity, being as good if not better than many films from the past decade. And, while the English and Italian soundtracks (with optional English subs) are only mono, they are clear and noise-free throughout.
Blue Underground have, as usual, made a very decent job of the extras.
A short documentary, Run Man Run: 35 Years Running interviews Sollima and Milian, who remember the film and their collaborations with affection. An alternative, broader, perspective on the spaghetti western phenomenon is provided by a second, longer documentary, Westerns Italian Style dating from the mid-1960s. Narrated by Frank Wolff, American veteran of many an Italian film ( The Great Silence , Once Upon a Time in the West , Cold Eyes of Fear etc) and featuring interviews with Enzo G Castellari, Sergio Corbucci and Sollima, it's somewhat cheesy but a worthwhile historical curiosity nonetheless.
Rounding things off are the usual trailer, talent biographies and stills galleries, along with an alternate Italian title sequence.
The disc is available in its own right or as one fourth of the Spaghetti Westerns box set, along with Django , Django Kill and Mannaja: a Man Called Blade .
(A profile of Donal O'Brien is at (External) www.christiankessler.de/donalob.html )
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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