During the cult Jamaican film The Harder They Come there's a scene in the
Kingston Rialto in which the film's hero- soon to be a gangster, watches a
Western. The audience- black- cheer approvingly as red hooded Ku Kux Klansmen
are mowed down by a tramplike hero with a machine gun concealed in a coffin.
The Harder They Come's lead will model himself on this tramp with tragic
results. The tramp's name, and the title of the film they're watching is
Django, one of the most important Spaghetti Westerns ever made.
At first sight this fame seems slightly misplaced. Django's plot is, after
all, only a reworking of A Fistful Of Dollars. Django enters a town divided
into warring factions, Jose Bodalo's Mexicans and Major Jackson's Confederate
bigots. He rescues Maria, who's been rejected by both sides and takes up
residence in the local; hotel whose owner is struggling to keep neutral in
this little war. Just as in A Fistful Django effectively hires himself out to
one of the sides- the Mexicans, after endearing himself to them by wiping out
forty of Jackson's men in the famous machine gun scene. His price is a cut of
a gold robbery, but the Mexicans double cross him. Django steals the entire
haul of gold, but is caught and mutilated- his hands are smashed. The Mexicans
are eliminated by Jackson who then moves in on Django. Just as in A Fistful
Django is down, but not out, however, Using the remains of his hands, Django
blasts Jackson's men and staggers- literally- out of the film.
The similarity then is obvious, but the devil's in the detail. Director
Corbucci ups the brutality to an extent that borders on surrealism. There's a
touch of the nightmare about this frontier town with its muddy streets and
mysterious bridge (going where?), crossing a quicksand. Jackson's Klansman
shoot Mexican peons for sport and are explicitly racist. Jackson, played with
superb revolting charm by Spanish actor Eduardo Fajardo, uses terms such as
'white trash'- especially evocative given the film's sixties production date.
The Mexicans laugh a great deal, particularly when killing. In a scene which
still outdoes Reservoir Dogs, a preacher and one of Jackson's men is obliged
to eat his own ear before being shot, accompanied by the contemptuous taunt
'Yankee!'
This, in other words, is a film with the brakes off- so much so, that British
censors refused to allow it to be shown until 1993. Further Corbucci allows
the hero more ambivalence than Leone's Stranger. Django is a friend of the
Mexican boss apparently and has a grudge against Jackson already- the details
are left tantalisingly unspecified. There's something more fatalistic about
Django. It's in keeping with the film's bleakness that the barman- the only
totally sympathetic character- is gunned down by Jackson and, Maria, like
Django, only survives badly injured. This is Spaghetti Western as melodrama,
rather than Leone's ironic comedy of death. Finally, Django has a name- this
simple fact combined with the film's enormous commercial success was to ensure
numerous subsequent films cashing in on the title. Some of those film's were
classics, many weren't- a few didn't even have a Django in the title until one
was added by opportunistic distributors. Corbucci's film fed directly into the
mass Spaghetti western where Leone became a law unto himself, too expense to
be emulated.
Django features a number of additional assets. As well as Fajardo and
Bodalo's fine villains, Maria and star Franco Nero establish themselves as key
genre players (Nero only played Django in one other film, and then not until
1987). Photographer Enzo Barboni makes the most out of the freakish art
direction- mud, red Klan hoods, and blood abound in this visceral display.
Finally composer Luis Enriquez Bacalov delivers a distinctive and effective
score- so effective that Bacalov plundered it for numerous subsequent films.

TOM SELDON