Spaghetti westerns are are still popular, especially with high-quality releases like this available. This 1967 pseudo-Django oater is from the boxed set Blood Money – Four Western Classics Vol. 2. It’s concocted to appeal to the fans of Sergio Leone. Gianni Garko is a handsome if colorless bounty hunter hero, and the notorious actor Claudio Camaso is his vicious bandit foe. Arrow’s extras access the original filmmakers for candid stories about westerns all’italiana.

$10,000 Blood Money
one film in Arrow’s set Blood Money – Four Western Classics Vol. 2
Blu-ray
Arrow Video
1967 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 100 min. / Street Date July 25, 2023 / 10.000 dollari per un massacro / Available from Arrow Video / 99.95
Starring: Gianni Garko (‘Gary Hudson’), Loredana Nusciak, Claudio Camaso, Adriana Ambesi, Fernando Sancho, Pinuccio Ardia, Fidel Gonzáles, Franco Lantieri, Ermelinda De Felice (‘Mary Fleece’), Franco Bettella (‘Frank Little’), Aldo Cecconi, Mirko Valentin.
Cinematography: Federico Zanni
Production Designer: Riccardo Domeneci
Costume Design: Enzo Bulgarelli
Film Editor: Sergio Montanari
Original Music: Nora Orlandi
Screenplay and story by Franco Fogagnolo, Ernesto Gastaldi, Luciano Martino additional writing Sauro Scavolini
General Manager: Luciano Martino
Produced by Mino Loy, Luciano Martino
Directed by Romolo Guerrieri

Reviewer Lee Broughton is CineSavant’s house expert on Italian westerns; we frequently thump his book studies.  Arrow Video’s lavish Blood Money – Four Western Classics Vol. 2 Blu-ray set ( →  ) is an obvious release for Lee to review, but he recused himself because he contributed a commentary to its lead-off feature.  That never stopped me.  This review will hopefully suffice, even if it doesn’t engage at the expert level — Tom Betts, Ulrich Angersbach, Howard Fridkin & Ulrich Bruckner’s knowledge of these movies knows no limit.

It’s generally agreed that nobody’s Italo westerns come close to the hits of Sergio Leone, the six pictures that begin with his plagiarism of a Japanese hit and end with his revolution epic and his producer-only semi-comedy. Beyond Leone it’s a slight step down to a few pictures by Sergio Corbucci, Sergio Sollima and maybe one or two others. After that, this reviewer can barely tell one from another.

Key filmmakers behind 1967’s 10.000 dollari per un massacro ($10,000 for a Massacre) appear on Arrow’s extras to asssert that the aim of Italo western producers was not Art, but grabbing quick $$ from what would sell. Massacro was timed and titled to attract fans of Leone’s pictures as well as a Sergio Corbucci hit with Franco Nero, Django. Unauthorized ‘Django’ films proliferated for several years; veteran genre screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi says that the main character’s name was changed to Django just before the shoot. They couldn’t sign Nero, but they signed the Django leading lady Loredana Nusciak. What’s the Italian equivalent of the phrase ‘covering all bases?’

As explained by co-producer Mino Loy, for about a decade Italo westerns exported well to foreign markets in regions where TV hadn’t yet arrived. In 1965, that included a lot of southern Italy as well. A distributor for Africa and the Far East would block book dozens of pictures at once, sometimes from lists of titles alone. That’s why scores of Italo oaters put ‘Django’ in their titles, even though no such character appeared in the movies themselves. A casual western fan in Bangkok or Dar es Salaam had no way to judge a film ad, but likely remembered the name Django.

The show was released in the UK with the English-language title $10,000 Blood Money. It may not have been distributed in the U.S. at all. Director Romolo Guerrieri had been a prolific assistant director (Goliath and the Barbarians,  Son of Samson) but was unknown here, Guerrieri’s 18 directed features include the western Johnny Yuma and the giallo The Sweet Body of Deborah. To our surprise, $10,000 Blood Money is handsomely shot and smartly directed. It indeed apes Leone whenever possible, but the imitative aspects are not distracting.

Bounty Hunter Django (Gianni Garko) only goes for the top bounties. He brings in the corpse of a wanted criminal and collects his reward. His sidekick and advisor is the photographer and undertaker Fidelius (Fidel Gonzáles). Saloonkeeper Mijanou (Loredana Nusciak) gives Django grief but they share a mutual attraction; she wants to relocate to San Francisco. Django tries to collect the bounty for a wanted criminal named Scarface (Aldo Cecconi), but runs into a patch of bad luck — the corpse is rendered unidentifiable by a stick of dynamite.

But Django finds a bigger prey when the depraved bandit Manuel Vasquez (Claudio Camaso of the violent Wake up and Kill) shoots up the Mendoza hacienda and kidnaps young Dolores Mendoza (Adriana Ambesi). Django baits the wealthy Don Mendoza (Franco Bettelia) into offering a higher bounty. Against Mijanou’s wishes, he heads out in pursuit of Vasquez. Wounded in an ambush, Django crawls back to Mijanou, recovers, and heads out again, this time with Fidelius in tow.

To their mutual surprise, Django and Manuel form a brief partnership. We discover that Dolores Mendoza is now Manuel’s lover, and has told him how to intercept one of her father’s secret gold shipments. Django is willing to become an outlaw because he wants a new life in San Francisco with Mijanou. But a double-cross once again puts Django and Vasquez in conflict. Six-gun annihilation is predicted for most of the cast.

Writer Gastaldi and director Guerrieri do their best to distinguish $10,000 Blood Money — it begins on a beach at dawn, where Django has apparently spent the night sleeping next to the corpse of his latest bounty score. Django and Manuel are first compared in matching shots, as they pass each other on the trail. The characterizations aren’t original, but Guerrieri manages a novel touch or two. Coming across a stagecoach surrounded by corpses, Django recognizes one, sheds tears and almost collapses in grief. It’s quite a switch for fans of the mostly cynical Italo branch of the genre. Everyone knows  there’s No Crying in Spaghetti Westerns.

The Techniscope camera is predictably heavy on the zoom lens, but Guerrieri blocks many of his scenes with an eye to formal compositions. The most Leone-esque aspect of $10,000 are the slowed-down, ritualistic showdowns. One is edited to match Nora Orlandi’s very Morricone-like Mexican-flavored trumpet and guitar dirges.

Grotesque details are avoided, but at one point Django is buried up to his neck and threatened with a poisonous scorpion.

By and large $10,000 Blood Money skips extended scenes of sadism. The show lacks the graveyard humor of the Leone pictures, but does find time to focus on sentimental supporting characters. Manuel’s father Stardust Vasquez (Fernando Sancho) is a ‘jolly cutthroat’ type, and the bandit ‘Seven Dollars’ (Pinuccio Ardia) is a funny fossil always making bets. As is typical for hardbitten Italo westerns, loyal sidekicks and virtuous girlfriends have difficulty surviving to the final reel, where the hero inevitably exits into the sunset, alone.

Star Gianni Garko (original name Giovanni Garcovich) fares quite well considering that he can’t fill the shoes of an Eastwood or even Franco Nero. He does look great and goes through the motions well. Leading lady Loredana Nusciak is excellent, but her career didn’t take off. She can be spotted uncredited in the Robert Aldrich epic Sodom and Gomorrah; we wonder if she would have done better if she stuck to her first name Loredana Cappelletti.

←  Twenty seconds after seeing Claudio Camaso, we’re thinking that he looks like the Evil brother of Gian-Maria Volontè. So imagine our surprise at finding out that he is the brother of Volontè. Camaso was a faithless boyfriend in Antonio Pietrangeli’s tragic  I Knew Her Well  and an incredibly violent thief in Carlo Lizzani’s gangster tale  Wake up and Kill.  He had what the press called a troubled life, that lasted only ten years longer before ending in real crime and bloodshed.

Camaso wears heavy brownface and even heavier eye makeup … which we can’t believe was comfortable on hot days in the Almeria desert. His Vasquez is the strongest characterization in $10,000. His distinctive look includes a pistol holster worn high on his right shoulder blade. How he can effectively draw from that position isn’t clear.

$10,000 Blood Money never looks cheap or too-hastily thrown together. Its Spanish locations are well-utilized and the action scenes more than competent. The only technical questions we have refer to Don Mendoza’s gold bullion. Gold is so dense and so heavy that we’d think two more wagons would be needed to carry the stacks of ingots we see. These ingots are also rather long, like very thick yardsticks. If a man must strain to move just one normal ingot, these bars would seem very unwieldy . . . they might also bend or break too easily.

On the other hand, the filmmakers pull off a dandy illusion when Django is menaced by that scary-looking black scorpion. They appear to bisect the shot with a sheet of glass. When the scorpion ‘rears up,’ we think it’s because he’s made contact with the transparent barrier.

Arrow Video’s Blu-ray of $10,000 Blood Money is the top disc in the company’s Blood Money – Four Western Classics Vol. 2 boxed set. The other titles are also directed by equally unfamiliar names, but Jeffrey Hunter and Lou Castel are listed among the actors, and each show is given full special edition extras.

The transfer of $10,000 is excellent, especially knowing that the original is a half-frame Techniscope negative. The ‘scope images are clean and sharp, with a fine grain structure. Cameraman Federico Zanni’s images are consistently attractive, with excellent depth of field. The zooms are less offensive because Zanni and Guerrieri also offer occasional handsome compositions. The day for night cinematography is also better than the norm.

The show can be seen two ways, with an Italian track and title sequence, and the same in English. Both versions carry English subs, and both tracks sound fine. The elements for this one must have been kept in a safe place.

Composer Nora Orlandi composed and sang songs for pictures, and also directed choirs (La strega in amore). For $10,000 one would think she was shown some Morricone scores and asked to duplicate their impact. Orlandi uses more violins than Morricone does in his early westerns, and a wailing instrument that essayist Howard Hughes identifies as a theremin. It serves as her ‘eccentric noise’ answer to Morricone. Orlandi definitely duplicates the ‘de guello’ death march format for the final confrontation.

Arrow’s extras begin with an informed and thoughtful commentary by Lee Broughton, who comes at the show from an academic angle, placing it in context within the genre and Italo filmmaking in general. Italo western fanatics will like the way $10,000 is compared thematically with scores of other titles sharing similar ideas and characterizations.

The director, one of the producers and the principal screenwriter all appear in relaxed, candid interviews to explain their experiences on the film. All are pleasant company. The producer Mino Loy is quite candid about the idea that he was packaging a mass product for a mass market. He claims no interest in westerns yet it’s clear that he didn’t want to make junk. $10,000 is a quality piece of work.

The always entertaining Ernesto Gastaldi talks about his wild days as an (initially starving) writer trying to get jobs, and dealing with exploitative producers. He worked a lot for this film’s production manager Luciano Martino, a prolific producer who also found time to direct a few features.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

$10,000 Blood Money
from Arrow’s set Blood Money – Four Western Classics Vol. 2
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Good
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
All-new supplements:
Audio commentary by Lee Broughton
Featurettes:
Tears of Django with director Romolo Guerrieri and actor Gianni Garko
The Producer Who Didn’t Like Western Movies with producer Mino Loy
How the West Was Won with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi
Theatrical trailer.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case, part of 4-disc boxed set
Reviewed: September 09, 2023
(6990bloo)

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