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Morricone

The Morricone Collection: “Faccia a Faccia” (1967)

Original Italian theatrical poster.
Morricone closes his eyes and hears a symphony (or so I imagine!).
Reverse album cover.
Morricone blows his horn.

Album write-up from elusivedisc.com:

“This is the soundtrack to Sergio Sollima’s Italian Spaghetti western film Faccia a Faccia (also known as Face To Face), starring Gian Maria Volonte, Tomas Milian and William Berger. Composed by the legendary Ennio Morricone, the 1967 movie’s music is a beautiful mix of typical epic ’60s Morricone western moods, experimental moments and even some sheer Country. The orchestra and chorus are directed by Bruno Nicolai, the famous Italian film music composer. His work is featured in Kiss KissBang Bang and Kill Bill Volume 2 amongst many other movies.”

Other Pressings:

“Faccia a Faccia” aka “Il Etais Une Fois Dans L’Arizona (“Once Upon A Time In Arizona”).

The Film:

Opening title card to Sergio Sollima‘s “Faccia a Faccia.”
The perpetually smoldering icon of ’70s international cinema, Gian Maria Volonte.

British cult-auteur Alex Cox is probably best known to movie lovers for his ‘80s classics “Repo Man,” and “Sid & Nancy,” but he is also one of the foremost authorities on all things Spaghetti Western, as evidenced by his excellent compendium on the genre, “10,000 Ways To Die,” in which he provides a wealth of information and insight into the film and its production.

British director (and Italian Western scholar), Alex Cox.
Alex Cox’s “director’s take on the Italian Western.”

Below is the transcript to Alex Cox’s Moviedrome introduction to Sergio Sollima’sFaccia a Faccia,” originally broadcast by the BBC on August 29th, 1993:

Cox introduces “Face To Face” aka “Faccia a Faccia” on BBC’s Moviedrome program.

Face to Face is one of three ‘political westerns’ by the Italian director Sergio Sollima, who sometimes operates under the pseudonym ‘Sterling Simon’. The other two were The Big Gundown, an excellent bounty-hunter movie starring Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian, and Run, Man, Run, a rather worse-than-mediocre sequel involving the further adventures of Milian. They were ‘political’ in much the same way as all the spaghetti westerns, setting up a rural/urban conflict in which the city dwellers are always insidious degenerates or usurous bankers, and the rural characters innocent exploitees, often championed by a glamorous social bandit. It’s a straight-forward, simple-minded view that you can find even in supposedly sophisticated Italian films, the most lumbering example perhaps being 1900.

Tomas Milian takes aim.

Face to Face has been described as a parable of the rise of European fascism. Well, maybe. It certainly has the political schematic outlined above, but to me it seems more of a Borgesian tale of fate and doppelgangers. You can take your pick. It also has, and this is where it gets good, some of the most improbable character names, and some of the most outlandish haircuts ever seen in a western. Gian Maria Volonte plays professor Brad Fletcher, a consumptive Boston University professor who heads west for his health. Volonte is, of course, one of the great spaghetti western actors – he was the bandit chief in A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More; he was the unwilling revolutionary in A Bullet for the General. Volonte was a serious actor who had been blacklisted for being a Communist – Leone was the first director to break ranks and give him a job. Later he went on to appear in more ‘serious’ political films, including Sacco and Vanzetti, and Francesco Rosi’s Lucky Luciano. He’s always good, and this is one of his better western roles.

Pistol in the sand.

“In Face to Face, Brad Fletcher becomes involved with a Mexican bandit with the unlikely moniker of Solomon ‘Beauregard’ Bennet, leader of a hippie-esque outlaw gang called Bennet’s Raiders. Beauregard is played by Tomas Milian – the Cuban actor who appeared in Sollima’s other political westerns, and in many other spaghettis including the truly extraordinary Django Kill. Milian, like Volonte, is a ‘proper’ actor – he played the priest in Dennis Hopper’s Peruvian epic The Last Movie, and recently was seen as one of the anti-Castro hitmen in Oliver Stone’s JFK.

Preparing For Battle.

“The chemistry between Volonte and Milian is really interesting, and it keeps the film alive when it might otherwise expire – as, for instance, in the incongruous hippie commune scenes. There are also those haircuts to contend with. But Face to Face is really quite an entertaining and intriguing film. Watch out for several spaghetti western regulars, including William Berger as the mysterious Charlie Sirringo, Aldo Sambrel as the treacherous polecat Zachary Shot, and Angel del Pozo in the role of the gentleman gunfighter, Maximilian de Winton.”

Watch Alex Cox’s Moviedrome intro to “Faccia a Faccia” here:

BBC Moviedrome – Face To Face – Introduced by Alex Cox.

The Director:

Italian writer-director Sergio Sollima.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0813177/
Sollima’s Filmography Highlights.

Though he may not be the most famous or critically lauded of the “Three Sergios” (Leone and Corbucci would take gold and silver, respectively, in that contest), Italian filmmaker Sergio Solima was a prolific critic-turned-writer-director with 34 writing credits and 19 directing credits to his name.  

The lesser-known of “The Three Sergios,” Italian writer-director Sollima.
Leone, king of the Sergios.
The other other Sergio, “Django” director Corbucci.

A tough and stylish filmmaker who worked confidently and successfully in many genres, Sollima is best known for his excellent Spaghetti Westerns “Faccia a Faccia,” aka “Face to Face,” and “The Big Gundown,” aka “La Resi Dei Conti,” both released in 1967, and “Run Man Run,” released the following year (in which Tomas Milian reprised his Chuchillo character from “Big Gundown“). All three pictures were scored by the Maestro.

Morricone’s other collaboration with director Sergio Sollima from 1967 resulted in one of the Maestro’s best Western scores.
Alternate “The Big Gundown” album pressing under the original Italian title, “La Resa Dei Conti”
Cover art for Blue Underground’s DVD release of “Run Man Run.”

The director and composer duo would reunite with similarly impressive results on the films “Citta Violenta” aka “Violent City” aka “The Family,” and “Il Diavolo Nel Cervello” aka “Devil In The Brain.

Recent vinyl re-issue of “Citta Violenta” by Ennio Morricone.
Album cover art.

But my favourite Morricone/Sollima collaboration has to be 1973’s “Revolver,” starring Fabio Testi and Oliver Reed, featuring the standout track “Un Amico,” which rabid-Morricone fan Quentin Tarantino repurposed to great effect in “Inglourious Basterds.”

Listen to “Un Amico” from “Revolver” & “Inglourious Basterds!” on YouTube here:
Listen to “Un Amico” by Ennio Morricone on YouTube.
Album cover art.
Watch the “Un Amico” clip from Tarantino’sInglourious Basterds” on YouTube here:
Cinema’s avenging angel, Mélanie Laurent in Tarantino’s WW2 epic.

Sergio Sollima’s Director filmography from IMDb:

Sollima’s 1st of two screen credits from the”Faccia a Faccia”‘ title sequence.
Sergio Sollima on IMDb.
VENICE, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 02: Stefano Sollima attends a photocall for the “Adagio” at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 02, 2023 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Stefania D’Alessandro/WireImage)

Worth mentioning is that Sollima is the father of director Stefano Sollima, who has established an impressive career in his own right, both in television, directing episodes of acclaimed Italian series “Gomorrah,” and “Zero, Zero, Zero” (both adaptations of non-fiction works by Roberto Saviano), and in features, in Italian productions like “ACAB,” aka “All Cops Are Bastards,” and “Suburra,” and more recently, with Hollywood productions “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” and the Tom Clancy thriller “Without Remorse,” though Sollima returned to Italian cinema with last years’ “Adagio.”

Another Roberto Saviano adaptation for television also directed by Sollima Jr.
All Cops Are Bastards” (“ACAB”) poster.
Suburra“ character poster.
Sollima’s most recent picture, 2023’s “Adagio.”

Title Sequence:

Faccia a Faccia” opens with one of my favourite title sequences of all time (of those not created by Saul Bass, of course), and certainly distinguishes this film from the many homogeneous Spaghetti Westerns produced in its era. Wildly colourful two-tone graphics using (seemingly) hand drawn text, images of its stars, and of various Western film motifs (horses, wagons, etc.) evoke a gritty, expressionistic atmosphere, indisputably fueled by the emotional charge Morricone’s rousing theme music (“Faccia a Faccia (Titoli)”) provides in abundance.

Opening image.
Title card.
The Maestro’s Screen Credit.
Sollima’s 2nd screen credit.

Watch the psychedelic title sequence from “Faccia a Faccia” here:

Title Sequence.

Posters:

Original Theatrical Poster.
French Theatrical Poster.
Alternate French theatrical poster playing on the title of another Morricone and Sergio (Leone, this time) collaboration, “Once Upon A Time In The West.
Alternate Theatrical Poster.
Alternate Poster.
French blu-ray cover art.
DVD cover art.
Cara a Cara” aka “Faccia a Faccia” DVD cover art.
German theatrical poster for “Faccia a Faccia” aka “Von Angesicht zu Angesicht.”
German DVD Cover Art.

Links:

Purchase a vinyl copy of Morricone’sFaccia a Faccia” on Discogs here:

“Faccia a Faccia” on Discogs.
Listen to “Faccia a Faccia (Titoli)” on YouTube here:
Faccia a Faccia (Titoli)” by Ennio Morricone.
Mubi.com

Watch the trailer for “Faccia a Faccia” on Mubi.com here:

https://mubi.com/en/films/face-to-face-1967/trailer
www.mubi.com

Watch the trailer for “Faccia a Faccia” on YouTube here:

International trailer.

Watch a clip from “Faccia a Faccia” on YouTube.


Clip on YouTube.

If you’re in Toronto, say hi to my Filmography podcast co-host, Bjorn, and pick up a copy of “Faccia a Faccia” by it’s English title “Face to Face” (1967) at “Toronto’s last great video store,” Bay Street Video, in person, or online (with the link below):

“Face to Face”

Meet my pal, Bjorn, and discover his Pride Week ’24 film recommendations here:

Queer cinema classics for Toronto’s Pride Week 2024.

Outside of Toronto, purchase a copy of the blu-ray on Amazon here:

“Faccia a Faccia” blu-ray on Amazon.ca

Watch the complete film (for free) here:

Complete Film Online.
See Morricone in a documentary on his improvisational collective, Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza (aka Il Gruppo / The Group), filmed in 1967, the same year the Maestro composed the score for “Faccia a Faccia“:
The Group on YouTube
Morricone with his Group.

Read up on Morricone, The Group, and the 1967 documentary in this tribute piece from The Austin Film Society:

AFS’s Morricone tribute.

Categories
Morricone

The Morricone Collection: “Navajo Joe” (1966)

Never so bold!

-Lyrics from “Navajo Joe” main theme.
Theatrical Poster Art.

Though it was released under the pseudonym Leo Nichols, the score to Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Spaghetti Western, “Navajo Joe” is unmistakably the work of the Maestro. Despite a screenplay co-written by Fernando Di Leo (“Calibro 9“) “Navajo Joe” is certainly not Corbucci’s best film (that would be “Il Grande Silenzio“), but the music for which it was composed should be counted amongst Morricone’s greatest contributions to the genre.

Navajo Joe” director Sergio Corbucci on location
“Navajo Joe” synopsis from MGM’s North American DVD release.

“A band of outlaws, headed by a sullen leader named Duncan, sweeps across the country like the plague, destroying everything in its path, including an Indian village. The outlaws arrive in the town of Esperanza, where they are hired by a crooked doctor to hijack a bank train and share in the wealth. But the sole survivor from the Indian village, a renegade Navajo named Joe (Burt Reynolds), fells the plan by relocating the money. An irate Duncan holds an innocent Indian girl hostage until Joe surrenders; the brave citizens of Esperanza, under siege by the bandits, risk their lives to free Joe, who is their only hope of surviving. Joe once again takes on Duncan and his ruthless comrades with unforgettable vengeance.”

James Southall’s review of Morricone’sNavajo Joe” album:

Sergio Leone’s masterpieces with Clint Eastwood were just beginning to make their mark on America when Navajo Joe came along, attempting to do a similar kind of thing but in an even grittier way; a different Sergio was in the director’s chair (Corbucci, who had made the seminal Django), and Burt Reynolds was in place of Eastwood.  One constant was the composer – of course, Ennio Morricone, whose work in this genre I would rank as the most extraordinarily creative and brilliant film music there has been.

Album Cover with Morricone given proper credit on Apple Music.

The main title theme for Navajo Joe is a hoot, unexpected even from this most unpredictable of film composers – it begins with a woman’s screech, a primal and startling sound, before a choir sings the name of the character and occasionally utters some words of wisdom about him (eg: ‘Never so bold!’) – a memorable, striking, vintage piece of Morricone, famously used in Alexander Payne’sElection‘ over thirty years later.  And there aren’t many film scores which become ingrained in popular culture because two entirely separate pieces from them cropped up in entirely different films decades later, but as well as the main title in Election, Quentin Tarantino used ‘A Silhouette of Doom‘ in ‘Kill Bill‘ – it’s a driving, suspenseful piece for the villains of the story, built around a five-note motif hammered at the low end of a piano which forms a key building block of the score as a whole.

NOT Josh Brolin, but Burt Reynolds as “Navajo Joe.”

Those two pieces dominate, cropping up in countless variations over the 45-minute score, but always given fresh impetus with each new appearance thanks to the composer’s ingenious knack for building up whole scores sometimes from relatively small (in terms of volume) ideas.  It also helps that there are one or two other set-pieces along the way – the inevitable saloon music, ‘The Peyote Saloon‘, with the piano and banjos, the wonderfully outlandish ‘But Joe Say No‘, the two ‘Navajo Harmonica‘ source cues and the breathtakingly beautiful ‘The Demise of Father Rattigan.’

Reynolds with Nicoletta Machiavelli in “Navajo Joe.”

A kind of legend has built up about this score over the years due to numerous factors – no doubt the fact that it is such good music is the key one, and the use in other films has also helped, the fact that Morricone wrote the score (somewhat mysteriously) under the pseudonym Leo Nichols (and the possibly apocryphal story that Burt Reynolds was furious that the producers were too cheap to hire Morricone so got this Nichols fellow instead) but its peculiar release history also plays a part, with various LPs being issued through the 1960s and 70s which were all unsatisfactory for one reason or another, and the only CD release (in the mid-1990s) suffering from very poor sound.  Now Film Score Monthly has put out the definitive release, of the whole score, plus 10 minutes of bonus tracks, in easily the best sound yet (though it is still certainly not problem-free).  Even by their standards the liner notes are good, with a short essay by John Bender, track-by-track analysis from Lukas Kendall and Jim Wynorski and a brief note from the latter about his history with the score.  Top-notch.”

http://www.movie-wave.net/titles/navajo_joe.html

Corbucci would also engage Morricione to score his next film, “The Hellbenders” (aka “I Crudeli“), as well as “The Great Silence” (aka “Il Grande Silenzio“), “The Mercenary,” “Companeros,” and “Sonny & Jed.”

Above, the original “Navajo Joe” theatrical poster served as inspiration for the fictional “Comanche Uprising” poster featuring Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton in Quentin Tarantino’sOnce Upon a TimeIn Hollywood.”

United Artists’ poster for North American Theatrical Release.
Alternate Theatrical Poster.
Spanish Poster Art for “Navajo Joe.”
DVD cover art for MGM’s North American release of “Navajo Joe.”
Thumbnail from YouTube.
Danish VHS cover art for “Navajo Joe.”

Links:

Find a copy of the vinyl for “Navajo Joe” on Discogs here:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2291564-Leo-Nichols-Navajo-Joe-Original-Motion-Picture-Soundtrack?srsltid=AfmBOop41YLUm_uLZRlIGGAojqDo_HsZkiSEBbT2OPJ2rJNe4OXavfWO

Listen to the 13-minute “Navajo Joe Suite” here:

Morricone’sNavajo Joe Suite” on YouTube.

Watch the trailer for “Navajo Joe” here:

Navajo Joe” film trailer on YouTube.

Watch the train robbery sequence from “Navajo Joe” here:

Train Robbery Scene on YouTube.

Watch Quentin Tarantino talk about the fictional meeting between Sergio Corbucci and his “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood” protagonist, Rick Dalton, here:

Watch Netflix’s Sergio Corbucci documentary, “Django & Django,” featuring Quentin Tarantino here:

https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/81519575

If you are in the Toronto area, say hi to my Filmography podcast co-host, Bjorn, and find a copy of “Navajo Joe” at “the last great video store” Bay Street Video here:

www.baystreetvideo.com
Toronto’s last great video store, located on Bay Street, just south of Bloor.

Outside of Toronto, purchase a blu-ray of “Navajo Joe” on Amazon here:

https://a.co/d/daiSXDL