Crowded House

Is it just me, or is this city a bit too crowded ? The bus is full, it's time for some people to get off. When's YOUR stop ?

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Henri Verneuil, a French director, was loved by his fellow director friends, as well as by the general public. He died of a heart stroke on Jan. 11th of 2002, but left us some unforgettable movies such as UN SINGE EN HIVER (1962) and PEUR SUR LA VILLE (1975). He began his career in 1950 with ON DEMANDE UN BANDIT, a comedy featuring Jean Carmet. It was the start of an atypical, yet highly popular filmography.



In 1984, he directed a less known gem titled LES MORFALOUS, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as an irreverant legionnaire digging for gold in a war-torn Tunisian town. Not quite a comedy, not quite an action flick, it's almost as if it was a play that ended up on the big screen with tanks & guns in it. Much of the quality of the viewing exprience can be attributed to Michel Audiard, father of director Jacques Audiard and dialoguist extraordinaire. We could also blame a few good men's bonne humeur, because the players were not born yesterday : the late Jacques Villeret & Michel Constantin both shine in their own particular way. Another light comes from Marie Laforêt's (who also appeared in Claude Chabrol's MARIE-CHANTAL CONTRE LE DOCTEUR KHA in 1965, and in Georges Lautner's FLIC OU VOYOU in 1979, once again alongside Belmondo) gorgeous eyes. The female leads, in such mega-productions, were always easy on the eyes.



The events of Belmondo's adventures in LES MORFALOUS are always difficult to predict, and it's a pleasure seing them unfold with sparkling good humour, cracking one-liners, and a visual feast of white tunisian architecture and beige & green army gear. Taking place during WWII, there are the inevitable Germans, who are portrayed as half-evil, half-irresistible gentlemen. They might seem irresistible, but ther are not as easy-going as the movie itself, which is a testament to popular French cinema of the 80's, back when it was populist and fun, but still interesting for all IQ's.

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E.B. Clutcher does not really exist. Back in the 80's, when Italians were starting to run out of ideas and the "American ideal" was at its prime, they were shooting numerous movies in the U.S.A. (Bruno Corbucci - with the Nico Giraldi series - and Enzo G. Castellari - with the "Extralarge" franchise - should have moved to Miami while they were at it) and changing their names to make them sound "less italian". Cultural travesty or not, it made it harder for movie fans to track down their favorite director's flicks when they were finally released on VHS.



So E.B. Clutcher is a pseudonym, used by the late Enzo Barboni (1922 - 2002) for his end of career productions, mostly shot outside of Italy. In 1987, he shot one in the American west with Terrence Hill as an optimistic cowboy, traveling the land with his faithful horse Joe Brown in tow. When his friend Moose, in prison for a while, asks him to take care of his 15 years old brat until he's 16, it's something he cannot refuse. He needs to go to some house on a big land in Arizona, and wait there until the time comes. However, a local developper, Lawson, wants to buy the land to exploit it, and so the battle starts between good and evil.

Terrence Hill & Bud Spencer movies pretty much always have the same themes, but it's still a pleasure to watch them beat the bad guys to a pulp. Good natured feeling prevail, and it's useful for the kids, as it teaches them a lot about life in general, with a few fart jokes here and there. The particularity here is that the movie stars Ross Hill as the boy Terrence needs to protect. Ross was the adopted son of the Hill's and he died in an accident in 1990. To see them together in a kind of "replacement father & son" buddy movie is touching once you know that.



The plot also features girls falling for terrence, and a more than friendly Amish community. It teaches universal love, and while it does so in a quite cheesy way, it's the initial intent that counts, no ?

Robert Vaughn (the Napoleon Solo of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.) briefly appears as the bad guy. Enzo Barboni would go on to direct only two more movies (his last one being SONS OF TRINITY in '95) before putting an end to his career, but we'll remember him for officially launching the Hill & Spencer duo with his TRINITY flicks in 1970 and 1971.