• So I’ve still some work yet to do in my Corbucci study (caught some of his work in the late 1970’s and 1980’s and it is mostly very regrettable) but during this stretch in the late 1960’s in the spaghetti western subgenre he did some incredible work and Navajo Joe is among his best
  • A prolific period for Corbucci – this is one of the four films he made in 1966—they almost all borrow from Sergio Leone’s superior films and feature music from Ennio Morricone
  • You have to get past Burt Reynolds as a Native American and the title character. The film does not have a great critical reputation and the critics are wrong here. It was panned upon release, also working against it is Reynolds who for decades would make fun of this movie (making fun of the wig, claiming he signed up thinking he was working with Leone saying Corbucci is “the wrong Sergio”— Corbucci claims he thought he was getting Marlon Brando). Sorry Burt- this is an excellent film and the only ones you made better than this were Boogie Nights and Deliverance
  • Reynolds clearly chased Eastwood his entire career. Tried to direct, followed him from TV to spaghetti western here, box office champion and extremely popular in the south and rural America
  • Revenge narrative and disruption of the Native American Eden in the opening as the film’s villain scalps a beautiful innocent woman
  • Reynolds is actually very good in the performance as well. It’s mostly a physical performance and his athletic background (a college football stud at FSU until a knee injury) pays off. He probably has less than 100 words of dialogue and doesn’t speak at all for the first 18 minutes
  • Corbucci is not Leone—not the perfectionist Leone is—Corbucci made four films in 1966 and Leone made seven his entire career.
  • Tarantino loves this movie of course- uses the score in Kill Bill, uses the narrative arc as inspiration for much of Leo’s Rick Dalton character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood—score one for Tarantino over the critics here. He’s right, they are wrong
  • Gorgeous shot at 25 minutes – long shot of Reynolds on horseback on a hill with the sun in the background
  • The score is simply one of Morricone’s best which has to put it with one of the best of all-time. I can’t picture this movie without it. Morricone is billed as Leo Nichols for some reason- not sure why—and if you’ve seen Alexander Payne’s Election (great use of it there) or Kill Bill as I mentioned you’ll recognize it. Masterful.
  • The valley as a natural set piece- looks like Shane
  • Strange to see Fernando Rey as a good guy straight priest after Bunuel’s Viridiana
  • It is not a great script- but the “which one of us is American” speech by Reynolds’ titular character is sharp—poignant—“where was your father born?”
  • In production named “a dollar a head” (again almost everything steals a little from Leone for Corbucci)—that’s in the text- as is “dollar a scalp”
  • Zoom camera movements – strong style choice consistent with the era and Corbucci’s choice as a go-to aesthetic
  • The staging of the five bad guys in the shootout finale is strong—shootout among the rocks like Mann’s Winchester 73
  • At 90 minutes a shot through the wheel spoke – horse approaching
  • R/HR border