Review: A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die

Set during the American Civil War, Yankee commander James Coburn recruits an army of seven condemned men to take back Fort Holman, currently held by Confederate baddie Telly Savalas. Coburn (who faces a court martial for surrendering the fort so easily) attempts to keep his band of unscrupulous men (including Bud Spencer and Rene Kolldehoff) in line by promises of Confederate gold hidden somewhere in the walls of Fort Holman.

This 1972 Tonino Valerii (“Day of Anger”, with Lee Van Cleef, and “My Name is Nobody”, with Henry Fonda) film is a Civil War-era spaghetti western take on “The Dirty Dozen” with smaller cast (and Coburn in place of Lee Marvin, basically), smaller aims, and minor results. It also bears similarity to Sergio Leone’s Mexican Revolution epic “A Fistful of Dynamite” (AKA “Duck, You Sucker”) in plot terms.

The film comes in two versions, an uncut version in which Coburn did not dub his own dialogue, and a shorter version which Coburn does indeed have his real voice dubbed into the film. I bought the latter version very cheaply, thinking that unless the longer version was “Citizen Kane” I had made the right choice. After seeing the film, I’m still pretty sure the longer version wouldn’t be to my liking, but there’s seemingly a lot missing here about Savalas’ character, so I wonder if that version clears it up. Oh well, I’ve got the version I’ve got. Coburn’s voice is always preferable to someone else’s in my view. The funny thing is, as fine as Coburn is here (he’s one of my favourite actors), it’s bearded Bud Spencer (a veteran of Italian films mostly in the action/comedy or western genres) who gets the most screen time and he makes the most of it, in an entertaining performance. Kolldehoff, the fat German dude who for once isn’t actually playing a fat German dude, is also quite OK. The rest blend into the background, except Savalas who, despite not appearing in much of this version of the film, walks off with it easily.

Unfortunately, this film is unmemorable, right down to the wannabe Ennio Morricone (“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”) score by Riz Ortolani (“The McKenzie Break”, “The Fifth Musketeer”), which is efficient enough, I guess, but forgettable. And that sums up the film itself, far from awful but cheap, formulaic, and not memorable. The action climax is good, but there’s not nearly enough action throughout the film.

The screenplay is by Valerii, Rafael Azcona (“Belle Epoque”, the infamously grotesque “Le Grande Bouffe”), and Ernesto Gastaldi (“My Name is Nobody”, “The Horrible Dr. Hichcock”), from a story by Valerii and Gastaldi. You could do a lot worse, but that’s pretty much the best I can say here. Certainly any Coburn completists out there will want to check it out at least once.

Rating: C+