Director: Sergio Corbucci
Cast: Johnny Hallyday, Gastone Moschin, Francoise Fabian

Some years ago, either around Christmas time or my birthday, my sister gave me a gift. The gift she gave me was a crock pot. At first, I didn't know what to do with it, since I am kind of a lazy cook, and I often eat out or prepare very simple meals. But reading the instruction book and the recipe book that came with the crock pot, I discovered that it was perfect for little old impatient me. You just spend a few minutes preparing the ingredients of whatever crock pot meal you have a desire for at the time, throw the food into the crock pot, turn it on, and forget about it until it has finished cooking whatever you threw into it. At first, my cooking attempts with the crock pot were just confined to cooking roasts, with a chopped onion and potato to give it that little extra something. But then I changed tracks and I started to make stews. As I proceeded to make stews, it eventually dawned on me that with making stews, you throw in a lot of things that may be bland or uneatable at first. The contents of a can of tomatoes is nothing to write home about, and herb and spices are not something you pop into your mouth by itself like popcorn or potato chips. But with these plain ingredients thrown into the same crock pot, with the addition of assorted vegetables and even stuff like pasta or rice, they all come together so that after several hours when everything has cooked, every bite of the stew is delicious. When your taste buds simultaneously get the sensation of many different ingredients, you are far more likely to enjoy the ingredients than if you had just cooked them by themselves separately.

When I learned just how throwing in the right ingredients into a crock pot made a darn good stew, I was a little embarrassed. Why? It was because it not only took me a long time to learn that, I realized that with movies I had been making the same basic observation for a huge number of years. I'm not talking about movies featuring crock pots, though since there are so few of them around, I would be happy to write a screenplay for a producer who likes my pitch idea of a boy and his crock pot. (I'd call it Brock The Crock Pot). Instead, I am talking about film genres, and what ingredients are put into these genre movies that are generally good ingredients. Take the spaghetti western genre, for instance. REVENGE is a great ingredient that many successful spaghetti westerns have used. After all, who doesn't like to see a piece of slime gets his comeuppance? Another good ingredient often used in these particular movies is SECRETS. A little mystery, such trying to deduce who a bad guy is, adds a little tension and suspense. It's a great spice to sprinkle in. One prime ingredient in a great spaghetti western is BAD GUYS WHO ARE REALLY BAD. Though we might hiss and boo at the villains, they can be characters we in the audience love to hate. If they are really bad guys, they can often make sure of another nice addition, which is a HIGH BODY COUNT. Death in real life might not be funny, but seeing various people blown away on the silver screen always tickles my funny bone. On the other side, great spaghetti westerns need REALLY GOOD GUYS. If they are smart, charismatic, and make sure criminal scum don't raise their heads again, you've almost certainly got a winner of a pastafest.

There are a few other things that can make a spaghetti western great, such as LOCATIONS - using the Spanish desert to show its haunting and parched look. As well there is ACTION - lots of gunplay and dynamite explosions can really pump up the excitement level. And of course, there is MUSIC - someone like Ennio Morricone can produce film scores that make western more epic to the ears. I'm sure you can think of other things that can make a great spaghetti western stew (you do like spaghetti westerns, right?) But it can be really interesting now and then to throw in an ingredient that's quite different than usual. It can give the stew some freshness and flavor. That's what the makers of the spaghetti western The Specialists did. What did they do? In the lead role, they cast a rock and roll musician, specifically Johnny Hallyday, who is considered to be France's own version of Elvis Presley. That's probably got your interest up, but before discussing how Hallyday comes off in the movie, I'll give you the movie's plot. Somewhere in the American southwest during the golden age of the cowboy is the town of Blackstone. Some time ago, a man named Charlie was accused by the townspeople of robbing the local bank, and the townspeople lynched him. But then one day, gunfighter Hud Dixon (Johnny Hallyday) rides into Blackstone, and he happens to not only be the brother of Charlie, but has one aim in mind - to prove his brother was innocent, and giving punishment to the person or persons responsible for the bank robbery. It might be El Diablo (Mario Adorf, The Tin Drum) the leader of a bandit gang in the area and once was Dixon's friend. Though it seems that the local elite citizens might be keeping secrets about the robbery, including the local banker Virginia (Francoise Fabian, My Night At Maud's). While Dixon is pursuing justice and creating great tension as a result, the local sheriff Gideon (Gastone Moschin, Lion Of The Desert) tries to keep order, but Dixon is determined to track down the guilty party by any means. He gets some assistance from his brother's girlfriend Sheba (Sylvie Fennec) and saloon employee Valencia (Angela Luce), but will it be enough help to not only solve the mystery but to also keep Dixon from harm?

Like a previous Sergio Corbucci movie that I reviewed for this website - The Great Silence - The Specialists never got a theatrical release in North America. For the former, the reason was probably due to its downbeat nature. But as for The Specialists, I think the reason is more complex. The movie isn't particularly downbeat, and I wouldn't say it's a bad movie, but it is in several aspects a lot more unconventional than most other spaghetti westerns that were finding favor in North America. I feel I should point out that some of this unconventionality works in the movie's favor. Instead of shooting the movie in Spain, Corbucci instead filmed the movie in northeast Italy, specifically in the footsteps of the Alps. We see snow-covered mountains in the background, and the playing field the actors are in is rugged and quite green, with ample muddy spots. You can almost feel the slight chill in the air as you are struck by how different everything appears in the darkened and moody cinematography. The eeriness is boosted by the musical score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino (War Of The Planets), which is much less twangy for a spaghetti western, and much more haunting. Speaking of help from others, editor Elsa Armanni (Caligula) cuts and splices some sequences in ways that are effective, from rapid editing multiple shots to making the action sequences pack a punch, sometimes literally. Though Corbucci also does his part with these action sequences as well; in what we see in these scenes, the participants come across as crude, ruthless, and filthy. Indeed, towards the end of the movie, what we have seen up to this point has built up a genuinely grim feeling. I honestly didn't know if lead character Dixon was going to be able to walk into the sunset at the end of the movie, not just for the fact the typical clear blue skies are instead covered with dark clouds in most shots, but that the bizarre climatic sequence reminded me of the movies by Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo).

One quibble I do have with Corbucci's direction is that the middle section of the movie does really move slowly. While the leisurely pace does, I admit, add a little to the atmosphere, eventually I just wanted Corbucci to have the characters he directed and co-wrote get off their butts and do something major to get things going. In fact, quite a few of the characters end up doing very little to nothing to the movie. This is pretty evident with a quartet of hippies (yes, hippies) who make sporadic appearances but don't really do anything until the last few minutes of the movie, and even then, they have a feeling of being tacked on at the last minute. Oh, I suppose they eventually support a message that Corbucci seems to be putting forward, which is made completely clear when one character says out loud, "Rifles and guns attract evil temptation." The sheriff of Blackstone has forbidden the carrying of firearms in the town, which means that everyone either has to hope that they won't have to defend themselves... or hope they can keep a firearm in secret. This eventually leads to a second message The Specialists has, which is that power with greed inevitably leads to tragedy. These messages are fortunately not particularly heavy-handed in their delivery, though it is kind of strange that these messages managed to be delivered when the movie is surprisingly limited with giving the characters chances to participate in action sequences. It eventually becomes clear that there isn't a particularly large amount of plot here. A few more excuses for action sequences would have really helped the movie considerably, preventing things from going down to a near slumber at times, and helped mask the thin story.

While I am still speaking about the script, it would be a good opportunity to get into the characters of The Specialists. Though I know that spaghetti westerns are often known for somewhat of a lack of character development, the only two characters that are adequately fleshed out are the characters of Hud Dixon and the sheriff. The sheriff is actually the more interesting character of the two. He always remains firm in his beliefs that what he does are the right things to do, though at the same time he does occasionally let out that even while he thinks he's doing right, these choices may all the same lead to disaster for other people or himself. Sympathy for the sheriff is increased with the performance of actor Gastone Moschin in the role; he gives off an air that is always amiable. Most readers are probably wondering more about how Johnny Hallyday comes off in his role as the mysterious Hud Dixon. Actually, he isn't bad as a typical tight-lipped anti-spaghetti western hero. He's not great, but he at least knows that underacting in such a role is better than overacting, and he does bring some coolness and an instantly rough but likable edge. This compensates for some script weaknesses regarding his character. While I know that characters like him usually have little to no background yet are effective anti-heroes (like Clint Eastwood's characters in Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns) in this particular spaghetti western, the lead character seemed to be teasing that he'd reveal a lot more about his background... but ultimately doesn't. It kinds of ends the movie on a little frustrating note. Despite that problem and the other issues I listed earlier in the movie, The Specialists is a competent spaghetti western, though it's more suitable for spaghetti western aficianados who want something somewhat different than the usual fare, and are willing to put up with a different than usual spaghetti western that has a bit more than usual with its share of shortcomings.

(Posted April 18, 2025)