A MAN CALLED BLADE

Blade is so named because of his nasty habit of chucking tomahawks at people, which Donald O'Brien is unfourtunate to experience "first hand" in the pre-credits sequence. Blade is a bounty hunter who has returned to his hometown to kill the rich industrialist who murdered his father. The town is shrouded in smoke from the silver mines, and the town is nearly deserted. Yes there is an ecological message here, and Martino actually handles it very well.

The flash-backs that show the fate of Blade's father are very effective, trees falling in slow motion as his land is cleared to make room for the silver mines. One tree lands on him, crushing him to death.

Once Merli hits town, he realizes he can't collect on the bounty, he lets O'Brien go. He plays a game of poker with classic bad guy actor John Stiener and wins. Stiener being the bad guy that he is sics his great danes on Merli, but he is blade you know, so he whacks 'em with his hatchet.

Next, after getting himself on Stiener's shit list, Merli does what every anti-hero in a spaghetti western does, barges into the bigshots house and demands to be put on the payroll.

Of course we all know that Stiener checks his shit list fairly often and eventually it's going to catch up with Merli. This is inevitable, because all sppaghetti western have to have the ass kicking-recovering from ass kicking-revenge for the ass kicking scenes, it's a law.

Stiener makes it worth his time, he buries Merli up to his neck, sews his eyelids open and lets him bake in the sun. Luckily one arm O'Brien comes along and digs him up. Merli and O'Brien hide out in a cave, but O'Brien sneaks off into town to turn Merli over to Stiener. Merli's no dummy and uses his time wisely, making some hatchets out of stone and sticks.

There's a cool shootout (hatchet out?) in the cave, Stiener's men can't see Merli 'cause it's dark in the cave, but Merli can see them.

After teaching O'Brien a lesson, it's off to settle the score with Stiener. The fog shrouded shootout is filmed like something out of a horror story, and is very well done, as is the rest of the film. Great music by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, great photography by one of the best DP's in Italy, Federico Zanni, and some of Martino's most stylish direction. Thankfully my copy is widescreen so the picture isn't compromised. Recommended.