DJANGO (1966): a good film?

I have a confession to make: I love Westerns. But I used to hate spaghetti Westerns. Here's why.

When you ask someone about Westerns, the conversation inevitably turns to John Wayne. He is the Western cowboy. Randolph Scott, James Stewart, Clint Eastwood (in his American films) also did great jobs bringing the Old West to the big screen, but John Wayne outpaced them all. Ask me the best 25 Westerns ever made and I would guess that 10-15 John Wayne films make that list. Rio Bravo, Stagecoach, Red River, the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the Shootist, True Grit, and the Searchers are all films that are irreplaceable on that top 25.

Westerns were movies like the Magnificent 7, Rio Bravo, High Noon, and the Gunfighter. Westerns were not movies with bad dubbing, dirty heroes, long pauses and blaring orchestral music. For the longest time, I did not understand how Western fans wanted to place Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and the Good the Bad and the Ugly (this website's namesake) on the best Westerns list. Sacrilege!

I hated Fistful of Dollars the first time I saw it. Even though I loved Clint Eastwood's American films, and I understood that the film was based on Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, and I had actually seen Yojimbo (which was the whole reason I watched Fistful in the first place), I hated Fistful. It was way to erratic in pacing, the music blared over the top of everything else, everything in the film was filthy and sweaty- this was not High Noon.

I had the same reaction to Few Dollars More and GBU. How could anyone like those films? But I continued to study movies, and try to learn. I read lots of analysis from others who were students of Spaghetti westerns (yes just like the chopsocky Kung-Fu films I loved, Spaghetti westerns had students, and fans). I watched the films again, and disliked them less.

I think the problem for me was the re-imagining of my beloved genre. The Western was its own film type with nothing else like it. War films come close, but the Western was wholly American. A tradition not to be messed with. In the 60's, Spain and Italy took it upon themselves to re-imagine my genre. They had no right! But just like America in the 60's was re-examining everything, the Europeans were saying, "Hey! What if Westerns were like this?"

They were not saying that the Spaghetti versions should replace High Noon and the Magnificent 7, but deserved to be considered equally on what things may have looked like back then. I was hooked. I fell in love with the sub-genre, and now find that the Man with No Name trilogy (the title that the three previous movies go by collectively) is in my top, favorite Westerns of all time.

I said all that to say this: nearly everyone considers Sergio Leone's Man with No Name trilogy to the pinnacle of Spaghetti westerns. They made Eastwood an international star and redefined the Western in a vein that stands to this day. The 4th best Spaghetti western ever made? Django 1966. It's far and away the best non-Leone Spaghetti Western out there. From the music, to the great performances by the players, it fits the genre perfectly. And what is Django dragging around in that coffin anyway? I won't tell.

IMDB says 7.2/10. I'd give it a 7.5 at the least. If you haven't seen it, you are in for a treat.