It's not the first and it won't be the last spaghetti western that sees a purely iconic anti-hero roaming the sierras of Almeria in search of loot, money or treasure of one kind or the other. But it's the first and probably the last time that such a loot will have feminists and other PC characters foaming so furiously in the mouth. The titular Blindman (Tony Anthony) has a contract to deliver 50 women to the workers of a mine in Texas, only he's about to discover his cargo has been stolen by a sardonic baddie named Domingo and is being kept somewhere in Mexico.
If I use the word 'cargo' to describe the 50 hapless women, it's because that's exactly how the movie treats them; as objects to be ravaged, enjoyed or transported as the need arises. They're herded and driven tied in wagons like cattle, washed with buckets of water like animals in a stable and always regarded as a piece of entertainment. Feminists will have a ball of course but Ferdinando Baldi's movie avoids any and all questions of moral and sexist nature by taking a purely cartoonish road. Blindman does not ask the viewer regard it as a serious piece of cinema anymore than it regards itself as such.
After the half-hour mark story becomes largely irrelevant and it's all about the set-piece and the explosive action. It's more or less Blindman trying to get his 50 women while they're being taken from one place to the other but every five minutes someone is getting shot at or something blows up.
The two most prominent set-pieces among them being first the sight of the fifty women dressed in white nightgowns running scared through the desert while they're being pursued by a dozen savage Mexicans in heat, who proceed to shoot them, tear their clothes and take them right there and then. The other is the closing shootout taking place in a large windswept cemetery that perhaps recalls the ending of DJANGO.
Another interesting angle here is that the connection between the spaghetti western and samurai cinema is furthered by having protagonist Blindman explicitly homage blind masseur swordsman Ichi from the ZATOICHI series, perhaps the single most popular serialized character in Japanese chambara. Blindman is cut from the same mold of solitary badass as Shintaro Katsu's blind swordsman and he shares the same impeccable aim despite his physical shortcoming. But that's something the avid genre fan already knows the moment Blindman appears on screen we know he's going to kick ass and kick ass he does. He even hefts his Winchester like a two-handed sword and there's a bayonet in the rifle to further resemble the samurai sword.
If I use the word 'cargo' to describe the 50 hapless women, it's because that's exactly how the movie treats them; as objects to be ravaged, enjoyed or transported as the need arises. They're herded and driven tied in wagons like cattle, washed with buckets of water like animals in a stable and always regarded as a piece of entertainment. Feminists will have a ball of course but Ferdinando Baldi's movie avoids any and all questions of moral and sexist nature by taking a purely cartoonish road. Blindman does not ask the viewer regard it as a serious piece of cinema anymore than it regards itself as such.
After the half-hour mark story becomes largely irrelevant and it's all about the set-piece and the explosive action. It's more or less Blindman trying to get his 50 women while they're being taken from one place to the other but every five minutes someone is getting shot at or something blows up.
The two most prominent set-pieces among them being first the sight of the fifty women dressed in white nightgowns running scared through the desert while they're being pursued by a dozen savage Mexicans in heat, who proceed to shoot them, tear their clothes and take them right there and then. The other is the closing shootout taking place in a large windswept cemetery that perhaps recalls the ending of DJANGO.
Another interesting angle here is that the connection between the spaghetti western and samurai cinema is furthered by having protagonist Blindman explicitly homage blind masseur swordsman Ichi from the ZATOICHI series, perhaps the single most popular serialized character in Japanese chambara. Blindman is cut from the same mold of solitary badass as Shintaro Katsu's blind swordsman and he shares the same impeccable aim despite his physical shortcoming. But that's something the avid genre fan already knows the moment Blindman appears on screen we know he's going to kick ass and kick ass he does. He even hefts his Winchester like a two-handed sword and there's a bayonet in the rifle to further resemble the samurai sword.