Tomás Millian, Blade of the West

Vous n’avez jamais vu un zapata western ? Saludos hombre, sous ses habits restaurés en 4K, en est une rutilante illustration !

Emerging in Italy in the wake of the “spaghetti western” craze, the sub-genre always places the action against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, invariably illustrating the class struggle between poor peasants and general oppressors. Although the most famous example remains Sergio Leone’s Duck, You Sucker!, released in 1971, three years earlier, another Sergio–last name Sollima–beat the great Leone to the punch with this tale of a fight-to-the-death for a few dozen pounds of gold. Run, Man, Run is the third and final instalment to the genre elevated by John Ford, once again starring Cuban actor Tomás Milian, trained at the Actor’s Studio (in the same class as Paul Newman), playing character “Cuchillo,” a “Tex-Mex Robin Hood,” unparalleled knife-thrower and above all, more cunning than he looks. 
 

Shot between the Tabernas Desert in Almería and the mountains of Lazio for the hot-pursuit chase in the snow, Run, Man, Run delivers relentless action. The dialogue is fired off like bullets in a carnival: “For revenge to pay off, it has to be carried out in cold blood!” The female figures are impressive with the authority that Sollima’s screenplay bestows on them. Is it a feminist Western, then? Let’s not get carried away! Yet Cuban actress Chelo Alonso and Italian Linda Veras make significant contributions to the action-packed plot of this male-dominated picture. Quentin Tarantino, who confessed his admiration for the films of Corbucci and Leone, ranks Sergio Sollima just a notch above the other two Sergios, with a particular fondness for the latter’s previous Western, The Big Gundown.
 

Carlos Gomez