God bless boutique home video distribution labels! At Cinapse, we are lucky to be connected with a handful of very cool companies who release more than a handful of amazing catalog titles on Blu-ray, many of which I would probably never have come to know. Our latest batch of cinematic discovery comes courtesy of Olive Films, and I had the good fortune to cover a forgotten Western from the 80’s. In spite of a few glaring issues, one can easily understand the need to preserve it, especially in HD.
Sebastian Collogero (the great Giancarlo Giannini), a first-generation Italian immigrant has been working his California vineyard for decades with his freakishly attractive family. Now an established success, he and his neighboring landowners are being naturalized the same week a powerful railroad baron (Dennis Hopper) sends an offer their way, enticing them to vacate the area so he can more affordably build a new railway. They rightfully refuse, wishing to keep the land for which they had worked so hard, and when the railroad commission shows up with the local sheriff to remove the farmers by force, the opposing sides begin a volley of retaliation until a gang of mercenaries (lead by Burt Young) arrive, and murder Sebastian. Now, Sebastian’s son, Marco (Eric Roberts) brings all-out guerilla warfare against the construction of the railroad.
Marco builds a small army of two cousins, both of whom happen to be some of my favorite character actors, none-other-than Michael Madsen and Elias Koteas, who round out this excellent cast. The performances are all quite good, with the unfortunate exception of a somewhat indifferent Dennis Hopper. The role is small, but what little time he spends on screen with the rest of the principal cast involves the use of an unconvincing Irish accent. It isn’t quite the ugly “High tittily tie tuh ti” stereotypical junk you might expect, but what he is doing isn’t working, either. It isn’t up to him to carry the film, however. That job is left to Roberts.
Playing a man of few words, Roberts, at the height of his powers in the mid-1980’s, mostly strolls in and out of scenes, apparently waiting for someone to draw him onto the cover of a romance novel. His performance is solid, and although the costuming, production design, and hair and make-up are kicking ass all over this film, there is one major problem with Eric Roberts. He has an enormous mullet of gloriously cascading curls. I couldn’t find many stills from this obscure film, so I have included one of him from the 80’s actioner, Best of the Best, because it will tell you exactly how he looked in this film set at the turn of the 20th century. None of these admittedly distracting boo-boos could tarnish the cinematography, real star of the film.
Japanese D.P., Toyomichi Kurita rendered some of the most beautiful images I’ve seen in a long time. He asks us to fall in love with these California vineyards as deeply as the characters, with his use of light and color, our answer has to be a resounding “yes”. In nearly every shot of the endangered land, a natural glow shines in like it was divinely chosen, even under moonlight. That kind of awe-inspiring shooting is contrasted when we leave the area to check in with the antagonists, who do their planning in a flatter, less dreamlike image. If only he and the director, Peter Masterson, were more adept at shooting action. Certain sequences just don’t carry much weight, especially when we are so obviously looking at poorly hidden stunt doubles (thanks, HD).
If Goodfellas was the gritty underbelly to the The Godfather‘s majestic tale of honor, Blood Red falls somewhere between as a sort of prehistory to Italian-American organized crime. There are constant reminders in this film, including the presence of a Native American worker who fights for the Collogeros, that this country has always been a land of crime and terror. The landowners had left Cicely to escape crime, and chase the elusive American dream. Too bad the freedom it promises has always been bought, sold, or taken, and these people had to learn it the hard way.
Here’s a trailer, though I must emphasize the quality doesn’t begin to do the film justice.
