***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** A rider is chased by many others. He reaches his home, his wife watches in fear. The hunters catch him, take him to the tree and hang him while his wife keeps screaming. The boss of the hunters looks at her but doesn't say a word. They all ride away when the deed is done. The 2 brothers of the hanged man are coming home. They watch the young widow dig a grave. Nobody offers help. The 2 brothers leave some money on the table and ride away.
The first 10 minutes of this movie are passing by without any dialogue, set in a pale desert land without any colours. Yes, `Une corde, un colt' is very stylish, just like the other great French western from 1968 (co-produced with Italy), `Le Grand Silence'. It was much more than just a job for Robert Hossein, who co-produced, directed and co-scripted the movie and also played the main character, gunfighter Manuel. His personal ambitions made this movie so much better than the usual genre fast-food. He used symbolism from the B&W era, for example the scene when Manuel comes around to visit the widow: you see the lonely rider far away in the desert, slowly coming closer, whilst her black scarf is draped over a bush in the foreground. The black scarf is so much bigger than the man due to camera perspective, and you now: he will arrive too late, and she will be dead. Poetry in pictures.
The film music is a cross between traditional US title songs (`the days are dust and the nights are black') and Morriconean trumpets as they were en vogue in the 60s. No big experiments here, but good craftsmanship.
Back to the story: the widow hires gunfighter Manuel to kill the villains. He says: `Vengeance will never satisfy you, you just don't realize it yet.' But he picks up the job and kills all the bad guys. Hossein as Manuel does not look like the normal Clint Eastwood stereotype. His soft mouth and sad eyes seem to say he is a victim of fate, not a hero, not even an anti-hero. He wears a black glove on his right hand only to symbolize his dark side. In a deserted ghost-town, he plays the roulette against himself, all became meaningless, there is no victory. At the end of the movie, Manuel throws his gun away (a cliche since the 50s), but then the daughter of the villain uses this opportunity to kill him with a rifle. They never did this to John Wayne and Gary Cooper... Interesting note: Dario Argento contributed to the screenplay, and he worked on another film with a revenge story the same year: Once Upon A Time In the West!
The first 10 minutes of this movie are passing by without any dialogue, set in a pale desert land without any colours. Yes, `Une corde, un colt' is very stylish, just like the other great French western from 1968 (co-produced with Italy), `Le Grand Silence'. It was much more than just a job for Robert Hossein, who co-produced, directed and co-scripted the movie and also played the main character, gunfighter Manuel. His personal ambitions made this movie so much better than the usual genre fast-food. He used symbolism from the B&W era, for example the scene when Manuel comes around to visit the widow: you see the lonely rider far away in the desert, slowly coming closer, whilst her black scarf is draped over a bush in the foreground. The black scarf is so much bigger than the man due to camera perspective, and you now: he will arrive too late, and she will be dead. Poetry in pictures.
The film music is a cross between traditional US title songs (`the days are dust and the nights are black') and Morriconean trumpets as they were en vogue in the 60s. No big experiments here, but good craftsmanship.
Back to the story: the widow hires gunfighter Manuel to kill the villains. He says: `Vengeance will never satisfy you, you just don't realize it yet.' But he picks up the job and kills all the bad guys. Hossein as Manuel does not look like the normal Clint Eastwood stereotype. His soft mouth and sad eyes seem to say he is a victim of fate, not a hero, not even an anti-hero. He wears a black glove on his right hand only to symbolize his dark side. In a deserted ghost-town, he plays the roulette against himself, all became meaningless, there is no victory. At the end of the movie, Manuel throws his gun away (a cliche since the 50s), but then the daughter of the villain uses this opportunity to kill him with a rifle. They never did this to John Wayne and Gary Cooper... Interesting note: Dario Argento contributed to the screenplay, and he worked on another film with a revenge story the same year: Once Upon A Time In the West!