Django (1966) Poster

(1966)

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7/10
Classic and violent Spaghetti Western with numerous imitations and rip-offs.
ma-cortes26 August 2009
This cult movie centers on Django(Franco Nero), a stranger man without identity , at the beginning he saves a woman (Loredana Nusciak). Later on , he is going to a village dragging a coffin behind him . The little town is located in the US-Mexican border . There he will take on two rivals , a Yankee group (leading Eduardo Fajardo) and a Mexican bunch (commanding Jose Bodalo). The colonel Jackson band is formed by a type of Ku-Klux-Klan hoodlums and he wears a red foulard . Django befriends the owner of the saloon (Angel Alvarez , a character-alike to Silvanito from ¨Fistful of dollars¨). Django seeks vengeance and go after the dastardly nasties because of his wife lies into a tomb captioning Mercedes Zaro (1839-1869) .

It is an exciting western co-produced by Italy/Spain with breathtaking showdown between the starring and his enemies . The highlights of the film are the confrontation at the village full of mud and dirtiness , between the baddies hooded with a red scarf and Django wielding a machine gun (though with anachronism , because being actually a 'Maxim model' that was made in 1880 and isn't utilized the usual 'Gatlin' machine-gun) and there he does a real massacre . Besides , the attack at fort where Django and henchmen cause a cruel slaughter , and , of course , the final showdown at the graveyard . Django is named as homage to ¨Django Reinhardt¨ , the famous American musician who introduced his particular guitar . There are special remembrances to Leone's Westerns , thus: ¨Fistful of dollars¨ about the facing off between two bands and ¨The good, ugly and evil¨ regarding the cemetery duel . The film blends violence , blood , shootouts and it is fast moving except for the saloon's episode that's a little bit slow-moving . There are many technicians and assistants who will have a long career , as cameraman Enzo Barboni or E.B.Clucher (filmmaker of ¨Trinity¨ series with Terence Hill , Bud Spencer) who does an excellent photography with barren outdoors , dirty landscapes under a glimmer sun and foggy clouds , shot on outskirts of Madrid in La Pedriza , Torremocha Del Jarama and Colmenar Viejo . The musician Luis Enrique Bacalov (author of ¨The Postman and Pablo Neruda¨ which won an Oscar and composed lots of Spaghetti) creates a good soundtrack with Ennio Morricone influence . In addition , assistant direction by Ruggiero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust). The picture was no authorized to minor 18 years and prohibited in various countries for its violence , for example , in England , but in France , Germany was a real hit and in Japan there is one ¨Fondazione Django¨ too . Sergio Corbucci direction is good ; after that , he would make several Spaghetti classics : ¨The great silence¨, ¨Compañeros¨ and ¨the Mercenary¨ and other considerable Paella Westerns : ¨Hellbenders¨, ¨Far west story¨ , ¨Johnny Oro¨ and ¨Navajo Joe¨.

It is followed by an official sequel titled ¨Django strikes again (1987)¨ by Nello Rossati alias Ted Archer with Franco Nero who has left his previous life of violence in favor of a existence as monk , though returns when his daughter is kidnapped . Furthermore, numerous unofficial sequels , rip-offs , and copies , such as : ¨Django the last killer (67)¨ by Giuseppe Vari with George Eastman ; Django dares Sartana¨ (69) by Pascuale Squitieri ; Django Il Bastardo¨(1969) by Sergi Garrone with Anthony Steffen , ¨Django shoots first (1974)¨ by Alberto De Martino with Glen Saxon and Evelyn Stewart.
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7/10
Sergio Corbucci's nihilistic answer to Leone's Eastwood classic
jaguiar3137 January 2013
As 1964's A Fistful Of Dollars was a huge hit, director Sergio Corbucci answered with his own Spaghetti Western in 1966, the classic Django. Where Sergio Leone filled his films with beautiful sweeping vistas and made good use of the Spanish locations, Corbucci's look for Django was very nihilistic and bleak as was it's tone. Filmed in winter, the landscapes are barren and dead and the streets of the town are filled with mud and the sky seems mostly always gray. The films' heroes are different too as Eastywood's "Joe" is an opportunist who plays two rival gangs against each other in a dangerous game to profit from both. Franco Nero's Django, on the other hand, is a former soldier who returns to a small town dragging a coffin behind him and seeking vengeance for the loss of a loved one. Django is a man whose heart and soul have been torn out by the Civil War and the murder of his wife and he doesn't care how many have to die before he exacts his revenge on the evil Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo) for her death. And death is indeed what lies within the coffin he takes with him everywhere as Jackson and his men will soon find out. The loner gunslinger Django also plays two gangs against each other for his own gain but, his gain is far more personal then profitable. The film's graveyard shootout finale is also very bleak and makes one wonder if Corbucci is asking us whether Django's surrounding himself with so much death has made him an outcast amongst the living. Django is a hard and violent tale under Corbucci's direction and Franco Nero's Django is a hard and violent man who, unlike Eastwood's charming anti-hero, is a man on a path to hell and plans on taking as many with him as possible. His flashes of humanity are brief and seem only directed at the saloon girl Maria, who falls for the dark loner. But, even Maria is not immune to the violence that follows this man wherever he goes. Django is an interesting entry in the Spaghetti Western genre and seems to be the dark opposite of Leone's series with Eastwood. And as such has earned it's own classic status and is rightfully regarded as one of the genres best examples.
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8/10
if you can ignore the wretched dubbing- one of the worst outside of Godzilla- it's an enjoyable whirlwind of a spaghetti western
Quinoa19841 November 2008
Sergio Corbucci is not really a great director, but if I hear his name I perk up in a genre-geek sort of way. Having seen a couple other movies by him, Navajo Joe and Il Grande Silenzio, I knew what to expect with Django, which is some of the same only (hopefully) more violent and serious and convoluted. Actually, the story in Django isn't too convoluted, just if you don't pay close attention, which is easy once or twice. It doesn't have the weird, cool energy of Grande Silenzio or the camp of Navajo Joe. But it stands on its own as a solid entry- the most well-known of all spaghetti westerns in Europe (yes, more than Leone, who was also a God there), and, well... if you watch the dubbed version from Anchor Bay video and come out unscathed, more power to you.

Franco Nero is in his iconic role as the title character (sing it with me, "Djangoooo!"), a man dragging a coffin into town and with some payback to deliver against a man named Jackson, and is actually caught up in two warring factions: a group of red-suited KKK members, and a crazy group of Mexicans, with women thrown from here to there and in-between. Django, of course, doesn't want to get involved with that, but he does, and it becomes a whole big thing not too unfamiliar to those who've seen their share of Leone pictures. In fact, this was the first in a whole franchise of Django- some official and most not, leading up to this year with Miike's amazing remake- and I could likely see this as being the best without having seen one other. It's just a guess, I could be wrong. Certainly it would be hard to top the body count, which nears 150 (or maybe it's more), if not all of the performances.

Then again, it's the look of most of the characters that becomes more and more striking as the movie goes on, including one snarling gunman with bad teeth and big gums (I forget his name), and the stone-faced Jackson himself who Django has the chance to kill early on but leaves alive (somewhat bewilderingly, then again there would be no film and less conflict for otherwise amazing comic-book gunslinger Django). What Corbucci can deliver alongside his cast of mostly bit players and hamming-uppers, is a kind of tough but loose style; he won't go to extremes like Leone with a close-up or a far-away angle, he'll just zoom and veer right into the action and get all of the bloody, crazy killings right up close and fast as possible. He's a good exploitation director and a decent stylist, with a little artistry and a warped form of professionalism. It must be fun and/or rough work being on his set.

So, for any and all genre fans, spaghetti western or just crazy-action film, you'll see why Django gets its rep, for better or for worse, usually the better. It's sometimes sloppy and occasionally not altogether well-made, but it soaks up its audience with its character as he kills quick with his huge cannon of a machine gun and has a final scene at a cemetery that is in the books somewhere as a mark of a true bad-ass. Just make sure, for the love of Pete, to try and steer clear of the English dubbing, as it's a mind-numbing experience (or just hilarious too).
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7/10
The Man in Black with a coffin full of trouble!
Borboletta2 August 2001
There is a lot of noise and attention surrounding this movie, including how violent and macabre it is...well, it definitely lives up to the hype. Spaghetti Western fans rank this film right up there with Leone's trilogy, and I can see why. It should be noted, however, that while this movie was violent by 1960s standards, it's pretty standard fare for today, so don't go into this expecting to be shocked. Also, the production values are low, they look even lower than the Leone movies, so don't go expecting pricy Hollywood sets and props. Finally, the English dubbing is just atrocious. So why is this movie still considered special? Simply consider it for its place in time, and remember that this was a couple years before the Wild Bunch and Bonnie and Clyde, and no doubt influenced those films to some degree. If you can take your action movies with a grain of salt and give this one a chance, you'll be surprised!

Django is the mysterious Civil War veteran, all decked out in a black trenchcoat who arrives at a Tex/Mex bordertown horseless, and dragging only a mysterious coffin through the mud. The town is alternately controlled by two warring gangs, one run by Major Jackson, a former Confederate soldier now commanding a cult of red-hooded Klan-like fanatics! Their goal seems to be to wipe out as many Mexicans as possible and grab all the money and gold they can. Their enemies, the Mexican gang, may not necessarily be racists but they are surely evil. Django, the dark stranger, walks right into the middle of this feud and the bullets start flying fast and furious!

Which side will he choose? Why does he refuse to shoot the evil Major Jackson the first time he has the chance? Why does he think he can take on a gang of 50 of Jackson's men single-handedly? And just what is inside that coffin of his???
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9/10
Mystical central figure
SMK-431 March 1999
At least in Europe, this other spaghetti western variation of Kurosawa's Yojimbo was probably even more influential than the film that created the genre, A Fistful of Dollars, with countless imitations, rip-offs, sequels, remakes. The title hero is again very different from traditional Western heroes, but this time he is a much more mystical (almost religious) figure than even the man with no name, and the places he goes to are even dirtier and more desperate and downtrodden than any place we would find in a Leone Western.

The impressive opening sequence shows Django dragging a coffin behind him through a muddy and featureless landscape, accompanied by Bacalov's title song (not Morricone, for a change), heading for his first battle. The coffin, his dark coat, and the mystique around him make him appear like an angel of death, invoking associations with the Red Death character in Roger Corman's Masque of the Red Death. Django is not quite as untouchable and supernatural, but the body count in his trace is comparable.
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django da da deedeedee de dum
servalansrazor22 August 2003
Hello y'all. Just would like to add my own little critique of this movie.

Django was probably the first Euro western i'd seen outside of the familiar Leone territory, and, at first i was a little dissapointed. So i watched it again, and again. Then it dawned on me just how cool it was, having been used to the choreographed pyrotechnics of much greater films(ie the leone dollars movies etc) this was a dirty, cold,bitter little movie where nobody really comes out on top, especially the movies protagonist. Yeah, i know he returned to kill and strike again, but this one stands alongside il grande silencio and Keoma as a really good example of a genre theme that would eventually be done to death. So what if it borrows from Leone? Don't forget where he borrowed from in the first place. Anyway, i would just like to say to anyone that has not seen this movie, give it a chance. One final note: in spite of our desensetisation to violence, this is still a stomach churning endeavour, with a body count like a hot day in france, and a sadistic bent that would make peter sutcliffe run for the bathroom, Django reaches parts that only a fistfull of broken fingers can!
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7/10
oh Djangoooooooo!!!
funkyfry9 October 2002
Great song! But anyway, this is basically a derivative but entertaining Italian western with a heavier than normal dose of violence, such as a man having his ear cut off and fed to him. Poor acting and direction and a tasteless look are minuses, though. Nero is a 3rd rate Eastwood. No really thrilling action, and suspense is replaced by violence -- pointing the way for future Italian and American films. The street was the most interesting character in the movie (and I don't mean that as an insult; it's one of the only movies you could say something like that about). Good soundtrack (laughable title track is a plus). Nero went on to continue his semi-stardom in numerous westerns and "American Ninja" flicks; Django went on to become one of the most popular characters in the history of Italian films (there's almost as many Django films as Maciste films). He's a cool character, and his entrance dragging an empty coffin through the mud is a memorable one.
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9/10
Paint your wagon....RED WITH BLOOD!
Coventry11 July 2005
Sergio Corbucci's "Django", as well as his "The Great Silence" are two massively underrated spaghetti-westerns that co-founded the genre, along with Sergio Leone's Dollars-trilogy. Okay, this no "Once Upon a Time in the West" when it comes to atmosphere or plotting, but it is a magnificently mounted action ride with an utterly cool lead hero and an enormous body count. "Django" remained banned in several countries for a long time because of its explicit, comic-book like violence, and you'll see that this wasn't without reason, as the bad guys get slaughtered by the dozen in a good old-fashioned gunslinger way. The movie opens terrifically, with a sleazy title song and vicious images of a lonely cowboy wandering through the Southern wastelands with a coffin in tow. The man is Django and his coffin contains whatever he requires to fulfill his difficult goal: single-handedly finishing the war between the racist Major Jackson and Mexican bandidos by annihilating them all. Corbucci implements a straightforward, no-nonsense filming style with some great visuals and very creative camera angles. There are some ingenious aspects (Django's act of vengeance with molested hands) as well as some delicious clichés moments (wrestling prostitutes, extended bar fight sequences...). This film may not be a very intellectual form of entertainment, but it sure is fun and produced with a certain degree of class.

Followed by a numberless amount of sequels, rip-offs and wannabes that are hardly worth purchasing. Stick to the original and have a blast!
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6/10
Kinda neat....but really stupid from time to time.
planktonrules13 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
"Django" is a very stylish western, though the script occasionally falls apart due to serious brain lapses by the writers--really serious brain lapses--but more about them in a moment.

The film starts with a group of Mexican sadists capturing and whipping a woman in what appears to be the American Southwest desert (though I assume this was really filmed in either Spain or Italy like the rest of the films of this genre). Suddenly, a group of non-Mexicans arrive-- killing the sadists. Unfortunately, they, too, are sadists and plan on killing her as well! Just before they can do so, however, the anti-hero, Django, arrives--killing all the baddies.

Once Django and the woman arrive in the muddiest town I have ever seen (seriously, folks--though this begs the question "how is the town so muddy when there's bone-dry desert everywhere?"). Soon there is a confrontation between Django and the big boss-man--and Django kills all the bad boss-man's hired guns--though, inexplicably, Django deliberately lets the boss-man go (this makes no sense at all).

Soon, a group of Mexican bandits now arrive in town. I expected to see Django kill these guys, but apparently they were all friends. There's a gratuitous fist fight and a lot of drinking. During the drinking and partying, Django steals the gold belonging to the bandits and runs out of town with the woman he saved earlier in the film.

Apparently, Django is an idiot, as the gold isn't secured too well on his wagon and the coffin containing it falls into quicksand. Now the fact that there is quicksand twice in this film which is SUPPOSED to be around the bone-dry US-Mexican border makes no sense at all. It simply should NOT be there and it's fortuitous how it just happens to be there at the perfect time! The Mexican bandits arrive and shoot the lady and decide NOT to kill Django--though why bandits would only maul him made no sense at all. I'm no bandit, but I sure would have killed him! No matter, as the big bad boss-man arrives AGAIN with a new group of henchmen and kills the Mexicans. Now, it's up to a horribly mangled Django to face the boss-man--even though his hands have been smashed horribly (actually, it looks like they covered them in raw hamburger). Can Django pull out a miraculous victory or is this it for our very handsome hero?

Aside from some of the dumb story elements I mentioned above (conveniently located quicksand in the desert, Django leaving the bad boss-man alive, the Mexicans leaving Django alive, etc.), there are many other impossible to believe moments--such as when Django somehow has found a machine gun (during an era when only hand-cranked Gatling guns were available) and arranged for it to fire non-stop on its own for an interminably long period (it should have run out of bullets long before it did). Plus, apparently a coffin filled with gold, at least according to this film, looks and weighs the same as gravel. Seeing Django lifting a coffin that SHOULD have weighed a ton or more made me laugh. Heck, even if it had been gravel, he never should have been able to lift it. Clearly, the writers never thought out ANYTHING in the film.

Despite the many, many serious problems with the plot, the film apparently has a HUGE cult following and sparked sequels. I can see why this could be, as Franco Nero was super-handsome and cool. And, the music and direction were excellent as well--making up for a lot of the deficits. Not a brilliant film in any sense, but very watchable.,,and dumb.
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10/10
Django at Gundown
cbdunn25 October 2003
This is an awsome Spaghetti Western. This is the original that launched over 70 imitation and non-direct sequels. This film was also the inspiration for Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi and Desperado. The end shootout in the graveyard is amazing. Also, the feeling of the wind swept mud ridden streets is ever present. I respect anti-heroes of film more than the prefect hero. Django is just as cold if not colder and more relentless than the opponents he takes on and out. The coffin is a great original touch. Also check out THE sequel Django Strikes Again (with Franco Nero) and one of the best Django homage sequels Kill, Django Kill starring Thomas Milian (released by Blue Underground Entertainment). This movie gets two colt winchesters up!!!!
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7/10
You know when you've been Django'd.
BA_Harrison14 February 2021
Opening with its titular character dragging a heavy coffin behind him through a bleak, muddy landscape, Django immediately establishes its tone: gritty, tough, with an aura of death omnipresent. While perhaps not quite on a par with Sergio Leone's iconic 'man with no name' movies in terms of overall style, lacking those films' directorial finesse, Eastwood's star power, and Morricone's marvellous music (Django's theme song is cool, but not THAT cool), Django is still essential viewing for followers of the genre, a no-nonsense tale of vengeance in a law-less land where survival depends on bravery, guile and a fast trigger.

Franco Nero stars as Django, who saves prostitute Maria (Loredana Nusciak) from five men who intend to kill her for trying to escape a nearby town, which has been caught in the middle of a war between Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo) with his Klan-like army, and Mexican general Hugo Rodriguez (José Bódalo) and his followers. Arriving in town, Django makes himself comfy in the local brothel/saloon and waits, finger on trigger, ready to settle an old score and make himself rich in the process.

Sergio Corbucci's direction mightn't be as classy or as iconic as Leone's, but the sheer level of violence in Django makes the film almost as memorable as any of the Eastwood vehicles, Nero's character happily machine gunning dozens of bad guys without a second thought. And although it's not his finger on the trigger, it's his plan to use his Gatling gun to cut a swathe though the innocent guards of a nearby fort in order to steal the gold within. Considering that this is the hero of the piece, it's easy to see why the film was refused a certificate in the UK until 1993 (when the Video Nasty debacle had finally subsided).

It's this film's 'excessive and nauseating violence' (as the BBFC put it in 1967), combined with Django's unflappable stoicism in the face of great adversity (smashed hands don't stop our hero from tackling the bad guys), that go to make this highly influential western a satisfying experience for fans of Spaghetti cinema.
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8/10
S10 Reviews: Django (1966)
suspiria1014 August 2005
Django (Franco Nero – The Fifth Cord, Hitch-Hike) is a gristled man-of-action who strolls the desert dragging his coffin of hell behind him. Django sets up shop one day at the local whorehouse of a veritable ghost town set up between the two warring factions of Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo – Nightmare City, Oasis of the Zombies) with his red hooded militia and General Hugo (José Bódalo – Companeros) with his Mexican ex-patriots. Django's no nonsense style quickly puts him smack in the middle of the fun as secrets are revealed and sides are played against each other.

Sergio Corbucci (Super Fuzz) directs this classic Italian spaghetti western. The script (while being pretty typical of the genre) manages to make Django a classic antihero thanks for the most part to Franco Nero's portrayal. The script's lack of originality doesn't stop it from having some clever set-pieces, nasty violence and even a bit of dark humor (some of my favorite sequences: the clearing of the whorehouse "Don't Touch my coffin", the "ear" scene and the Mexican skeet shoot). The music is wonderful (topped of by a fun theme song sung by someone trying to channel Elvis). The cast of Italian regulars nail their parts with mucho gusto. Any fan of violent westerns Italiano-style should belly up to the bar and give Django's coffin of wonders a watch. But don't mess with it
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7/10
He'll be...Django....Round the...Django
Bezenby9 May 2017
Not so much the Man with No Name, but the first of a flood of Spaghetti Westerns where there's a Man with One Name: Django! (Followed by Sartana, Cemetery, Ringo, Trinity, Nowhere, Sabato etc etc).

This films opens with a man in a stained Yankee uniform dragging a coffin through a muddy landscape, before rescuing a beaten women from death by burning by a bunch of fashionable Klu Klux Klan types (who in turn had just massacred a bunch of Mexicans who were whipping this woman). This is Django, and he's a moody type played by Franco Nero but dubbed by a guy who kind of sounds like Clint Eastwood.

Django is all about being mysterious and staring at things, and doesn't take too well to another load of red-hooded racist types who turn up at the local whore house to shoot Django. Their leader, Jackson, is a bit miffed that someone popped a cap into his soldier's arses, so Django invites him next time to bring ALL his soldiers, and he'll fix them up proper, see. And when he's done with them, he'll sort out those Mexican fellas too! But why is Django doing this? What's he keeping in the coffin? Will he hit it off with hooker Maria? Why does the town look like God took a crap on it? This is kind of similar to Fistful of Dollars but you'll get no complaints from me - You may well see the same plots over and over again in these films but the fun is in how these Italian directors add their own stamp to things, similar to the way that Italian artists would draw the Madonna and Child over and over.

I won't say too much about this one as it's shown on the telly all the time and is one of the more obtainable Spaghetti Westerns. Followed by many films with Django in the title, like Django Kill! If you live, shoot! Django The Bastard, Django Prepare a Coffin, Django Vs Sartana, Django's Cut Price Corpses and Django Prepares a Powerpoint presentation on Tourism in Glasgow City Centre.

As John Peel said about the spaghetti western: Always different, always the same.
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5/10
Overrated
philipjcowan-119-64660231 October 2019
Perhaps one of the most overrated films on IMDB.

This Spaghetti Western is a jumble of violence, some fine cinematography and a few good scenes.

As a whole, however, it lacks depth, coherence and substance.

Hardcore fans of the genre will find all they need here, but for most, there is too much bad acting, unbelievable shootouts and a meandering plot that seems like it was made up as the film went along.

By all means, if you like your spaghetti, eat up, but there are better pasta dishes on the menu elsewhere.
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"DJANGOOOOO!"
QKnown11 September 2000
If you've already seen Leone's FISTFULL OF DOLLARS a million times like I have, then you might be a little dissapointed when watching this one, since it's basically the same thing. Only difference here is that there's a little bit of gore which can upset a few people. And the dubbing is pretty awful, It sounds like the same guy who voices over 3 other characters in the film.

I could go on about some other distractions, but I'm not here to pan this flick.As a matter of fact, I LIKE IT! You have to realize that this film was a stepping-stone for the action genre that has continued to this day. So give credit where credit is due!

Perhaps my favorite part of the film is the opener, Django himself, walking (What? No horse?) through a dark,cold,muddy world, dragging his good ol' mysterious coffin and being accompanied by the music of the title song (A catchy tune which sounds like a combination of Elvis and the Moody Blues).

What follows next is common in "Spaghetti-land", so If you love these films or have never seen any, be obliged to take a peek at this flick.
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7/10
DJANGO (Sergio Corbucci, 1966) ***
Bunuel197624 August 2006
In my review of Corbucci's THE GREAT SILENCE (1968), I had written that it was "superior" to this one; well, having re-acquainted myself with DJANGO now (which, incidentally, I chose to do on my 30th birthday!) - and bearing in mind that my viewing of the former was only the first - I can say that it edges the latter only slightly, as I thoroughly enjoyed Corbucci's most famous Spaghetti Western featuring star Franco Nero's signature role!! While I was disappointed in Blue Underground's DVD transfer, with occasional color fluctuation and rather more severe print damage than I was expecting (considering that it was reportedly taken directly from the original negative), the film really stood up to its reputation as one of only a handful of titles (among them, of course, THE GREAT SILENCE itself) to challenge Sergio Leone's supremacy in the Spaghetti Western subgenre!

Anyway, with respect to the film's terse plot line, it wasn't anything novel or even special: a mysterious loner turns up at a ghost town (in which only the saloon is operative, also lending the service of prostitutes to passing bands of renegade soldiers and Mexican bandits) who, while antagonizing the former, assists the latter in stealing Army gold (which he later runs off with but eventually loses in quicksand!); however, he also finds time to aid a beautiful woman who falls for him (but whom he shuns because of his devotion to a dead spouse). The handling, however, is extremely stylish marking a definite improvement from previous (and largely lackluster) Spaghetti Western efforts by Corbucci, of which I've watched two - the utterly routine MASSACRE AT GRAND CANYON (1965) and the tongue-in-cheek RINGO AND HIS GOLDEN PISTOL (1966)!

The film is also noted for its brutality - a man's ear is graphically slit (anticipating RESERVOIR DOGS [1992] by a quarter of a century!) and fed to its owner, Nero's bloody smashed hands (giving rise to a uniquely memorable climax inside a graveyard), not forgetting the soldiers' callous massacre of Mexican peasants (whom they keep behind a fence and release one by one, like cattle, only to gun them down!) and a striking bar-room fight filmed with a hand-held camera - and some genuinely surreal touches in the script, such as the presence of its coffin-carrying hero (with a large machine-gun device concealed within it!) and KKK-type villains (amusingly, assistant director Ruggero Deodato - whom I met at the 2004 Venice Film Festival, by the way - claims that the crew covered the characters' faces because they were saddled with 'leftovers' to feature as extras!). Besides, the grimy deserted setting is highly effective, while Luis Enrique Bacalov's melancholy and haunting theme tune gave me goose-pimples the first time it came on! - and the acting is above-average as well: Nero emerges as the most satisfactory Clint Eastwood substitute the Italians came up with; he's ably supported by the likes of Eduardo Fajardo (as the villainous Major Jackson), Jose' Bodalo (the bandit chief), Loredana Nusciak (the woman) and Angel Alvarez (the saloon-keeper).

While not as bountiful perhaps as a cult classic such as this would seem to be worthy of, the extras prepared by Blue Underground are certainly well done. These include a short but informative featurette (in which Nero and Deodato are interviewed separately), talent bios for both Corbucci and Nero, an extensive still and poster gallery and the film's theatrical trailer (as well as those, in the form of an Easter Egg, for DJANGO, KILL! [1967], RUN, MAN, RUN [1968] and MANNAJA: A MAN CALLED BLADE [1977] - which had formed, along with the original Blue Underground single-disc release of DJANGO, "The Spaghetti Western Collection" Limited Edition Box Set). As for the short THE LAST PISTOLERO (2002), included on a mini-disc with this re-issue, it is reviewed individually elsewhere.

I haven't watched this film's belated official sequel - DJANGO 2: IL GRANDE RITORNO (1987) - which has been on Italian TV a number of times and, as far as I can tell, have only managed to catch two of the myriad releases to which the iconic title character has been attached - DJANGO SHOOTS FIRST (1966) and DJANGO, KILL!
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8/10
A man and his coffin
movieman_kev12 April 2005
Franco Nero is Django, a man dragging a coffin behind him, seeking vengeance for the wrongs dealt to him and his loved one in the Western staple. When we first meet him he saves a hybrid girl from being horse-whipped. But which side is he playing for, and where do his loyalties really lie? Very enjoyable and the theme song is great, but avoid the dubbed version I implore you, as it's one of the worst one I've ever heard. Perhaps not as well known or as good as "the Man with No Name" trilogy, but well worth seeing none the less.

My Grade: B

Blue Underground DVD Extras: Part of BU's Spaghetti Western Collection. "Django- The One and Only" (13 minute documentary); Poster & Stills gallery; Talent Bios for Sergio Corbucci and Franco Nero; Theatrical Trailer (I have this film released by Anchor Bay as well, and while the BU version is superior, I'm keeping that one too because it has a nifty Django shoot out game and came paired with "Django Strikes Again")

Easter Eggs: Highlight the coffin for Trailers of "Django Kill!", "Run, Man, Run", and "A Man called Blade"
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7/10
Worth checking out.
sivertholm12 January 2015
I first discovered this movie a while back, after seeing Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained". I loved DU, so when I heard there was more where it came from, I got really exited. After seeing the film, i must say that it was quite enjoyable and worth checking out. Franco Nero gives a great performance as Django, the bad-ass coffin-dragger. It's really different from Jamie Foxx's performance in DU, but that just makes it more interesting. It's nice to see that Tarantino didn't completely remake the original.

The music is also great, and gives the film a great "feel". I wasn't aware that the music in "Django Unchained" was the same as in this one. So it came as a big surprise when the song Django popped up in the intro (which by the way, the intro is awesome and sets the mood perfectly). The music stays great throughout the film, and the songs never feel out of place.

Something I was surprised by, was a particular scene in the movie. I wont spoil it, but I will say that the scene actually kinda shocked me. I can handle violent content, but i was just so surprised that they would allow it in 1966. Thats probably why it was banned in multiple countries.

In conclusion, you should watch this film if you liked "Django Unchained". It's quite interesting seeing how much movies like these have changed, and how different from DU it is. But it's still very entertaining, and it helps that it has a great story. Check it out if you like westerns.
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10/10
Beyond an influence
BandSAboutMovies16 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Next to the Leone films and Ringo, Django is perhaps the most influential of all Italian Westerns. Thanks to the Quentin Tarantino release of Django Unchained, today it is probably even more well-known in the U.S.

While making Ringo and his Golden Pistol, Sergio Corbucci was approached by Manolo Bolognini to make this film. Bolognini wanted to make back the money he had lost on his first film as a producer, The Possessed, and since Westerns were hot, it seemed to be a good genre to get into.

Much as how Yojimbo had influenced A Fistful of Dollars, Corbucci wanted to make a movie that would echo the work of Kurosawa. As for the idea of the coffin-dragging protagonist, assistant director Ruggero Deodato - hmm, wonder what that guy did after this? - claimed that the director took the idea from a comic book that he had read.

Strangely enough, in Japan, this film was Continuation: Wilderness Bodyguard, marketed not only as a remake of Yojimbo but a sequel to A Fistful of Dollars, which was distributed in Japan by Kurosawa as the result of the lawsuit between he and Leone. As a result, the Japanese auteur won 15% of the worldwide receipts and over $100,000.

The Japanese/Italian Western connection continued with Yojimbo star Toshiro Mifune appearing in Terence Young's Red Sun, which also featured another Leone player, Charles Bronson.

The idea for - spoiler warning - Django's hands to be ruined before the end of the movie came from the notion that guitarist Django Reinhardt became legendary despite not being able to move the third and fourth fingers of his left hand.

Walking into a war between Major Jackson's Red Shirts and General Hugo Rodríguez's revolutionaries, Django starts the film by dragging a coffin behind himself and then dispatches several of Jackson's soldiers who are attempting to crucify a prostitute named Maria (Loredana Nusciak, Tiffany Memorandum, Superargo versus Diabolikus).

Our hero then eggs Jackson on, making him bring most of his forces to town, where he opens the coffin to reveal a machine gun that he uses to kill nearly everyone. This has all been for revenge, as Jackson had murdered Django's lover Mercedes Zaro.

What follows is a meditation on the needs of love versus material wealth, which ends up costing Django nearly everything. The gold that everyone is dying over almost costs even our once-thought invincible hero his life. This is an incredibly bloody installment of the Western genre, with a body count of 180 people, including 79 personally dispatched by Django.

To get an indication of the success of this film, you only need to realize that more than thirty unofficial sequels were made to it, often only using the name to sell tickets. We'll be covering some of the better installments this week, such as Django the Bastard and Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot!

There was also a planned sequel in 1968 called Django, Prepare a Coffin that ended up featuring Terrence Hill before Nero returned to the role one more time in Django Strikes Again, which was filmed at the same time as Corbucci's Tex and the Lord of the Deep.

The end of this movie, as Django's ingenuity prevails against physical pain and the realization that his need for money over love caused this, is poetic and bloody in a way that very few films - much less Westerns - can ever hope to capture. Amongst the blood, mud and dust, there is art.
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7/10
Classic spaghetti
cherootvendors7 June 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Often considered a second-rate Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci made some of the finest Italian Westerns of the 1960s, including this cult classic. While not possessing the grandiose widescreen beauty of the Dollars trilogy (1964-66) or Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Django is a smaller and much grungier affair.

With its laconic anti-hero and central plot of a gunfighter caught between two warring factions, Django obviously owes much to A Fistful of Dollars (1964). However, Django makes the violence of that film seem relatively tame: in this movie we see a woman being stripped and viciously flogged, as well as the infamous moment where a curate has his ear cut off and is forced to eat it. (Even Tarantino didn't go that far thirty years later...) Corbucci also outdoes Clint Eastwood's beating in Fistful by having his hero's hands bashed to a bloody pulp by the end of a rifle. (This moment may or may not be the origin of the film's title, in which case it would be a fairly sick joke.)

Sporting stunning production design by Carlo (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) Simi, Django takes place in a sea of mud, an adequate setting for the film's villains: a gang of hood-wearing sadists whose appearance and behaviour recall the Klu-Klux Klan.

Corbucci would go on to direct the even more impressive The Big Silence (1967), although he would always live under Leone's shadow and remain a director of cheap Italian exploitation.
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10/10
One of the coolest westerns ever!
Mikew300118 July 2003
Warning: Spoilers
Sergio Corbucci's italo western "Django" has very often been copied and quoted and is still one of the best European films of the sixties. "Django", played by the great Italian western and thriller actor Franco Nero, established the total anti-hero opposed to traditional western values. He wears dark clothes, is dirty and unshaved, rude and selfish, corrupt and uses unfair tricks in gunfights. But he also stands on the site of the weak and lost ones, fighting the power alone with his fast colt and machine gun that he drags behind him in an old coffin.

The whole movie is violent and ark and dirty - and fascinating from the very fist scene to the surprising final showdown. Django is a modern myth, a cool comic figure and the creative art output of the change of social values in the 1960's. And it's no wonder that the 1968 students like Django as well as middle class school kids or film critics... next to Clint Eastwood's roles in the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns and Charles Bronson in "Once Upon A Time In The West", "Django" is a great modern European western opera with guns and horses and blood and a roaring gattling gun and with no space left for love, hope and traditional values. Highly recommended!
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6/10
The Newcomer In Town
claudio_carvalho18 November 2006
While walking through the desert lands dragging a coffin, the lonely Django (Franco Nero) rescues Maria (Loredana Nusciak) from a group of bandits and arrives in a quite ghost town, where only the saloon and the brothel owned by Nataniele (Ángel Álvarez ) are open. Sooner Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo), who charges protection fees from the dwellers, rounds his gang up to face Django, but he kills all the bandits but Jackson using a machine gun. Then the mercenary and acquaintance of Django, Gen. Hugo Rodriguez (José Bodaló) arrives in town, and Django proposes a bold plan to steal the gold from Jackson and split between them. When Django is betrayed, he steals the gold from Hugo and is helped by Maria. They are chased by Hugo and his men, while Jackson organizes with the Mexican army to trap Hugo.

The originality of the beginning of "Django" is simply fantastic, with a lonely man dragging a mysterious coffin along desert lands and saving a woman from sadistic criminals. When the mystery is disclosed, it is very funny to see the confrontation of Django against forty-eight "bad guys". The story follows captivating, with the usual pattern of spaghetti-western, but the scene when the accomplice of Hugo hits successively times the hands of Django with a rifle is exaggerated and spoils the rest of the movie. The DVD released in Brazil does not have the original Italian audio, only dubbed in English or Portuguese. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Django"
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9/10
Lovely little Leone tribute!
The_Void6 January 2005
As soon as the familiar Spaghetti Western tones hit, you know you're going to be in for a treat and that's what this film certainly is. Franco Nero plays the character that would eventually become synonymous with his name; the mythical Django. The story takes more than it's fair share of influence from Sergio Leone's 'Dollar' trilogy, and the plot of this film is pretty much a re-run of the plot that Leone took from Kurosawa's Yojimbo to make 'A Fistful of Dollars'. We follow the title character, a man that carries his 'burial suit' around with him (that's a coffin to you and me) and saves a young woman from being killed by a group of bandits. When Django takes her back to town, he finds himself in the middle of a feud between those bandits and a group of Mexicans, a situation that he hopes to make the best of for himself...

It's impossible not to see how Leone's westerns have influenced this film. However, Sergio Corbucci hasn't merely stolen and the result is somewhat original. The classically styled score blends well with the images shown on screen, and some of the sequences in the film are truly powerful. Franco Nero may well be no Clint Eastwood, but he brings charm and credibility to his character and does well with the role, even if he is perhaps slightly too pretty to pull it off to the extent that it could have been done to. The film features lots of mud (yes, mud), and this gives it the dirty, downtrodden feel that is congruent with what audiences have come to expect from the spaghetti western sub-genre. The title tune, which is about the central character is very over the top, and almost comes across as being comical; but it's a part of the Django film and like the rest of it; very fun and easy to like. If you like Leone's westerns (and let's face it, who doesn't?), you'll like this.
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7/10
One of the greatest of all Spaghetti Westerns.
mwilson19763 December 2019
Alongside Sergio Leone's Man With No Name trilogy, Sergio Corbucci's Django was a major hit that established the Spaghetti Western as an internationally popular genre. It made a star of Franco Nero, who as Django trudges into town dragging a mud-stained coffin behind him. After he saves Loredana Nusciak from being whipped to death by a group of Mexican bandits, he finds himself in the middle of a war between Mexican revolutionaries and a band of sadistic Ku Klux Klan racists who wear red hoods, led by the fanatical Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo). The film earned a reputation as one of the most violent films ever made at the time, and was subsequently refused a certificate in the United Kingdom until 1993. Over thirty unofficial sequels followed, until Nero reprised his role in 1987's Django Strikes Again, (produced with Corbucci's involvement), Nero also made a cameo appearance in Quentin Tarantino's 2012 film Django Unchained, a homage to Corbucci's original. Featuring an addictively catchy title song performed by Rocky Roberts, and Grand Guignol set pieces that make it a borderline horror movie at times, Django is a name you're not likely to forget in a hurry.
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3/10
I tried
Gringoen14 November 2021
Found this on Amazonprime and gave it a shot.

Unfortunately it was only avaialble in english. Watching this with wrong language poorly dubbed was terrbile. Why not have it available in original language amazon? We are not all children without subtitle reading skills....
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