Massacro al Grande Canyon

Plot synopsis:
After finding and killing the Slade brothers, who have murdered his father, Wes Evans returns home to Arriba Mesa. The judge offers him to be sheriff and Cooley, the holder of the office and a friend of Wes, is anxious to step down. Wes however only wants to settle down, but when he learns that his love Nancy (who believed Wes to be dead) has married Tully Dancer, he decides to leave again.
However he is drawn into the ongoing ranch war between the Dancer family and Harley Whitmore. When learning that the Dancers have called in an outlaw gang led by the notorious Flake Manson and his brothers, Whitmore acts quickly and rides with a large body of men against the Dancer ranch. They are ambushed by Tully Dancer’s men at a pass and the groups entrench against each other. Wes, who worries for Nancy, negotiates a truce: Whitmore will refrain from pushing through and the Dancers will send off the Manson gang. Tully and his father decide to secretly offer Flake Manson more money to get him to act, even if this endangers the life of Tully’s brother Clay, who is sent to Whitmore as a hostage for the truce.
Wes and Cooley arrest the other Manson brothers that are in town, one of them when he tries to rape Nancy. However, Tully finds Flake and they besiege the prison and leave men to hold Wes pinned while they attack Whitmore’s force. Wes and Cooley (with the help of Nancy) manage to trick the men into revealing themselves and kill them, but Cooley dies too. Wes convinces the townspeople to take sides and ride to the pass. Tully and Flake, who had Whitmore between two fires, now suffer the same fate. Wes kills Flake and Tully escapes with Wes in hot pursuit.
Tully tries to set fire to the disputed grassland, but he is killed by Fred, a farmer who earlier had lost a leg in the ranch war. Wes arrives with the corpse of Tully just in time to stop Whitmore from hanging Clay. Wes will stay on as sheriff, with Nancy by his side.

Tags: western, violence

Review:
Undercooked Pasta With Historical Significance. The court is still out on this one. The second of Sergio Corbucci's Euro Westerns that I have managed to track down lacks the punch that he would find in DJANGO and represents a genre in search of it's form. It's actually a very unique looking production, using exteriors located in the former Yugoslavia rather than Spain and existing as a sort of brooding, somber range war movie than a slick cartoon about Pistoleros and Gringos battling it out under the hot sun. James Mitchum is adequate as the Yankee imported to sway box office receipts, with genre legends George Ardisson and my hero Giacomo Rossi-Stuart adding a bit more color in supporting roles.The issue with the film is that it's a bit of a slog compared to the hip, visually revolutionary movies like DJANGO and the Sergio Leone DOLLARS films, and still hadn't quite achieved the sense of fun & invention from contemporaneous Euro Western hits like SEVEN GUNS FOR THE MACGREGORS or FURY OF THE APACHES -- over the top examples of the Western as an exaggeration, where MASSACRE AT GRAND CANYON seems to dwell on understatement. It's a bit more enjoyable than Corbucci's followup MINNESOTA CLAY which I have a strong aversion to that cannot be put into words. I hate MINNESOTA CLAY but I merely dislike MASSACRE AT GRAND CANYON.Yet it's historically significant, with the presence of Albert Band helping to cement the film as a transitional effort between the Karl May influenced Schnitzel Westerns of Harald Reinl et al & the full blown Spaghetti Western boon precipitated in part by Corbucci's DJANGO. By then he would have found his balance between the brooding, languid sense of pessimism and an arty flair that would become his trademark. Here he was figuring out the tune, and while I may not sing praises for the results they are certainly interesting, and spoke of greater things to come.5/10. Not completely bad, but not worth seeking out. Unlike many westerns made by the Italians during the spaghetti western craze, "Massacre At Grand Canyon" seems to have been a serious attempt to come across more like an American western rather than having done things in the spaghetti western style. The flavorable music sounds more American, the nice-looking Yugoslavian locations look more American, and the screenplay devotes a lot of time to character development over action. Unfortunately, in the attempt to flesh out the characters, the movie unintentionally ends up being surprisingly boring for a great deal of time. There's far too much talk here - I would have gladly given up a lot of the talk for some more action. As for the action, while there are one or two action sequences that are passable, most of the time it comes across as flat and disappointing. Director Sergio Corbucci made some good movies in his career, but this isn't one of them.. Lethargic. His father's style of acting is often described as laid back and laconic but I'm afraid his son, James Mitchum's is just lethargic. With his dad's looks and sleepy eyes he does just sleepwalk through this film without any of the intense screen presence that Robert Mitchum could bring to a role. Doesn't help that the film story is pretty dull too, the old warring cattle barons trying to take over the whole land and everything. The film plays much like an American one from an earlier era, such as 'High Noon or Duel in the Desert' and not the spaghetti western that it is. One thing about the spaghetti's that though short on plot most of the time, they did fill it out with lots of action set pieces. This one doesn't, a couple of short one on one barroom fights but mainly the opposing factions shooting at each over from one rock cliff to another. I was tempted at times to fast forward on the DVD remote, which is always a bad sign...Very much a standard oater and while not that bad, it just doesn't deserve much attention.. This movie was indeed a bit undercooked Spaghetti-Western.. It's hard to believe that this movie is indeed a Spaghetti-Western. The movie was produced in Italy in the same year as Sergio Leone's Dollar series is about to start. You can really tell that director was really trying to carbon copy, the old American style westerns. Due to this reasons, the movie is kinda bland, unlike the Sergio Leon's film-making style that was a bit more entertaining. The movie was such a disappointment when it came out; with such an epic name like 'Grand Canyon Massacre'. It's doesn't have a high body count. Yes, there were some shoot outs, but they wasn't any one-sided slaughter, or massacre. Also, the movie didn't even have the cool ass location of the Grand Canyon. Why is this movie, call Grand Canyon Massacre if it doesn't have any of that? Directed by Sergio Corbucci whom went under the pseudonym name of Stanley Corbett. The movie is a returning cowboy Wes Evans (James Mitchum) whom after searching for his father's killer, return home, only to find himself involved in a bloody land dispute between three families, the Dancers, the Whitmores, and the Masons. The movie plot is just a recycle plot that been use in Westerns since the days of 1953's 'Shane'. This movie nearly mirrors that movie to everything that happens on screen. The movie is pretty boring. Even the gun-fight in the middle was stop for more talking. The film builds to a dramatic, but ultimately predictable conclusion. Honestly, the last 20 minutes of the movie was pretty entertaining, but why are they fighting in the same area as in middle of the film. You would have thought the bad guys would had learn, not to fight there, as they were getting gun-down earlier. Anyways, the rest of the film was such a snore. It really took me a while to get through this movie and I love old school westerns. I think the movie was supposedly going to be about the Whitman massacre of 1847, since the movie had a similar family call the Whitmore, but the movie didn't play out like the real life events. Actors and directors names were changed to make them look more American. Actors were also imported from the States to get a marquee name on the billing such was the case of James Mitchum, the son of fame actor, Robert Mitchum. He's a spitting image of his famous father. He did inherit his dad's sexy, sleepy eyes and taciturn good looks. Like his father, Robert Mitchum, he would had been better in anti-hero role, or villain. Not this all out boring plain hero. Robert Mitchum was truly talented man. He was able to still manage to scare the hell out of me in movies like 1955's Night of the Hunter, and 1962's Cape Fear. Now that's acting, sadly James Mitchum couldn't show the same edge; that his father has, with his Boy Scout role. Still, he actually hold the film together for the most part, even with his flat performance. The supporting cast is just forgettable. It is not at all easy to keep track of who is who. Honestly, it was hard to tell the different between the Dancers, Masons, and the Whitmores. Characters that stood out like Nancy (Jill Powers) were just one-dimensional. She was just a damsel in distress with little depth, whom only purpose in the film is to get rescue time after time by Wes. George Ardisson as Tully Dancer was a rare bad-guy role for the actor. He really seems to relish it, but mostly felt-lost in the crowd. The movie did had a solid production, but nothing stood out. The soundtrack from composer Gianni Ferrio is a mix of European and American influences. There are parts throughout the film where there are only some guitar shuffles which fit perfectly and sound beautiful, but the main theme is awful. The opening theme song is way too cheesy. The image and audio quality is very good for such a quite rare movie. It has aged well in most DVD released. The colors are clear and strong, but some notable speckles. In one short scene the print quality is much lower, VHS quality. The movie still have sharpness enough to be watchable, but there are a few brief moments in the second half, where the image quality moderately strong roars down. Overall: I cannot particularly recommended this movie. Corbucci fans looking for films of the quality of his later productions will be probably be disappointed. All of his famous trademarks like the 'look under the rim of a hat' shot and distinctive gunfight angles are missing but he does go in for some good hand-held shooting during a fist-fight sequence. The next year, 1965 was a defining year for westerns. Producers realized the potential for shooting Westerns in Europe, and story lines like the old Classic American Westerns weren't in most audience's interest, anymore. They wanted more complex story lines like those, saw in Sergio Leone's 1964's hit 'Fistful of Dollars'. You can see how much Sergio Leone's film-making style influence director Sergio Corbucci's next big work, 1966's Django. When you watch this movie compare to Django, you can really tell how much two years can change the genre. Sergio Leone's film-making style would indeed reinvented the genre. So if you want to see what a Spaghetti Western was like before that. Check it out. Just note, that's it's not so grand.