{"id":11605,"date":"2015-06-14T15:50:20","date_gmt":"2015-06-14T19:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11605"},"modified":"2015-06-14T15:58:42","modified_gmt":"2015-06-14T19:58:42","slug":"dvd-taste-of-killing-per-il-gusto-di-uccidere-1966","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11605","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Taste of Killing \/ Per il gusto di uccidere (1966)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"TasteOfKilling_s\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Weak<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Good<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Standard<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>Wild East Productions<\/a><\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a01 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0May 23, 2006<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Spaghetti Western<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0A gunslinger for hire helps the town bank when the banditos plot to rob its stash of gold.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Publicity Stills Gallery \/ Italian and English Theatrical Trailers<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe Taste of Killing<\/strong> stems from the same director as Day of Anger<\/a> <\/strong>(1967), but there\u2019s a sense the film was hampered by a low budget and meddling producers which reduced the film to 85 mins. \u2013 a length that actually feels interminably long due to an absolutely dreadful screenplay by handful of novices.<\/p>\n

Director Tonino Valerii is credited with the story, while Victor Cruz and Frank Gregory were the supposed authors of the respective Italian and English dub tracks which map out the familiar tale of Mexican bandits plotting a massive bank heist in a remote town, while a self-serving gunslinger exploits his skills for profit.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a spastic nature to scenes and use of lesser characters \u2013 a old man muttering incessantly about \u2018his gold\u2019 spends much of the film in his rooftop bunker, raising a mirror and explaining to audiences who\u2019s who, who\u2019s where, and what\u2019s up \u2013 but what really kills the film is the amateurish dialogue where characters incessantly point out the obvious.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s really no effort to create any characters in Taste of Killing<\/strong>, and if the women in Tonino\u2019s second film were fairly disposable, they\u2019re treated like smacking dolls here, with Rada Rassimov (Cat o\u2019 Nine Tails<\/strong>) stuck in a really awful role as the girlfriend and mother to the ringleader\u2019s child. Gus (George Martin) loves her, but belts her for allowing the child to be snatched, then suddenly comforts her out of worry for her safety and emotional state, then wallops her again in a later scene.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a burgeoning romance between a kidnapped woman (an unbilled Olga Karlatos in her film debut) and a gang member that\u2019s barely acknowledged, which seems to infer any prior scenes tracing the seeds of their relationship may have been removed to reduce the film to characters moving back and forth between bouts of gunfire.<\/p>\n

Anti-hero Hank \u2018Lanky\u2019 Fellows (Craig Hill) is wooden, while his nemesis Gus is excessively verbose. Lesser characters are just plain stupid. When a Mexican bandito spots Hank camping outside of an old shack, the bandit leader shrugs off any suspicion in spite of the group possessing $10,000 in freshly stolen cash. The town\u2019s rifle-bearing men are stationed throughout the town in wait for the banditos in the film’s climax, and use the same hand and rifle waves to signal each other in secret silence in spite of being plainly visible <\/em>on rooftops and street corners to any incoming bandits.<\/p>\n

Director Valerii seems to be juggling nascent story ideas and filmmaking skills, trying out handheld shots and lap dissolves he\u2019d later abandon in Day of Anger<\/strong> for more refined, classical direction, but there\u2019s also action coverage that\u2019s a bit awkward, and some blatant running time filler: prior to the main titles, (presumably) the film\u2019s producers slapped on a prologue in which a silhouetted Hank rides across the screen during a sunrise while the title song plays in full, and the song is repeated in full again, running long past the quick End Title card.<\/p>\n

Nico Fidenco\u2019s mostly orchestral themes are fine, but the suspense cues sound like horror tracks culled from a no-budget quickie, and several cues are dialed down in the mix or end on abrupt cuts, again suggesting Valerii\u2019s film went through some severe tightening before its release.<\/p>\n

One can argue Taste of Killing <\/strong>is worth a peek for the director\u2019s fans \u2013 not everyone\u2019s feature film debut after toiling as a writer is stellar \u2013 but this is really sub-par material, which at best is of interest to genre connoisseurs. The bouts of violence are quite graphic, but even the action scenes are less refined than the smooth choreography in Valerii\u2019s next film. The main attraction here is footage of the stunning Spanish mountains which serve as backdrops for the convoy raid, and the township which rests in a valley.<\/p>\n

Wild East\u2019s transfer stems from an okay PAL-to-NSTC transfer of a somewhat worn print that\u2019s still quite watchable but rather soft in detail, much like a laserdisc bumped up to DVD. Extras include a publicity \/ stills gallery set to Fidenco\u2019s theme song, and Italian and English trailers which feature action, gunfire, and music but zero dialogue. (The main differences between the trailers are primarily Italian and English credits.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a>\u00a0— IMDB<\/a> \u00a0— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> —\u00a0Composer Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to believe Taste of Killing stems from the same director as Day of Anger (1967), but there\u2019s a sense the film was hampered by a low budget and meddling producers which reduced the film to 85 mins. \u2013 a length that actually feels interminably long due to an absolutely dreadful screenplay by handful of novices…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[3708,3706,934,2404,3707,3702],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-31b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11605"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11614,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605\/revisions\/11614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}