SUGAR COLT

Italy, 1966, 106 minutes, Colour.
Hunt Powers (Jack Betts), Soledad Miranda.
Directed by Franco Giraldi.

Sugar Colt is one of the earliest of the spaghetti westerns, although by 1966 quite a number were being made. Director Franco Giraldi had worked as a second unit director and helped Sergio Leone in For a Fistful of Dollars.

The film is beautifully shot, capitalising on the vivid Spanish locations standing in for the American west. The star is an American action actor, Jack Betts, who appears under the title of Hunt Powers.

The film uses a similar timeframe to many of the spaghetti westerns, the end of the civil war, the soldiers returning home. However, this time there is a variation as a troop is ambushed and taken prisoner to work in the mines for a greedy rancher. Pinkerton of the detective agency hires Doctor Tom Cooper, a top agent who has an institute for teaching women how to shoot. There are some comic touches in these scenes. Disguising himself as a bespectacled doctor, Tom Cooper goes to the location where the men disappeared, befriends the owner of the saloon and her attractive niece, confronts the ranchers, rescues the soldiers – for a big shootout with dynamite explosions as well.

Familiar material, but these days these spaghetti westerns are highly entertaining and seem much better than they were at the time, using iconic characters, stances and poses, situations.

1.The popularity of the spaghetti westerns in the 1960s? Their status now? Their style?

2.The Spanish locations, the re-creation of the American west? The colour photography, the mountains, the town? The musical score?

3.The iconic nature of the spaghetti westerns, the characters, postures, situations, crises, shootouts?

4.The opening, the soldiers marching through the mountains, 1866, the betrayal by the officer, the explosion and the avalanche, the deaths, the men imprisoned? The mystery of their disappearance?

5.Pinkerton, one of the soldiers’ fathers, their trying to hire Cooper, his dilettante attitude, the deaths of Pinkerton and the father in the street? His decision?

6.Tom Cooper as an agent, shootist, fop, training the women, the comedy of his shooting academy?

7.His appearance as the doctor, bespectacled, arrival, being mocked in the saloon, Bess and her niece, the niece spurning him, his coming down from his room, the boxing demonstration – and knocking everyone out?

8.Work in the town, gradually accepted? The rancher and his suspicions and hostility? Younger and the plot?

9.Cooper, going out to see Sam, the African American soldier, his trying to find the locations, playing the bugle?

10.The drug experience, the hallucinations, everybody happy, and the man confessing to the shooting?

11.Younger, the shooters? The doctor going for the swim, underwater, going downstream, contacting Sam, deceiving his pursuer?

12.The piano player, his friendship, giving the information to the doctor, his being tortured, his death? The funeral and the people fearful to go, the rancher coming to lead the people?

13.The revelation that the doctor was Sugar Colt? His demonstrations of shooting, seeing his assailants in the reflection on his ring?

14.The build-up to the confrontation, going to the ranch, the abduction of the niece? The soldiers being released? The niece and her peril, being saved?

15.The romantic background, Cooper and his listening in to conversations, going into the niece’s room, seeming compromised? Bess and her understanding? The niece and her abduction? Bess and previous relationship with the rancher?

16.The ride back to town, the confrontation with the rancher, Cooper chasing him through the mountains, shooting at him, his running into the town – and Bess killing him?

17.The happy and romantic ending – appropriate for this kind of film?