The Mercenary 1968 Sergio Corbucci

Welcome to Volume 2 of "Why the Hell Isn't This On DVD?"  Actually, this film is on DVD, but only in Germany.  Kind of like David Hasselhoff.  I don't even know what that means.  Anyway, this movie was directed by the great Sergio Corbucci.  Never heard of him?  Only know of Sergio Leone?  That's a shame, because some of Corbucci's films are just as good as Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy or Once Upon a Time in the West. 

This movie, unfortunately, isn't one of them.  It's fine...it's just not great like Corbucci's Django or The Great Silence.  Those two movies deserve a place in the Spaghetti Western Hall of Fame.  The Mercenary - not so much.

The story concerns one Sergei Kowalski (Franco Nero, Django himself), a Polish mercenary in Mexico looking for some money.  By chance, he crosses paths with Paco Ramon (Tony Musante from The Bird With the Crystal Plumage), a poor Mexican laborer who led an uprising at his mining job, and is now seen as some sort of revolutionary general.  Kowalski only helps out people for money, so Ramon pays him to help with the new "revolution".  This involves robbing banks and government trains, naturally.  They hear about a large amount of silver and plan to steal that too.  This causes them to run afoul of Curly (Jack Palance - how do you not know who he is?), a curly-haired American dandy with a switchblade and a penchant for close male relationships.  Curly is the top local bad guy, and he doesn't like Kowalski and his clear blue eyes very much, oh no he doesn't!!!

This movie seems to be more like a dry run for Corbucci's later Companeros, where Nero is Swedish instead of Polish, Tomas Milian replaces Tony Musante, and Jack Palance loses his boutonniere and an eye, but gains long har and a badass hawk.  The story's basically the same and even some of the scenes are the same.  The Mercenary is just a little clumsier in it's storytelling than the later film.

If you're a fan of Quentin Tarantino and the Kill Bill films, you'll definitely notice the scene where Franco Nero has a list like Uma Thurman's in those movies, plus you'll probably recognize the two seperate music cues Tarantino took from this film.  One is used in the sequence where the Bride is buried in the desert and finds her way to town, and the other is used in Inglorious Basterds, but I'm not sure where since I've only seen that film once.

If you're a fan of Spaghetti Westerns, you should definitely check this movie out.  And if you like this one, do whatever it takes to see The Great Silence.  You'll be glad you did.