I Giorni Della Violenza (1967)

Peter Lee Lawrence and Rosalba Neri stars in this well made and rather grim Spaghetti Western. German R2 Koch Media DVD.

1863 - the American Civil War rages, and in Missouri, a Confederate state occupied by Union soldiers, the local residents have formed armed gangs to defend themselves from the frequent criminal acts of the Union Soldiers. The leader of one of these gangs, Butch of Springfield (Nello Pazzafini) saves two young ranch hands, Clell and Johs (Peter Lee Lawrence) when they are attacked by Union troops stealing their horses. Although offered the chance to join his gang, Clell and Johs return to the ranch - but later, Union troops attack the ranch in revenge for an attack by Butch on their own men. Clell protests and is killed along with his wife Lizzy (Rosalba Neri), when Johs discovers this he joins up with Butch and his gang, to track down the killers, and in doing so becomes an outlaw. 2 years later, at the end of the war Dan Clifford (Clell's killer) journeys to the ranch aiming to marry the owner's daughter and take it for himself, but when Johs returns and kidnaps her, Clifford and his soldiers set out in persuit across the Southern states...

Co-written by Mario Amendola, who also wrote Il Grand Silenzio (1969), I Giorni Della Violenza is a very well plotted film. Largely character based, with only a few action scenes, the scripting provides for a convincing and exciting story, with a variety of unexpected twists and turns. Although running slightly longer than most SW titles, the film never drags and is very briskly plotted throughout, building to a good climax.  Fortunately, although Amendola would later become a comedy film writer, I Giorni Della Violenza is completely humour free, and is often a very grim film, pointing out that soldiers on either side of the battle can be the bad guys. The American Civil War setting is relatively rare in the Spaghetti West (although a centre point of the genre's best known entry The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)), and interestingly the characters of Butch and his gang are based on real life guerrilla groups who operated in the Union occupied areas of Missouri, although the character here is rather more forgiving than his real life conterparts who often treated Union soldiers and sympathisers brutally (the actions of these guerrilla's were also explored in Clint Eastwood's Revisionist Western - The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)).

Director Alfonso Brescia (credited as Al Bradley) is best known for his ultra-low budget sci-fi movies of the 1970s, but he really surprises here with some strong direction and excellent cinematography - the riding scenes are very nicely shot, although the eye-line closeups clearly owe a debt to Leone. Although obviously limited by budget, we don't get any big war scenes, but there are a few big fight sequences that are well choreographed and shot. The soundtrack from Bruno Nicholai is more familiar to the American Western scores than the usually light hearted Euro-Western soundtracks and it suits the film well.

All text in this review written by Timothy Young - 23rd December 2006.
Text from this review not to be used without authorization.

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