Minnesota Clay

I was wrong--I'm not done with Sergio Corbucci. I got my hands on a copy of his very first Spaghetti Western--Minnesota Clay--from 1964, starring American actor Cameron Mitchell.

Mitchell plays the title character, who at the start of the film is in a prison labor camp. He was the fastest gun in the West, but has been imprisoned for a killing he did in self-defense. The man who could clear him is now ruling a small town as a very corrupt sheriff.

Mitchell escapes, and heads back to his home town in New Mexico. The Italians seem to have a tough time with American geography--Mitchell says the federal soldiers won't follow into New Mexico, but of course they could. I also wonder why a man born and bred in New Mexico would be called Minnesota Clay.

Anyway, Mitchell finds that he has a daughter, young and beautiful and a spitting image of her dead mother. The town is caught between a war between the sheriff and Mexican bandits. Mitchell contrives a plan to bring the soldiers to town to arrest the sheriff, who will clear his name. Meanwhile, the head bandit's woman (the marvelously named Ethel Rojo) plays both sides against the other.

The film has all the earmarks of the Spaghetti Western--the lurid reds, the abrupt editing, the cruel villainy. Mitchell huffs and puffs a bit, but has some great stoic lines, like "The cemetery is full of men who have been taught to shoot." Oh, and I forgot to mention that Mitchell's character is going blind, and the final shootout with the sheriff and his men takes place with Mitchell hardly able to see a thing, and relying on sound. Pretty good stuff.