Django (1966)

Director:

Sergio Corbucci

Writers:

Sergio Corbucci (story) and
Bruno Corbucci (story) ...

Release Date:

December 1966 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

The movie that spawned a genre.

Plot:

A coffin-dragging gunslinger enters a town caught between two feuding factions, the KKK and a gang of Mexican Bandits, and is caught up in a struggle against them.

Plot Keywords:

Bandit | Coffin | Gold | Saloon | Machine Gun

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Franco Nero	...	Django
José Bódalo	...	Gen. Hugo Rodriguez
Loredana Nusciak	...	Maria
Ángel Álvarez	...	Nataniele (Bartender)
Gino Pernice	...	Brother Jonathan (as Jimmy Douglas)
Simón Arriaga	...	Miguel
Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia	...	Klan member (as Ivan Scratuglia)
Remo De Angelis		(as Erik Schippers)
Rafael Albaicín	...	Member of Hugo's gang (as Raphael Albaicin)
José Canalejas	...	Member of Hugo's gang (as José Canalecas)
Eduardo Fajardo	...	Maj. Jackson
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Cris Huerta	...	Mexican officer

Also Known As:

Django (Spain)
Jango (USA) (dubbed version)
Django - kostaja (Finland) [fi]
Django, o tromokratis tou Passo-Doble (Greece) [el]
Nimeni on Django (Finland) [fi]

Runtime:

Spain:87 min (censored version) | USA:91 min | Italy:93 min | West Germany:88 min (censored version)

Country:

Italy | Spain

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Iceland:16 | Norway:(Banned) (theatrical rating) (1968) | UK:15 (video rating: 2004) | UK:18 (video rating) (1993) | UK:R (original rating) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | West Germany:18 (nf) | Brazil:16 (re-rating) | Brazil:18 (Original rating) | Argentina:13 | UK:(Banned) (1966) | France:U (1966, uncut) | Italy:VM18 | Finland:(Banned) (1968) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:(Banned) | USA:Unrated | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Colmenar Viejo, Madrid, Spain

Company:

B.R.C. Produzione S.r.l.

Trivia:

The graphic violent content of the film led the film to be banned in several countries, and it was rejected by the UK until 1993. It was not rated in the USA.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Django first brings out the machine gun and it begins firing, his fingers are nowhere near the trigger mechanism (the gun was probably activated electronically by the special effects crew).

Quotes:

Django: You can clean up the mess, but don't touch my coffin.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)

Soundtrack:

Django

The "cool points" are not consistent enough to carry it, although it is an OK spaghetti western

Every film buff has at least heard of Django and it was decades ago since I last watched it and thus have never commented on it. Rather than go off my memory of some cool images and a sense of toughness I watched it again recently and must admit to being slightly disappointed with what I found. The cult label and the praise of fans seems to have elevated Django to the level of some of the classic spaghetti westerns and it certainly does not deserve to be that high because it is "OK" but not consistently good enough to do the job. The plot setup creates one of the iconic images as a man drags a coffin through the desert and, shortly afterwards, reveals what is in that coffin as he gets drawn into a fight with the dastardly Major Jackson, having rescued a girl from his men. This then gives way to a robbery and some betrayal before the end and, in theory, it sounds like good stuff.

Sadly the delivery of the plot is not that well done and it feels messy and sporadic rather than flowing like it should. Without the plot working the viewer doesn't engage with the film as well as required either and, towards the end I found the many large gunfights to be a bit, well, dull – not for lack of action but because I didn't care that much. Corbucci's direction is not great either and I'm not sure where the idea came from that Django is his great film and proof of his genius. Most of his shots are badly done and lack style and he cannot make the film feel any way consistently. He does have several iconic ideas in there but they are delivered in spite of his direction, not because of them; look at the coolest scenes or images in the film and tell me they could not have been framed or delivered in such a way to have had more in the way of style? The cast are not helped one bit by the average voiceovers and generally poor dubbing so it is unfair to judge their performances in isolation of that. Nero has a good look but his dialogue moves him away from the tough image he has early on, while the voice-over in the version I saw was too soft to match his screen presence. Nusciak doesn't say much but she is a beauty and stands out as such. Bódalo and Fajardo are solid but unremarkable in stock characters; there was room for more from them but neither really stepped up to it even if they were both OK. Similarly Álvarez wasn't as special as his character could have been – he hints at colour but mostly doesn't deliver on it. One thing I did really like was the set of the town outside the brothel; ankle deep in mud and nothing green in site – it seems fitting to me and it was the best location of the film.

I wanted to like Django more than I did – mainly because I remembered it as much cooler and tougher than it really turned out to be. It does have cool parts, whether they be scenes, ideas or images but most of it is nothing particularly special and, while time will remove them from your mind, the hard truth is that these moments are the majority of the film. OK, but nothing more than that.