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CUT-THROATS NINE (1972)/JOSHUA (1976)
Directors: Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, Larry Spangler
Code Red DVD

Two exploitive 1970s westerns from opposite continents are paired up for Code Red’s latest grindhouse double feature DVD offering, hence delivering a “Lawless Land Double Feature”. The tagline for CUT-THROATS NINE reads, “Violence is their way of life” and that's certainly appropriate for what happens within this unruly, semi-gothic export.

CUT-THROATS NINE is a Spanish-made opus involving a sergeant (Italian actor Claudio Undari, here using his proverbial “Robert Hundar” billing) escorting a gang of degenerate criminals through the snowy mountains, on their way to be executed. Their wagon is soon ambushed by road bandits, and the seven cut-throats (not nine as the American title implies), the sergeant, and his daughter have to now move on foot. The criminals are all chained together, and it is then discovered that the chains are actually made of gold.

Naturally, the criminals behave very rebellious, especially when they realize the heavy fortune that bounds them together. When one of them refuses to keep moving, he is shot right in the eye by the sergeant. The sergeant and his daughter begin to grow very weary during the trek, and in a moment of weakness, their prisoners overcome them. One of the criminals (the nice pretty boy) falls in love with the daughter and tries to protect her. She is raped, and the sergeant is tied up and burnt to a crisp. They continue on their journey with the father-less girl, deciding to evenly split the gold, but they get on each other's nerves and behave like animals every inch of the way.

CUT-THROATS NINE is positively one of the goriest westerns ever made. It's not heavy on gunfire in the Peckinpah sense, but it's packed with throat cuttings, charcoaled corpses, disembodiments, and a generous number of stomach stabbings complete with blood flowing uncontrollably, and at one point you see mushy entrails leaking out! The characters and situations are very dark and gloomy, and the director uses slow motion photography to illustrate various traumatic or divergent past experiences of the cast members. Sergio Leone also employed this technique for several of his spaghetti westerns, so it's no surprise to see it imitated here.

There's also a bizarre scene where one of the cut-throats — obviously going mad — envisions the sergeant coming back to life as a zombie and stalking him! Fans of Spanish horror (for whom this film is a must for) will easily recognize many of the eccentric faces of familiar character actors, especially the late Alberto Dalbés who was the nutty doctor in THE HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE (1972), as well as being the hero of Jess Franco’s DRACULA, THE PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN (1972). Pretty Emma Cohen plays the daughter, and she was also in lots of Spanish horror films (and no stranger to nudity), including CANNIBAL MAN (1971) and HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB (1972) among others.

The American-made JOSHUA deals with yet another band of “cutthroats”. In the old west, Sam (Henry Kendrick, WHITE LINE FEVER) has just ordered a busty mail-order bride (Brenda Venus, THE EIGER SANCTION), but a rogue posse invades their home, kidnaps the luscious woman, and kills Sam’s housekeeper Martha. Soon after, Martha's son Joshua, a black horseman who has just come back from fighting in the Union army during the Civil War, returns to find his mother murdered and buried. With Sam’s woman still being held captive, the loner Joshua sets out to be a one-man bounty hunter, offing his mother’s slayers one by one with no remorse. It's hard for us to understand, in our era of military friendly colleges and war movies, how difficult it was for a returning soldier.

The old west might have been a dangerous time and place to live in, but if you could send for a mail-order bride that looked like Brenda Venus, how bad could it really have been? Anyway, this is one of a number of westerns which starred Williamson (this one made for his own Po' Boy Productions company), who was a very busy actor/producer during the 1970s, and he looks comfortable doing the Clint Eastwood “stranger” thing, in his black leather cowboy gear, almost always able to outsmart the opposition (he makes great use of a rattlesnake at one point) even when the odds are against him.

With a minimalist screenplay, the film is set mostly in the great outdoors (and some truly nice landscapes captured in the widescreen lens), and even the dialog is sporadic, but it’s not half bad, especially for Williamson fans. There’s enough PG-graded action and violence to sustain the running time, but it would have been nice if some of the more interesting plot points would have been better explored. This includes the would-be romance between Joshua and a supportive Mexican woman (Isela Vega, who had just been in Peckinpah’s BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA) or the plot turn where Sam’s wife (Venus) starts to enjoy the company of her captors, even voluntarily bedding one of them! Larry Spangler also directed Williamson in the westerns THE LEGEND OF NIGGER CHARLEY and its quick sequel THE SOUL OF NIGGER CHARLEY a few years before this one.

CUT-THROATS NINE was once available as a limited edition non-anamorphic DVD from an independent label called Eurovista, but Code Red’s new presentation (also transferred from a 35mm print source), is definitely an improvement. It’s anamorphic in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, and fully uncut. The picture is very sharp with nice detail, and the color restoration is not oversaturated but stable. There is minor speckling at the reel changes of the source print, but the image is fairly clean throughout most of the entire feature. The English-dubbed mono audio is also good shape. JOSHUA has been presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, so it’s nice to finally see the film the way it should be seen, as a few budget releases have issued it in horrendous pan and scan versions. The image looks nice overall, with colors tending to favor the warm side (probably reflecting the way it was shot) and the mono audio comes off fine with no major issues.

Anamorphic trailers for DETECTIVE BELLI (with Franco Nero), BRUTE CORPS, as well as non-anamorphic ones for CUT-THROATS NINE (a U.S. trailer that yells hype about "terror masks," a campaign gimmick given out to lucky theater patrons) and THE BLACK GESTAPO are included, and they can be played separately or with the features as part of a “42nd Street Experience”. (George R. Reis)

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