| Mountie Captain: "You've just made an enemy of White Wolf." Kitosch: "I did what??? I did no such thing! I only made friends with his wife, that's all I did!" Mountie Captain: "That's precisely what I'm getting at, and you know it. Indians don't like white men who make friends with their wives" |
One thing that should be known about me is that I'm a fan of Mountie stuff. Radio dramas, lobby cards, buttons, knick-knacks, swag and other Mountie-related nonsense bring the smile of a well-satisfied geek. Well, Mountie movies are very much on that list. I own at least forty in various formats, and I haven't seen a bad one yet! Well, it was relatively recently made known to me that there are Euro/Spaghetti Mountie westerns, and I LOVED the idea! I grew up with Sword and Sandal pictures, and in the last half-decade I've developed a taste for both Spaghetti Westerns and the Poliziotteschi cop movies, so adding Mounties to the mix was an exciting prospect.
I now have a good pile of them! I was able to find a source with every Euro-Mountie film that my research has been able to discover. One of these is the Italian/Spanish production, Kitosh, The Man from the North, originally titled Frontera al Sur (Frontier of the South), filmed in Spain in 1967. Though it was apparently filmed in Spanish, I've only seen a dubbed version. It's as well-dubbed as any of these films, and although this particular copy is an occasionally brutal pan-and-scan, it's highly watchable. Any port in a storm, wot? I've yet to see a DVD release of it, and many Euro-western fans don't even know it exists!
It stars George Hilton as the rakish tracker/woodsman/gunfighter David Kitosch. This seems to be a name very much in line with traditional Spaghetti naming conventions; the Italians in particular have a unique perspective on the American west, and they tend to pick some really odd, but macho-ish-ly cool names for their gunslingers. Kitosch fits right in with some of the many odd names in the genre, particularly the famous ones: Manaja, Keoma, Sabata, Sartana, and the most famous of them all, Django (the gunfighter, not the guitarist). Names in general are certainly a big part of the magic of a western character, and the Italians know it very well; so much so, in fact, that the baddest of the gunfighters is a man with no name! It's an interesting and effective convention...it sets our guy apart from the crowd, and imbues him with strangeness, and it ties him to the various qualities of the cowboy hero/anti-hero archetype.
Typical of the Euro-western, Kitosch is very much in the anti-hero camp. Between the debauching of beautiful women and running from hostile Aboriginal Canadians (traditionally referred to as "indians"), he works with the Royal Canadian Mounted police as a scout. To let us know from the beginning what kind of guy our character is, Kitosh, The Man from the North begins with a kiss; Kitosch smooches the wife of White Wolf, a local native chief, and immediately we're on the run! In wide-eyed haste, he horses-up and makes tracks for the fort of the local Mountie contingent, with the afore-mentioned indians on his tail. From then on the plot goes a bit cosmic and stream-of-consciousness-ish. Kitosch is asked to travel with the Mounties to protect a shipment of gold from a large band of outlaws, which he declines, and then there is a carriage full of beautiful women (each of whom seem to have a different emotional issue), who seem to have not much of a raison d'être (other than being both A) beautiful, and B) women), and, of course, there is the mysterious Mountie Major Baker, played by Pierro Lulli, the uncrowned king of the Peplum/Sword and Sandal film. He is Kitosh's foil throughout the story, fighting for the upper hand over him (in fact, impersonated by Kitosch for much of the picture, much to his chagrin). Throw in gunfights (fights in general, actually...diverse and plentiful), piles of gold bars, Mountie action, a Christian indian named Joseph, and more unpredictable plot turns than three Republic serials, and you have this film in a nutshell.
It's all very surreal. Surreal, and EXTREMELY enjoyable. It took me a few minutes to grab a hold of the flow of the thing, but once I got the interior logic (or whatever term you would use to describe the interior flow of this swirling mass of themes and storyline), it was quite an amazing ride.
I was excited when I heard that Hilton was in this one. I'm a big fan of the Franco Nero Spaghetti Western masterpiece Massacre Time, filmed the year before Kitosch (and reviewed by me HERE), and Hilton was awesome in a supporting role as Nero's character's brother. He has such a strange vibe; one part chaotic clown, a couple parts daring hero, and a dash or two of emotionally volatile killer. Though he often plays a role with humour, it is very seldom (in my view) that it's ever really that funny. He has an anti-hero's edge that cuts, even when he's making what is obviously meant to be humorous. His characters are the types of fellow upon which the good side is best to be, and I suspect it may have been the same for the man himself.
I now have a good pile of them! I was able to find a source with every Euro-Mountie film that my research has been able to discover. One of these is the Italian/Spanish production, Kitosh, The Man from the North, originally titled Frontera al Sur (Frontier of the South), filmed in Spain in 1967. Though it was apparently filmed in Spanish, I've only seen a dubbed version. It's as well-dubbed as any of these films, and although this particular copy is an occasionally brutal pan-and-scan, it's highly watchable. Any port in a storm, wot? I've yet to see a DVD release of it, and many Euro-western fans don't even know it exists!
It stars George Hilton as the rakish tracker/woodsman/gunfighter David Kitosch. This seems to be a name very much in line with traditional Spaghetti naming conventions; the Italians in particular have a unique perspective on the American west, and they tend to pick some really odd, but macho-ish-ly cool names for their gunslingers. Kitosch fits right in with some of the many odd names in the genre, particularly the famous ones: Manaja, Keoma, Sabata, Sartana, and the most famous of them all, Django (the gunfighter, not the guitarist). Names in general are certainly a big part of the magic of a western character, and the Italians know it very well; so much so, in fact, that the baddest of the gunfighters is a man with no name! It's an interesting and effective convention...it sets our guy apart from the crowd, and imbues him with strangeness, and it ties him to the various qualities of the cowboy hero/anti-hero archetype.
Typical of the Euro-western, Kitosch is very much in the anti-hero camp. Between the debauching of beautiful women and running from hostile Aboriginal Canadians (traditionally referred to as "indians"), he works with the Royal Canadian Mounted police as a scout. To let us know from the beginning what kind of guy our character is, Kitosh, The Man from the North begins with a kiss; Kitosch smooches the wife of White Wolf, a local native chief, and immediately we're on the run! In wide-eyed haste, he horses-up and makes tracks for the fort of the local Mountie contingent, with the afore-mentioned indians on his tail. From then on the plot goes a bit cosmic and stream-of-consciousness-ish. Kitosch is asked to travel with the Mounties to protect a shipment of gold from a large band of outlaws, which he declines, and then there is a carriage full of beautiful women (each of whom seem to have a different emotional issue), who seem to have not much of a raison d'être (other than being both A) beautiful, and B) women), and, of course, there is the mysterious Mountie Major Baker, played by Pierro Lulli, the uncrowned king of the Peplum/Sword and Sandal film. He is Kitosh's foil throughout the story, fighting for the upper hand over him (in fact, impersonated by Kitosch for much of the picture, much to his chagrin). Throw in gunfights (fights in general, actually...diverse and plentiful), piles of gold bars, Mountie action, a Christian indian named Joseph, and more unpredictable plot turns than three Republic serials, and you have this film in a nutshell.
It's all very surreal. Surreal, and EXTREMELY enjoyable. It took me a few minutes to grab a hold of the flow of the thing, but once I got the interior logic (or whatever term you would use to describe the interior flow of this swirling mass of themes and storyline), it was quite an amazing ride.
I was excited when I heard that Hilton was in this one. I'm a big fan of the Franco Nero Spaghetti Western masterpiece Massacre Time, filmed the year before Kitosch (and reviewed by me HERE), and Hilton was awesome in a supporting role as Nero's character's brother. He has such a strange vibe; one part chaotic clown, a couple parts daring hero, and a dash or two of emotionally volatile killer. Though he often plays a role with humour, it is very seldom (in my view) that it's ever really that funny. He has an anti-hero's edge that cuts, even when he's making what is obviously meant to be humorous. His characters are the types of fellow upon which the good side is best to be, and I suspect it may have been the same for the man himself.
Actually, 1967 was quite a year for George Hilton. Typical of European actors of the time, the was in at least eight movies that year, including the one immediately following Kitosch, the Man From the North, Il Tempo Degli Avvoltoi ("The Time of the Vultures" in English, released as "Last of the Bad Men"), in which he also plays a Kitosch character. I say "a" as opposed to "the", because I'm not certain they are, in fact, the same character, in spite of the proximity of the two films. That's the beauty of the "Spaghetti". The logic and reasoning issues that so often destroy American low-budget movies don't apply; in fact, as Kitosch proves, the less attached you are to the normal strictures of life, the more ecstatic your watching experience will be.
I suggest that you get out your tin-foil Mountie hat and put Kitosch in the DVD player...it's awesome.
I suggest that you get out your tin-foil Mountie hat and put Kitosch in the DVD player...it's awesome.
| I have a couple related side-notes: The copy of Kitosch, The Man Who Came From the North that I have came from Euro Trash Cinema. It's pan-and-scan, but a good, clear copy dubbed into English. Craig is a fast shipper, and he has a HUGE collection, including many Spaghetti/Euro Mountie pictures, including Cormack of the Mounties (Guibbe Rosse), Jesuit Joe, Django Does Not Forgive (Mestizo), and Rebels of Canada (I tre del Colorado). You can watch Last of the Bad Men on Youtube (as well as Hilton's 007 James Bond adventure, 2 Mafiosi Contro Goldfinger under the title Goldginger). Have fun!
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