The Grand Duel/Il Grande Duello/Hell's Fighters/Grand Duel/Storm Rider/The Big Showdown (1972) - Lee Van Cleef is cool sheriff in action-packed, derivative western

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A cool and smudgy, dirty-looking, sand, blood and tar-colored poster for Giancarlo Santi's The Grand Duel

A sheriff captures a young man, who is sentenced for execution, and brings him to the town of Saxon City. But here the town's powerful tyrants don't agree with the sheriff about the transgressions of the young, long-haired delinquent!

 

The Grand Duel is written by Ernest Gastaldi (Prey of Vultures/Un Dólar de Recompensa (1972)) and directed by debuting Giancarlo Santi (Once Upon a Time in the West/C'era una Volta il West (1968, first assistant director)).

Lee Van Cleef (Ripcord (1962-63)) is the sheriff, who can stop a bullet with his teeth and control everything, and Alberto Dentice (The Girl Who Couldn't Say No/Tenderly (1968)) is photogenic as the doomed junior. The film is full of fun and good action, - in particular falls and explosions, - and many stand-offs, before the story arrives at the evil brothers of Saxon City: One of them gay, in a white suit, with ugly pockmarks in his face and a predilection for massacres!

The Grand Duel is obviously almost a knock-off of Sergio Leone and others' great spaghetti western hits from the preceding years; it is complete with an Ennio Morricone-like score (by Sergio Bardotti (Summertime Killer/Un Verano para Matar (1972)) and Luis Bacalov (Sea of Dreams (2006))), close-ups by the boatloads and lots of returning, 'significant' flashbacks. Don't look for a dramatic of thematic width here, but The Grand Duel is entertaining.

 

Watch the film's title sequence here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: Unknown

= Uncertain

[The Grand Duel was released 29 December (West Germany) and runs 98 minutes. Shooting took place in Italy, including Rome, around July 1972. The film was not released in most of its 13 listed markets until in 1974, including USA. Some of the film's score was reused in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003). Santi returned with Quando c'era Lui... Caro Lei! (1978). Van Cleef returned in Mean Frank and Crazy Tony/Dio, Sei Proprio un Padreterno! (1973). 2,660 IMDb users have given The Grand Duel a 6.5/10 average rating.]

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