This Western is a superior outing because displaying thrills , shoot'em up , brawls , intrigue , riding pursuits and many other things . It stands out as one of the best late series genre Spaghetti Western . It deals with a gunslinger called Hud (French singer Johnny Hallyday) returns to Blackstone to find out why his brother was lynched . Meanwhile , Hud is relentlessly pursued by a sheriff (Gastone Moschin) and some henchmen (Sergio Marquand and Riccardo Pizzuti , regular in Terence Hill-Spencer movies) but he gets rid of his contenders . Later on , he along with the marshal are imprisoned by ¨El Diablo¨ (Mario Adorf) , and subsequently doublé-crossed by the beautiful bank owner (Françoise Fabian , who played in ¨Belle De Jour¨) . At the end takes place a curious duel between hippie outlaws battling Hallyday (including all the villagers naked similarly to many years later ¨The perfume¨) .It's a thrilling western with breathtaking gunfight carried out by protagonist Johnny Hallyday who steals the show as a merciless revenger , executing thespian skills , bounds and leaps , twists and shooting and throughly enjoys himself ; as he faces off the heartless Mario Adorf and his hoodlums . It's an entertaining story with a touch of peculiarity , some great characters , an amazing music score and a lot of fun to watch . The picture also titled ¨ Gli Specialisti" is a tale of justice and revenge , as a man returns to a little town and looks for vengeance . The innovative as well as depressing script , which was co-written by Corbucci, and showed him edging close to the new type of offbeat Westerns he is best known for . The basic plot is typical spaghetti western fare , but what makes this movie stand out is its style . While 'A Fistful of Dollars' may have sparked the international popularity of the Spaghetti Western , this semi-successful movie follows its wake , including a lone hero , but here he has to confront strange characters as a weird Mexican outlaw and including four hippies . Johnny Hallyday is top-notch , he ravages the screen , shoots , hits , runs and kills . Here our hero moving through cold rather then heat and fighting in hills and mountains rather then sweat and dust . Support cast is pretty good , and the honor acting goes to the fantastic performance by the always great Mario Adorf as the slimy , menacing outlaw make up for , here in his ordinary role as bandit and in a cruelly baddie character , he is terrific , and bears a hysterical and mocking aspect , subsequently he would play similar characters . Besides , it appears as secondaries the habitual in Italian Western such as : Serge Marquand , Remo De Angelis , Riccardo Pizzuti and Gino Pernice . The good musician Angelo Francesco Lavagnino composes a charming Spaghetti soundtrack , well conducted and it's full of enjoyable sounds . Adequate cinematography by Dario De Palma who makes great use of mountain locations and desolate snowy outdoors , it fact , was filmed in northern Italy in the snow-covered area of Cortina d'Ampezzo , Belluno, Veneto similarly to ¨The great silence¨. This motion picture , titled "Specialists" or ¨The Specialist¨ , was compellingly directed by Sergio Corbucci , it was well received by critics and public . Corbucci was a Western expert , as he made "Massacre at Canyon Grande" , starring James Mitchum , George Ardisson , his first Spaghetti Western to be distributed in the US under the director's own name and being co-directed by Albert Band . Corbucci's next film in the genre was ¨Minnesota Clay¨ (1964) performed by Cameron Mitchell . It was a moderate success , but Corbucci's next Spaghetti Western would break box-office records worldwide and brand his name in Western history alongside Sergio Leone , the ultra-violent masterpiece ¨Corbucci's Django¨ (1966) , considered by some reviewers as an "anti-Western" , it brought an entirely new level of stylization to the genre , not only signaled a move toward an even grittier and more nihilistic brand of Western , but it established a lasting relationship between Corbucci and Franco Nero . After the success of "Django" , Corbucci embarked on a trail of directing more Western films and quickly became one of the more prolific filmmakers in the genre . His subsequent Spaghetti Westerns , were ¨Johnny Gold¨ (1966) with Mark Damon , ¨Hellbenders¨ (1967) with Joseph Cotten and ¨Navajo Joe¨ (1966) with Burt Reynolds , all of them were filmed and released in quick succession . His next Western was "The Great Silence", (1968) , a cult movie starred by Jean-Louis Trintignant as a mute gunslinger and Klaus Kinski as a sadistic bounty hunter . His next Western films were ¨The mercenary¨, and ¨Los Compañeros¨ which re-teamed up with Franco Nero again with which would began his semi-genre with what he called the "Zapata-Spaghetti Westerns" married by racial stereotypes , proletarian fables and his political statements became more explicit . By setting the story in Mexico and fleshing out his characters with political awareness , they were his last box-office successes and deemed to be two of the most accomplished Spaghetti Westerns , with a combination of humor , pathos , comic book-style action, and political commentary . During the 1970s Corbucci made three more Westerns , but the popularity of the genre began to die out . As he made "Sonny & Jed" (1972) dealing with a peculiar couple , Tomas Milian-Susan George , in Bonnie and Clyde mold ; ¨What am I doing in the middle of the revolution !¨ (1972) with Vittorio Gassman and the regular Eduardo Fajardo and ¨The White , the Yellow and the Black¨ (1975) , both of them are almost a parody of his Zapata Westerns , and the latter a spoof to ¨Red Sun¨ .

You gotta love the spaghetti western universe. The vision of a west where good guys get shot point blank with no warning, cartoonish villains chew the scenery in extreme close-ups, and the anti-hero walks away from the girl in the end. A lot of people call Corbucci's films 'depressing'. I find that a bit dodgy as far as descriptions go. I think bleak and unforgiving are more apt mostly because 'depressing' suggests a level of sentimentality almost every Eurowestern director ignored in favour of painting characters in broad strokes.GLI SPECIALISTI must be seen in all its widescreen glory before it can take its proper place in the Sergio Corbucci canon. It's a beautiful movie. And it makes sense that Corbucci wanted to blow off some steam with COMPANEROS after the unremitting one two punch of THE GREAT SILENCE and this (although he would later revert back to his usual tricks with the foulmouthed SONNY AND JED). There's still a certain amount of caricature that detracts from the overall grimness of the movie, imo it hurts more than does any good to have a needless inclusion of three kids dressed like hippies skulking around town in search of gold and trouble. And it hurts to have Mario Adorf playing Mexican one-handed bandit El Diablo as over the top as he always plays his characters.Those minor gripes aside there's more than enough here to wet the palate of the spaghetti aficionado. Shootouts galore, the population of an entire town reduced to crawling naked in the dirt, the typical iconic badassitude of the laconic antihero (played by Johnny Halliday), the moral bankruptcy of almost every character in the movie. Corbucci might never receive the acclaim of the more famous Sergio or the American patriarchs of the genre but you and I know that's a gross injustice for a very talented director. His dynamic shot selection, in depth staging with objects sticking close to the camera and receding in the background, his flair for quick pacing and feverish energy in moving a story that wasn't always all that along, the way he photographs open spaces, everything in his work makes me sure that if Corbucci was American and had emerged 15 years later along with Mann and Hawks, the Cahiers du Cinema critics would have lauded him as an auteur worthy of serious critical consideration.

Some SpoilersThe Specialist (Gli Specialisti) 1969 Dir. Sergio Corbucci, I watched it all the way through today, and I guess the best way to describe this film is that its frustrating. Corbucci to me, remains an enigma he was able to make some almost flawless top notch Westerns, The Mercenary, The Great Silence & Companero's I consider the best. The Mercenary can compete with and beat most of the best American Westerns.This should have been a great epic Corbucci film but it has serious flaws that serve to pull you right out of the story. The score for the most part is passable, though the title sequence however seems like it should be from a comedy flick about the French Riviera, it does not fit in.The Specialist has got a few things that I personally really enjoyed seeing in a film, and other things that were absolutely out of context and continuity.The great pieces of this film are the absolutely stunning backdrops of the Alps, like I mentioned in my first impression its like watching Corbucci do Anthony Man, reminds one of "The Far Country". One particular sequence has Halliday and the sheriff crossing a beautiful trout stream.One little side story I enjoyed was Corbucci's addition of an interesting side story that had nothing to do with the main plot and that's the depiction of the town sheriff (Gastone Moschin) as a fisherman we see in in one section he is carrying his rod as he rides off on horse back, in another he has a stringer of trout, and another we see him standing in a stream & fishing. The Town of Blackstone, Nevada is perched high in the Sierras, the town-folk hung the brother of famous gunfighter Hud (Johnny Halliday). The town thought he had stolen a cash-box of bills that he was entrusted with. Hud returns to seek vengeance. The real town boss is a wily widow woman banker (Francois Fabian) who's name is, get this, Virginia Policutt, she uses sex just as much as cash to control the town. There is also a Mexican Revolutionary band terrorizing the countryside, (though they do look a bit out of place, it may have worked if the film was set in the Sierra Madres of Mexico but its just a flaw of its distant Euro origins). The towns center of action is the fancy saloon/brothel run by Sheba (Sylvie Fennec) complete with a red fez wearing bartender and a small orchestra. The biggest, weirdest, and most frustrating inclusion in the film is the four street urchins of which its no exaggeration to call them Hippies, one of them has on a "Sergent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" overcoat with golden epaulets and has an afro, another a poncho with big chains around his neck, the female wears a bandanna around her forehead. One sequence has them smoking a huge joint, WTF is up with this? The character Hud looks cool he got a long dark overcoat (like a duster), a black hat with a silver hat band a weird sort of silver choker (that's kind of out of place) and a chain mail vest that must be made out of "mithril" from Lord Of The Rings, it does make sense to wear during his knife fights , but its a bit ridiculous to ask us to believe it will repel bullets. Halliday is a bit lightweight in the part.El Diablo (Mario Adorf) is a cool one armed Mex bandit, but seems a bit off in the high country. He flaps this arm (that has a sharpened spur attached to its end) menacingly.The action sequences are top notch, except for the bullet deflecting chain mail, the film is just seriously flawed by its unbelievability. It has more nude sequences with Francois Fabian (ff and topless) than any previous Corbucci film I've seen .I can't see what the motives of this film were, was it made for a ton money that was thrown at Corbucci for the promotion of Johnny Halliday, who knows, Corbucci can be hit or miss, this is a big miss, but it is worth seeing to see how it could have been another hit if it had been done differently. Its a bit sloppy at places in its cinematography, one noticeable sequence is the "riding off into the sunset sequence" you see Hud ride off under a gate post the red sun a disk setting in the distance then you get a close shot of Hud against the sun and you see a turreted castle in the background ;D.Somebody has got to write a book on Corbucci so we can figure these inconsistencies out, I'd pay to find out WTF was going on in this man's head.Django 1966 (ok) The Hellbenders 1967 (not seen) The Mercenary 1968 (great his GBU) The Great Silence 1968 (great is FAFDM) The Specialist 1969 (WTF) Companero's 1970 (great) Shobary, is seriously out to lunch on this baby with his ranking maybe a 50 by my opinion, but then again you have to look at Shobary's criteria.Definitely a film for Corbucci aficionados only, if its ever available here, try to rent first.

The whole town of Blackstone is afraid, because they lynched Bret Dixon's brother - and he is coming back for revenge! At least that's what they think.A great Johnny Hallyday and a very interesting, early Mario Adorf star in this Italo-Western, obviously filmed in the Alps.Bret Dixon is coming back to Blackstone to investigate why his brother was lynched. He is a loner and gunslinger par excellance, everybody is afraid of him - the Mexican bandits (fighting the Gringos that took their land!) as well as the "decent" citizens that lynched Bret's brother. They lynched him, because they thought he stole their money instead of bringing it to Dallas to the safety of the bank there. But this is is only half the truth, as we find out in the course of this psychologically interesting western.But beware, it's kind of a depressing movie as everybody turns out to be guilty somehow and definitely everybody is bad to the bone...Still, I enjoyed it very much and gave it an 8/10. Strange, that only less than 5 people voted for this movie as of January 12th 2002....