The lone rider with an axe

Mannaja - A Man Called Blade (1977)

Sergio Martino is more known from his stylish giallos than spaghetti westerns. But he also wanted to give his input to the genre and thus was born Mannaja, one of the last spaghetti westerns. The story of Mannaja, the man who's actually called Blade, is very formulaic using pretty much all the cliches in the storyline which the genre had ever produced. The plot has more holes than I could count and at parts it takes quite ridiculous routes. But as usual the story is not the main point of spaghetti westerns, it's the style and the mood of it. The movie looks quite good with it's rainy and foggy style, though as I watched the extra documentary they said it was to cover the very poor condition of the set. Well never the less it works for the good of the movie as it brings it's own atmosphere to it. The cinematography is quite nice also, so the visual side of it is in order. The music however is quite bad. There's some parts where it works great, but for example the theme song which plays every time Mannaja rides out is quite hilarious with it's deep voice singing. And I bet it surely wasn't meant that way. The acting was quite ok, nothing special but nothing great either. Hard to see Maurizio Merli as a cowboy after all of those crime movies, but he does a decent job. Luckily the pace od the movie is fast enough to keep the interest up when the script and mood fails. Was worth watching but in the end it falls into the vast void of mediocre spaghetti westerns.
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