get mean

The rise and fall of the spaghetti western has been well documented, but for the lay-fan it comes down to this: there's the Dollars trilogy...and then there's everything else. Tony Anthony's "Stranger" films fit very comfortably in the everything else category, particularly Get Mean (1975), the fourth and final outing that sends his scruffy ne'er-do-well cowboy on a time-traveling adventure to Spain to return a stolen princess and claim a mythical treasure.

Actually, just how the Stranger happens to meet up with these fuzzy barbarians and stuffed-shirt Spanish nobles isn't made clear. Get Mean glosses over the fine details and cuts straight to the battle scenes, anxious to get to its fish-out-of-water scenario with as little dialogue as possible. For those already familiar with Tony Anthony's "why so serious?" take on the reinvented Western, the film is a bizarrely satisfying finale to a series of films that got progressively more outrageous. Everyone else ought to read up on available from Warner Archive, at the very least.

At this point in the spaghetti western cycle, distributors were demanding something a little more marketable than just another guy on a horse. Anthony's previous film sent the Stranger to Japan, essentially moving Yojimbo back to its country of origin. So sending the character to yet another far-flung destination seemed like a logical move. Only by choosing Spain - the location of choice for most European westerns - the look of Get Mean doesn't really change...there's just a plethora of eccentrically costumed characters to provide some distraction.

The similarities to Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness are readily apparent if you've been forewarned (and now you have!). And both films suffer from a scattershot script that bounces from one desperate-to-entertain scene to the next. Tony Anthony doesn't have the rubber-faced appeal of Bruce Campbell, but he's just enough of an odd duck to keep you interested in what he does next. Same goes for Get Mean itself, which has to be the most unpredictable western of its era. And that's kinda groovy.

Blue Underground's two-disc limited edition blu-ray / dvd combo looks a far cry better than any of the transfers Warner Archive had to work with. There's still a good bit of grain and some muted colors, but film damage is minimal...which probably should be the case since the movie only played in one venue (The Fox Theater in Detroit) before going back in the can.

BU has really loaded up on the extras including an audio commentary, a nice 30-minute Making Of plus interviews with co-star Lloyd Battista, director Ferdinando Baldi, and a fascinating take on the business side of things with executive producer Ronald J. Schneider. Deleted scenes, trailers, radio spots, a still gallery and liner notes that summarize all the Stranger films are tacked on for good measure. But Tony Anthony himself is the star of the behind-the-scenes show, ripping through dozens of anecdotes with his inimitably amusing (and often politically-incorrect) style.