BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Michael_Elliott Cemetery Without Crosses (1969) *** (out of 4)Manuel (Robert Hossein) is asked by his former lover (Michele Mercier) to seek out the men who murdered her husband. The gunslinger agrees to take the job so he gets some help and heads out to take the gang down.CEMETERY WITHOUT CROSSES was a French/Italian co-production that has gained much popularity over the years because it's basically a love letter to the style of Sergio Leone and the film is even dedicated to the legendary filmmaker. Hossein not only stars in the picture but he also directed it as well as co-wrote it and for the most part it's a pretty good entry for the genre. Is it in the same league as Leone? Of course not but this is certainly worth watching.The screenplay, which included Dario Argento as a co-writer, isn't all that original but what I enjoyed the most about this picture was the style. There are several long stretches where there's not a single line of dialogue spoken. There's often a lot of noise whether it's sound effects or the music score by André Hossein blaring and this allows the terrific cinematography to come to life. The camera just floats from one shot to the next with the sound effects really taking your mind off everything that is going on. This often time leads to a nice surprise with one of the best examples being a scene at the diner table.You're watching a group of men eat and we hear the sound of them chomping and then out of nowhere there's a little surprise that really works well. I won't ruin the ending but it too was quite effective because of the set up and how the director shows the final shoot out. Both Hossein and Mercier are very good in their roles with Hossein obviously trying to copy the Man With No Name role. CEMETERY WITHOUT CROSSES is a well-made little film. I think there's more style than substance but that's really not a problem here.

Kirpianuscus only a different western. using the classic rules of genre. but who could not be reduced at this rules. because it is a gray, silent, precise story. like a Mediteranean story of justice and revenge. because the meet of viewer with Michele Mercier and Robert Hossein has nothing with the memories about Angelique series. because Michele Mercier gives a character, with each subtle nuances, remembering more the Greek tragedies than a western. because the cinematography is great. and the story has a special flavor. a film a bout duty and love. clear, precise, special.

tomgillespie2002 Ever since I saw Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) as a child after burrowing into my brother's VHS collection, I've loved spaghetti westerns. It was only in my teenage years that I realised just how many of these films were made - some excellent, some terrible, and some just outright bizarre - and it's been fun tracking down some of the more obscure titles. While not strictly a 'spaghetti' western due to being French (a 'baguette' western as Alex Cox puts it), Cemetery Without Crosses is a stoic curiosity. Clearly influenced by the work of Leone, the film is an existential, near-silent work that is in equal parts hypnotic and plodding.Humble farmer Ben Caine (Guido Lollobrigida) is chased and gunned down by members of the Rogers family, who are scooping up all the livestock business from the surrounding areas through fear and violence. Ben is gunned down and hanged in front of his wife Maria (Michele Mercier). With her livelihood destroyed and Ben's brothers Thomas (Guido Lollobrigida) and Eli (Michel Lemoine) opting to flee across the border, Maria turns to old friend Manuel (Robert Hossein), a brooding gunslinger residing in a nearby ghost town, for help. Manuel soon infiltrates the Rogers family and joins them on their ranch, where he sets Maria's revenge in motion.Though more of a homage to spaghetti westerns, Cemetery Without Crosses certainly looks and feels like it was born and reared in Italy. There are a couple of glimpses of brilliance - a familiar scene of intense stare-downs at the dinner table quickly flips into a moment of outright comedy, and the scene in which a character lights a candle to reveal that they are not alone is truly nerve- shredding. But the plot is wafer-thin, so the camera is often left lingering while the characters do little or nothing at all, and the dialogue is especially sparse, even for a spaghetti western. Hossein, who also directed and co- wrote the film with the credited Dario Argento and Claude Desailly (though in reality Argento had no involvement), simply doesn't possess the magnetic presence of Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson. Exhilarating in bursts but meandering in places, Cemetery Without Crosses is still worth checking out.

Red-Barracuda Cemetery Without Crosses is a spaghetti western probably most famous for being co-written by Dario Argento. In fact, he worked on the screenplay to this one shortly before directing his seminal debut thriller The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and after co-writing the classic Once Upon a Time in the West. It would only be fair to say that this one doesn't match up to either of those, although it's a solid enough Euro western all the same.Its plot line is typical enough for a spaghetti western. An enigmatic loner called Manuel infiltrates a bandit gang in order to get revenge on behalf of a beautiful widow whose husband they murdered. Whilst the story-line is fairly standard, the lack of dialogue certainly isn't. It isn't immediately obvious but there really is hardly any of it. Mostly, the plot is told by imagery. This is sometimes done really well, although it does distance us a bit from the characters, making it a little hard to truly emphasise with them. There are some interesting details though, such as the fact that Manuel lives alone in a ghost town. This setting is a good one and adds an element of the slightly surreal to proceedings. There is also a somewhat atypical scene at the bandit gang's dinner table, which plays on audience expectations. Basically, what seems like a very tense moment suddenly turns into a moment of bizarre comedy.The film stars Michèle Mercier who will be familiar to some for her performance in 'The Telephone' segment of Mario Bava's excellent horror omnibus Black Sabbath. But this is not really an actor's film. The dialogue is too sparse and the characterisations too vague. It's more an interesting example of visual story-telling. It also has a very downbeat ending, which was something de rigueur in the late sixties. It fits this story well enough though.