Django, Prepare a Coffin

Django, Prepare a Coffin (Italian: Preparati la bara!, “Prepare the Coffin!”), alternatively titled Viva Django, is a 1968 Italian Spaghetti Western film directed by Ferdinando Baldi.[1] The film stars Terence Hill in the title role, which was previously played by Franco Nero in Sergio Corbucci's original film.

Django, Prepare a Coffin
Italian film poster
Directed byFerdinando Baldi
Screenplay byFranco Rossetti
Ferdinando Baldi
Story byFranco Rossetti
Produced byManolo Bolognini
StarringTerence Hill
Horst Frank
George Eastman
Pinuccio Ardia
Lee Burton
José Torrès
CinematographyEnzo Barboni
Edited byEugenio Alabiso
Music byGianfranco and Giampiero Reverberi
Production
company
B.R.C. Produzione Film
Distributed byTitanus Distribuzione
Release date
  • 27 January 1968 (1968-01-27)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian

A piece from the film's score, "Last Man Standing", was sampled in the song "Crazy" by American soul duo Gnarls Barkley.[2] The film's title song, "You'd Better Smile", is performed by Nicola Di Bari.[2]

It was shown as part of a retrospective on Spaghetti Western at the 64th Venice International Film Festival.[3]

Cast

Plot

Django is wounded and his wife is killed when the gold transport that he guards is attacked by the men of his ”friend” David Barry, who wants the gold to finance a political career.

Django pretends to be dead and starts working as a hangman, who spares the lives of the condemned victims of David Barry's conspiracies. He organizes them in a band to ”haunt” the perjurers that sent them to the gallows. This is part of a plan to disclose Barry and bring him to justice. The ”hanged” are supposed to intercept an attack on a gold transport and capture Barry's men to get evidence, but Garcia - who earlier has saved Django's life during a fight within the group - convinces the rest of the men that instead they should take the gold for themselves. Garcia then kills the others.

Django saves Garcia's wife from hanging, and she then saves Django after Barry has captured him. Garcia regrets his treachery, which he explains by the fact that he is poor, and helps Django lure Barry to the graveyard, where Django digs up his own coffin and then kills Barry and his gang with the machine gun kept in the coffin. Garcia dies in the fight. Django leaves a sack of gold to Garcia's wife ”for you and the children” before he leaves.

Release

Django, Prepare a Coffin was released on 27 January 1968.[4]

Reception

In his investigation of narrative structures in Spaghetti Western films, Fridlund suggests that though Django, Prepare a Coffin is basically a story of vindication and retribution, the relationship between Django and Garcia shows some affinity with the Gringo specialist/social bandit pair in "political" spaghetti westerns like The Mercenary.[5]

Restoration

Django, Prepare a Coffin was restored at L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna. The film was transferred at 2K resolution with Arriscan from a 35mm interpositive print. Django, Prepare a Coffin was digitally restored in high definition and then digitally colour corrected with Film Master by Nucoda. The sound was digitalised using the Chace Optical Sound Precessor from the original soundtrack negative. The restored high definition edition of Django, Prepare a Coffin made its Blu-ray debut in June 2013 from the United Kingdom's Arrow Video.

References
  1. Roberto Chiti; Roberto Poppi; Mario Pecorari. Dizionario del cinema italiano: I film. Gremese Editore, 1991.
  2. Marco Giusti (2007). Dizionario del western all'italiana. Mondadori, 2007. pp. 391–992. ISBN 978-88-04-57277-0.
  3. Paola Naldi (29 August 2007). "Il nuovo cinema cerca gloria". La Repubblica. Archived from the original on 26 December 2014. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
  4. "Preparati la Bara!". AllMovie. 30 June 2012. Archived from the original on 30 June 2012. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  5. Fridlund, Bert: The Spaghetti Western. A Thematic Analysis. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company Inc., 2006 pp. 111,118,198.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.