1/16/2024 0 Comments Simon oakland religion![]() ![]() Surprisingly, this exploitative mess works, at least to some extent. You’ll get the point: if Hackman has the better fire arm, Reed has the better equipment. The scene is supposed to prepare viewers to the crucial twist in the movie: Bergen falling for Reed although (or should I say because ?) he has raped her. It all starts with a particularly unpleasant opening sequence, in which scenes of an impotent Hackman desperately trying to make love to his wife, are cross-cut with scenes of men killing and disemboweling a bovine. The Hunting Party really is a nasty, mean-spirited movie, adopting the gory idiosyncrasies of the American westerns of the period (but lacking their style or historic relevance) and adopting the misogynic tendencies of the spaghetti western (but lacking their scoffing religious symbolism). I had seen The Hunting party in cinema when it was first released, and remembered it was quite violent, but wasn’t prepared for its blood-soaked brutality. The three finally meet for a downbeat finale in the desert. Hackman would normally be no match for Reed, but he’s in possession of a rifle with a much longer reach than the guns the outlaws have, so he keeps his distance while following them, and kills them off one by one, in gruesome fashion, until only Reed and Bergen are left. Reed has kidnapped Bergen, a school teacher, because he wants her to teach him how to read. The presence of Classy Candice wasn’t a guarantee for refined taste in those days. ![]() The Hunter is cattle baron Gene Hackman, his prey gang leader Oliver Reed, who has stolen Hackman’s wife, played by Candice Bergen, fresh from witnessing the gory killings and hacked limbs in Ralph Nelson’s Soldier Blue. Like many productions of the period, it’s built around a chase, echoing Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. Outrageously violent, crude and perverted, this is no doubt the most extreme of all the American and British pseudo-spaghettis, shot around Almeria in the early seventies. Cast: Oliver Reed, Candice Bergen, Gene Hackman, Simon Oakland, Mitchell Ryan, L.Q. ![]()
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