A Man Called Blade

One of the later Spaghetti Westerns, and often compared to Enzo G. Castellari's "Keoma" from 1976, Sergio Martino's "Mannaja" aka. "A Man Called Blade" is a very stylish, and pretty brutal movie with some minor flaws. The comparisons to Keoma are quite plausible indeed, Mannaja was made only one year after Keoma, both soundtracks were composed by Maurizio and Guido De Angelis, and the leading actor Maurizio Merli actually looks a lot like the great Franco Nero, who played the title role in Keoma. It is often stated that Maurizio Merli only got bigger roles due to his resemblance to Franco Nero. Anyway, Merli's performance as Mannaja is great. Comparing Mannaja to Keoma, Mannaja had a smaller budget, but it makes up for this with graphic violence and genuine nastiness. The performances in Mannaja are great, even though it's pretty hard to come up to Franco Nero, Woody Strode and William Berger. The music composed by the De Angelis Brothers, which some folks seem to have disliked in "Keoma" (I'm not one of them), actually fits into Mannaja very well.

Mannaja, an occasional bounty hunter and gunslinger who is fast with both his gun and his tomahawk, comes to a small town to collect the reward for a bandit he has caught. The town, which doesn't have a Sheriff, is ruled by an aging rich landowner named Mc Gowan, who treats the laborers at his silver mine like animals. Mc Gowan's right hand man, a ruthless killer named Voller, however, even makes his boss look like a nice guy in his sadism and unscrupulousness.

Mannaja has, apart from its resemblances to Keoma, many resemblances to earlier Spaghetti Westerns. Mannaja's back-flashes, for example, remind of movies like Sergio Corbucci's "The Great Silence", or Sergio Leone's "Once Upon A Time In The West". Since these resemblances are only occasional, however, they don't make the movie worse. The performances are good, I especially liked John Steiner as the villainous Voller and Maurizio Merli as Mannaja. The character of Mannaja (according to the movie 'Mannaja' means 'blade' in a Native American language) is generally very cool, the fact that he kills with his tomahawk as frequently as with his gun (if not more frequently), makes the whole movie very stylish. All things considered, Maurizio Merli, who is best known for his roles in ultraviolent Italian crime flicks, is probably not as versatile an actor as Franco Nero, but he definitely made a great Mannaja. A nasty, ultra-violent and gripping Spaghetti Western, "Mannaja" is a must see for genre-fans!

In the early 70s, Spaghetti Westerns were going through a dry spell. Countless crappy parody films had flooded the market and strangled the life out of the genre. Then Italian crime maestro and occasional Spaghetti director Enzo G. Castellari came along and directed the psychedelic, action-packed masterpiece "Keoma". Gone was the cynicism and nihilism that seperated early Spaghettis from American Westerns. Instead there was an injection of emotion. The silent hero of the past was now a heartfelt warrior who wasn't above crying in between bouts of ass-kicking. Needless to say, it revived the genre briefly and led to a few knock-offs. "Mannaja" is probably the most obvious with it's similar visual style and music score, but Sergio Martino's keen visual sense (though not as good as Castellari's) and Maurizio Merli's excellent performance allow the film to stand on it's own two legs. There's a lot of well-staged slow motion shootouts and a fistfight in the mud here and there, along with an interesting if not compelling plotline. All in all, this is a great knock-off that has just enough originality to be a good stand-alone piece. Recommended.

Eurocrime regular Maurizio Merli headlines this Italian Western about the title bounty hunter, who wields a hatchet rather than a gun. He comes upon the town of Suttonville, which is presided over by a mining boss, McGowan (Philippe Leroy) who supposedly doesn't allow any sort of "sin" or "vice". Mannaja gets caught up in the affairs of the town, going head to head with the crooked and deadly Voller (European exploitation veteran John Steiner) and seeing to some unfinished business that he has with McGowan.

"Mannaja" is directed by Sergio Martino, who was nothing if not versatile, moving from Gialli ("Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key") to post-apocalypse schlock ("2019: After the Fall of New York"), to the cannibal genre ("Mountain of the Cannibal God"). Martino gives the tale some real style, beginning and ending it with very atmospheric sequences. The violence is pretty vicious, but offsetting a certain grimness is a tendency towards levity at times. A case in point: Johnny-Johnny (Salvatore Puntillo) and his dancing girls. The music further adds to the atmosphere, having been composed by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis. Martino gets down to business with an eerie succession of scenes in which outlaw Burt Craven (Donald O'Brien) is pursued by Mannaja.

The charismatic Merli, who does indeed bear a resemblance to the more famous Franco Nero, does a capable job in the lead. He's extremely well supported by Steiner, who looks right at home in this genre; Steiner is a great villain. Leroy, O'Brien, Martine Brochard as dancing girl Angela, and Sonja Jeannine as McGowan's daughter are all fine as well.

Overall, "Mannaja" is pretty good of its type, offering up nice photography, lovely ladies, decent action sequences, a few laughs, and a plot where the hero doesn't always have the upper hand.

Seven out of 10.

Although very much late in the game for an Italian western, (the bulk of which were made between 1965 and 1972) Mannaja (A Man Called Blade) is no slouch. It's actually a good muscular western with lots of violence and dark atmosphere, with the sun blocked out and everything bathed in a fog of dust.

Maurizio Merli plays Blade, a mysterious hatchet wielding bounty hunter with unfinished business to take care of regarding a puritanical mine owner and his psychotic number two, played by John Steiner, who's excellent at portraying nasty weasels.

Also memorable is (the late?) Donal O'Brien, who would later gain infamy as the title character in Doctor Butcher M.D. (Medical Deviate), as a scroungy fugitive who gets his hand cut off by Blade in the first scene and features prominently in the film's finale.

Director Sergio Martino is a master of Italian exploitation and really knows how to deliver the goods, especially in action/adventures. Another of his films I really enjoyed was Slave Of The Cannibal God with Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach.

Also, I really enjoyed the title song even though it was repeated way too often in the course of the film.

This film begins with a bounty hunter who goes by the name "Blade" (Maurizio Merli) riding into the small mining town of Suttonville with a criminal named "Burt Craven" (Donald O'Brien) as his prisoner. Unfortunately, when he gets there he is informed that there is no real sheriff there which makes it impossible for him to claim the bounty. To make things even worse, he is also told that the entire town is essentially owned by the wealthy owner of the local silver mine named "Edward McGowan" (Philippe Leroy) and that nothing gets done without his approval or that of his chief enforcer and bodyguard by the name of "Voller" (John Steiner) . To that end, when Blade volunteers to help Edward McGowan with a problem he is experiencing with some local bandits, Voller doesn't take it too well and this results in a serious rift between Blade and everyone else-and Voller is not a man to take things lightly. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an entertaining "Spaghetti Western" which managed to keep my attention pretty much from start-to-finish. Admittedly, I didn't especially care for a couple of the twists and turns taken and the musical score was a bit odd. But even so I liked this film for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.