Hannie Caulder *** (1971, Raquel Welch, Robert Culp, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Strother Martin, Christopher Lee, Diana Dors, Stephen Boyd) – Classic Movie Review 7781

Director Burt Kennedy’s 1971 Hannie Caulder is an admirably strange if nasty-toned Anglo-Spanish spaghetti Western, made in Spain but set in Mexico, where Hannie (Raquel Welch) enlists the help of drifting bounty hunter Tom Price (Robert Culp) to train her to be a crack shot so that she can be a lady gunfighter and go after the three killers who raped her and murdered her husband.

Worryingly, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam and Strother Martin impersonate these villains, the Clemens clan, like a sado-masochist version of The Marx Brothers – sometimes comically inept, other times incredibly vicious. Unexpectedly, Christopher Lee puts in a effective appearance against type as an amiable, sweet-talking pistol maker called Bailey, while Diana Dors pops up too, welcome if typecast as a brothel madame. Stephen Boyd makes a brief uncredited appearance as the gunfighter known as The Preacher.

Hannie Caulder is troublingly violent and cynical, but the ingratiating performances and dark humour stop it tipping over into exploitation.

The screenplay by Burt Kennedy and David Haft (both credited as Z X Jones) is based on the story by Peter Cooper and characters by Ian Quicke and Bob Richards.

It is filmed at Texas Hollywood-Fort Bravo, Almería, Andalucía, and at other locations in Spain, and at Twickenham Studios, Twickenham, Middlesex, England, for post-production work.

Also in the cast are Florencio Amarilla, Luis Barboo, Paco de Lucía, Brian Lightburn, Aldo Sambrell and Juan Manuel Torres.

Hannie Caulder is directed by Burt Kennedy, runs 85 minutes, is made by Curtwel Productions, Paramount Pictures and Tigon British Film Productions, is released by Paramount, is written by Burt Kennedy and David Haft, is shot in Technicolor by Edward Scaife, is produced by Patrick Curtis, Tony Tenser (executive producer), David Haft (executive producer) and Raquel Welch (executive producer), is scored by Ken Thorne and is designed by José Algueró.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7781

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