The Price of Power (1969)

good film but with many flaws

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This movie uses the assassination of President Garfield as a plot device. The makers never intended to tell a historical story. It's an allegory to explore the JFK assassination and the Viet Nam war. Garfield's assassin was an erstwhile ally turned insane. He died because of incredible medical incompetence, 12 weeks later, and it happened in D.C. So, it's a plot device, not an historical movie.And it works as a Spaghetti Western. It's among the best of the genre. I'm the kind of anorak that sits there and thinks about every detail, every shot, and I put this in the top 10 most important of the genre. The Italian version is much better than the English one, imho. I've never seen an Italian version of it with English subtitles, so good luck with that one. Bottom line, if you like to sit there and be a know-it-all and pick historical holes in what isn't a historical movie, or like something mindless, you probably won't like it. If you understand the complex cultural statements coming out of 1960's Italy about politics and violence, you will love it.The Italians loved it. It's total revenue puts it at the 28th biggest grossing Spaghetti Western in history, 1.273 billion lire (no clue what year's lire that might be). That's about 1/3 of each of the Man With No Name trilogies receipts, which is pretty darn good for one that is virtually unknown here.The reviewer that said it was a brain dead version of Stone's JFK has missed the point so many ways...well, the person must be a contortionist to get one's head so far up their own backside. I'm imaging some gen Y twerp that yells "Nu-uh!" to everything. And the length...those type usually love the sound of their own voice.

What is the price of power? Not much, since I got this movie at a dollar bin at Wal-Mart. The movie isn't the worst Spaghetti western movie I ever saw, but it's no way, has the power to become well-known. You have to suffer from a head blow to think this match up with Sergio Leone's films. In my opinion, it's alright. Directed by Tonino Valerii, this 113 minutes is pretty hard to find, that's if, you can figure out what the title of the film is called. The movie comes with different titles depending on where you lived. The movie been known as the Price of Power, Texas, a Bullet for The President or Dallas. This is often confusing when trying to seek this movie out. Tonino Valerri's western movie is very much serve as an allegory to the assassination of President Kennedy and racial politics in 1960s America. It's seems like the director and writers wanted to put fistful of JFK conspiracy theories in Western settings for some odd reason that end up being good, bad and ugly results. The good thing about the film is how well-made it is. The acting is so-so, but the English dubbing is a little off kilter. Surprising, Giuliano Gemma is pretty good lead in this film. Benito Stefanelli is great as the villainous and corrupt Sheriff Jefferson. Some pretty good excellently staged action. The whole train bridge shootout was pretty intense. I love the whole gun fight in the dark idea in another scene from the movie. I have to say, this movie has one of the oddest trial scenes in the history of film. The music score by Luis Bacalov was pretty daring. The movie has a good music score, though it relies on repeating the title theme a little too much to the point, it got annoying. 'Catch a star in the sky' was a pretty catchy number by singer Norma Jordan AKA Annie in the film. The English audio is perfectly audible but has some pops and hiss in the background. The movie moves in a steady pace, and I didn't find myself bored at times. The film plot reads like this, in 1881 Texas is still divided from the ashes of the Civil War. A American President, President James Garfield (Van Johnson) despite warnings of assassination, comes to Dallas to help establish a new police of equality. Bill Willer (Giuliano Gemma) and two of his friends, a black man named Jack Donovan (Ray Shaunders), and a crippled guy named Nick (Manuel Zarzo) are determined to prevent the President's murder, at any cost. While, the movie doesn't claim to be historical accuracy, I have to say the movie takes great liberty to the historical event leading to Garfield's murder. James Garfield was not assassinated by racists, who wanted to reinstall the confederacy in Texas, but in Washington DC train station by mentally unstable Charles Guiteau who was reject by Garfield's staff after trying to seek a job. The way, the movie version of President Garfield ends up dying isn't even close to what happen to him in real life. It wasn't only the bullet that killed him, according to most experts, what actually killed Garfield over two months later were incompetent doctors who probed and probed to retrieve a bullet to no avail. They never bothered cleaning their hands or implements in the process. Garfield most likely died due to malpractice. I like how Van Johnson also doesn't even look like Garfield in the film. He's missing the beard, has the wrong hair color and style and is just not even close in any way! He is as close as looking like Garfield as Garfield the cat is of looking like the president. I also feel bad for President Chester Arthur. In the film, Garfield's Vice President Chester A. Arthur was being blackmail by Neo-Confederate conspirator banker Allen Pinkerton (Fernando Rey). While, Chester A. Arthur did had a corrupt past, he was no way one of the people conspiring to kill Garfield in real history. Also, in real history, Allan Pinkerton worked with Union intelligence in the Civil War and established the U.S. Intelligence Service, the forerunner of the Secret Service. In the movie they got nothing of history right whatsoever. Still, the film doesn't mention the name Garfield on the film, as the President character is mostly nameless in the film. It's the producers that says that he is supposed to be President Garfield. If he was, or wasn't playing Garfield. The story is fictitious. The whole 1960's feel to the film seems to shine through the dirty 19th century settling, anyways. Even Warren Vanders's character, Arthur McDonald looks sometime out of a Dirty Harry movie and Annie AKA Norma Jordan out of a James Bond film. The film automatically raises the question of whether it reflects Valerii or screenwriter Massimo Patrizi's actual beliefs about the Kennedy assassination. The film makes it look like JFK's assassin, Lee Oswald was innocent who was set up by rightists to take the blame, due to the character of Jack Donavan. If this was the filmmaker's attempt to show, I have to disagree with them. Lee Oswald clearly kill JFK. If anybody help him, is up to question. Oddly, The Price of Power ends up endorsing the idea of a cover-up for the good of the nation. Take it at as it is. It's a good Spaghetti movie that stand out due to its JFK juxtaposition. This is a Spaghetti Western that deserves a much wider reputation that the one it currently holds.

I was unfamiliar with this film, until I saw it included in a list of the Top 20 Spaghetti Westerns I recently came across (following the marathon I made these last few weeks of films from the subgenre); it was auspicious, then, that the film had to turn up almost immediately on late-night Italian TV (for the first time, I'm pretty sure, in a good number of years)! Unfortunately, the cable reception of the channel on which it was broadcast hasn't been great lately: I recorded the film on VHS but I decided not to keep it due to this factor; as it happened, the very next day I watched the film, I found out that it was available on a Region 2 DVD from Italy (featuring an interview with uncredited scriptwriter Ernesto Gastaldi) - and, having been sufficiently impressed, I decided to order it there and then, even if I knew that I wouldn't be getting to the DVD for quite a while as I like to allow some time between one viewing of a film and the next! A brief parenthesis here: when I recently purchased a spate of Spaghetti Westerns on Italian DVD, I opted not to order Sergio Sollima's FACE TO FACE (1967), since I was under the impression that it was a bare-bones affair; however, I've just learned that the disc actually contains an interview with the director (as had been the case with THE BIG GUNDOWN [1966], which I bought). It did seem baffling to me that Sollima wouldn't offer similar contribution to that film's DVD edition when he actually considered FACE TO FACE as his favorite work (as per the director's talent bio included on the Blue Underground Region 1 disc of yet another Sollima Spaghetti Western - RUN, MAN, RUN [1968]); the trouble is that I loved THE BIG GUNDOWN so much that I followed it with a viewing of FACE TO FACE via the recording I owned made off Italian TV! I did order the DVD of that film now - especially since it's still discounted - but as I said with respect to a second look at THE PRICE OF POWER (although I may still check out Sollima's interview when the disc arrives)... O.K., rant over: the film under review is quite an unusual Spaghetti Western and a very interesting, indeed ambitious one at that, being a transposition of the JFK assassination case to an Old West setting! Actually, it's reminiscent of Anthony Mann's terse black-and-white thriller THE TALL TARGET (1951) - which dealt with an assassination attempt on the life of then-U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. It features one of the most popular Italian stars from this subgenre, Giuliano Gemma, in what is perhaps his most impressive Western role (many of his other films tended to have a light-hearted bent). The supporting cast includes at least two other notables: Van Johnson (in one of his few and mainly unremarkable Italian films) as the American President killed in post-Civil War Dallas and Fernando Rey as the head of a conspiracy of Southerners - who not only plots his assassination but also conveniently maneuvers the new acting U.S. leader, Johnson's Vice-President, by means of blackmail! Benito Stefanelli also makes a good impression as a corrupt sheriff who pursues Gemma all through the picture, and with whom he's engaged a couple of times in a 'duel in the dark' - with the guns resting on the floor rather than in their respective holsters and the only light in the room provided by the end of the cowboys' cigars! Also involved is Ray Saunders as Gemma's black sidekick whom the narrative eventually turns into the doomed "Lee Harvey Oswald" figure. Stelvio Massi - who later cut his teeth, as director, on a number of poliziotteschi - is behind the film's luminous cinematography; similarly, Luis Enrique Bacalov supplies yet another great "Euro-Cult" score - which is different enough from the style of Ennio Morricone as to be equally distinguishable. Valerii's direction here may mot be as imposing as that in other Spaghetti Westerns but he handles the proceedings efficiently enough (the final gunfight is especially nicely done); the film is certainly one of the more underrated entries in the subgenre and, for those so inclined, the novelty of the plot line alone should make it one to look out for...

Out of the 600 or so Spaghetti Westerns made this has got to be in the top twenty somewhere. Can not believe this hasn't received any reviews! Gemma is excellent in this. Van Johnson is good too though his dubbed voice is a little off killter but that's the charm of the Italian style. Beautiful photography and some excellently staged action. All the supporting characters are well played. The severity of the racist streak in the bad guys is pretty tough even by todays standards which creates an emotional depth to Gemmas character in some of the situations that take place. Absolutely FANTASTIC score by Luis Bacalov. See this is in the wonderful Wide screen DVD from Japan. A spaghetti must have.