Sonny and Jed (1972)

A Major Disappointment

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lilly?" was his comic interpretation of a Japanese kung fu film. I realize that Allen had nothing to do with "Sonny and Jed", however the four letter word laced dialog is at times funnier than "Tiger Lilly". Somehow this overlooked curiosity has remained in "spaghetti" obscurity despite the presence of Thomas Milan, Susan George, and Telly Savales. Although this is definitely a parody of the Sergio Leone classics, including a fine Enio Morrocone score, it could come as quite a shock to the "Trinity" crowd, especially in the almost constant use of the "F'" word. There really is no story, just a series of episodes with Milan and George playing a western variation on "Bonnie and Clyde". - MERK

An Italian-Spanish co-production full of action , exaggerated characters, shootouts and lots of violence . The Cuban Thomas Milian, as usual, puts faces, grimaces, crying and overacting, but plays splendidly ; furthermore enjoyable appearance by Susan George , post ¨Straw dogs¨ . The picture tells the lurid criminal story of a famous delinquents couple, detailing a mythologized biography in ¨Bonny and Clyde ¨ style . In the time of the wild west, Jed (top notch Tomas Milian) recently out of jail meets Sonny (gorgeous Susan George), both become bank robbers. The antiheroes go across the American Midwest and South robbing banks , stores and people , embarking in a criminal rampage. They form a criminal gang, without accomplices only for money, for pleasure, for revenge ; they don't care why , rob , kill or how . An obstinate sheriff later blind ( Telly Savalas ) pursues the thieves , and lets nothing detain in his trail of catching them.This Western is inferior than previous Corbucci's entries but displays stirring adventures, shootouts, riding pursuits and is pretty amusing. It's an exciting western with breathtaking confronting between the two protagonists and the enemy Telly Savallas dressed in long fur coat and his hoodlums. In spite of some moment is boring I think it turns out to be a good Spaghetti Western . Tomas Milian is fine, he plays similarly his role in ¨Cuchillo¨, as he ravages the screen, he jumps, bounds and leaps, hit and run , but also receives violent punches and hits . Telly Savalas as a cruelly baddie role is terrific, subsequently he would play various spaghetti (Pancho Villa ,A reason to live a reason to die, Land raiders, A town hell) . Furthermore, appears usual secondaries Italian/Spanish Western in brief acting as Alvaro De Luna, Dan Van Husen , Rafael Albaicin , Victor Israel , and of course Eduardo Fajardo , Sergio Corbucci's ordinary. The film blends violence, a love story , tension, high body-count and it's fast moving and quite entertaining . There is plenty of action in the movie , guaranteeing a shootout or stunt every few minutes. There are many fine technicians and nice production design with excellent scenario of barren outdoors, dirty landscapes under a glimmer sun and a fine set on the Almeria landscape. The musician Ennio Morricone, composes a nice soundtrack and well conducted ; it's full of strange sounds in ¨My name is nobody ¨ wake . Striking cinematography by Luis Cuadrado and Alejandro Ulloa with negative well processed . Outdoor sequences filmed at Colmenar, Madrid and of course Almeria, Spain.Sergio Corbucci's direction is well crafted , here he's quite cynical and humorous and inclined toward violence and too much action, and contains broad comedy supported on the character played by Tomas Milian . Sergio made several Spaghetti classics: ¨ Django¨, ¨The great silence¨, ¨Hellbenders¨, ¨The specialist¨ , and Zapata Western as ¨The Mercenary¨, ¨The Compañeros¨ and ¨What am I doing in middle of the revolution¨ . In addition Sergio directed other inferior S.W. as ,¨Johnny Oro¨, ¨The white the yellow an the black¨ and ¨Minnesota Clay¨.

It's surprising to see how fast Sergio Corbucci's career declined. Only two years earlier he was making COMPANEROS, one of the high-points of the mid spaghetti western period. For SONNY AND JED he united his 'muse' Tomas Milian with Susan George fresh from Peckinpah's STRAW DOGS the previous year and Tellys Savalas who was at the time enjoying a prolonged vacation in the Mediterranean by making Italian b-movies. Despite of the cast however, the movie is a dim shadow of COMPANEROS. Certainly a let-down by Corbucci's usual standards, which he would go on to follow with another two poor westerns, essentially ending his career in the western as ingloriously it began (MASSACRE AT RED CANYON).SONNY AND JED in its way reflects the ongoing the decline of the genre that Corbucci both helped shape and found his niche in by making the transition from the peplum he used to make under alias Stanley Corbett in his earlier days and with cheesy titles like Goliath and the Island of Vampires. It's a gritty, crass, vulgar tale of two unpleasant people, scruffy bandit Jed and feisty tomboy Sonny, hitching up together in a nameless patch of Roman countryside substituting for a nameless part of the West and going on a robbing spree while a monomaniac sheriff dressed in a fur (!) and his posse gun after them. The couple-of-criminals-on-the-loose idea seems to be a loan from BONNY AND CLYDE and Milian and Susan George have enough chemistry to see it through even when their constant bickering crosses the line from amusing to annoying. Milian's Jed is cut from that mould of distinctly latino temperament, the kind of uncomplicated picaresque irreverence Italians loved to introduce in their characters because it borough the western back home in a way, which owes a big debt to Tuco from Leone's GBU (as do all the characters of that lineage).In the end the movie doesn't amount to much and the questionable choice of undermining Tellys Savalas' suave menace by turning him from a cruel, methodic badass into a staggering blind does a good job of cutting the legs from the movie's climax, but it's still peppered with memorable moments that save the day. Great examples of spaghetti western visual irony involving coffins and barns, snappy one-liners, hilarious bits like the scene when Jed enters a photographer's shop and demands to know why his photo is missing from the "Wanted" posters he's printing, a general sense of comic-book irreverence that is at once violent and funny, Sonny and Jed, although far from a rousing success, still has enough of these little moments to recommend it to genre fans.

Sergio Leone, the king of spaghetti westerns, would never have dreamed of making a western like "Sonny and Jed." It is a poignant film that was considered daring at the time of its release and is now labeled by many as a cult classic. Tomas Milian, who took the stage name "Tomas" after his prime role model: Tomas F. Dobb, plays Jed in an unforgettable role initially intended for Rodney Dangerfield. Susan George plays Sonny, Jed's one-true love and partner-in-crime. This is a "Bonnie and Clyde" of the west. It isn't a great film, but it seems to entertain most of the time. The best performance in the film, by far, is by Telly Savalas. He plays a blind sheriff who is determined to catch Sonny and Jed dead or alive by using any means necessary BY HIMSELF! Savalas steals every scene he is in and rightfully so. The final line in the film, "Sonny, I love you, you M**********r!", is right up there with the final line in "Gone with the Wind". Some believe it's more touching than the "Gone with the Wind" line. This is one of those hard to find films like "A Town Called Hell", "Blood and Guns", and "Villa Rides." Get it if you can.