Imagine, like a blockbuster movie that rakes
in the equivalent of over a billion dollars.
It just completely shatters regional box office
records. Yeah. Defines a whole generation of
cinema. Right, an absolute juggernaut. Exactly.
Now imagine that if you asked anyone in the United
States about this monumental cultural event,
they would just stare at you blankly. Like it
didn't even exist. Yeah. Today's deep dive is
all about that. We are looking at the ultimate
Cinematic Blind Spot. Welcome to the Deep Jive,
by the way. Thanks. I'm really excited for this
one. Me too. Because we are looking at the Wikipedia
article for a 1965 spaghetti western called $100
.00 per Ringo. Or, you know, Centimila dollari
per Ringo. Yep, the Italian title. Right. And
our mission today is to figure out how a movie
can be this, like, world -beating phenomenon
in one hemisphere and just a total ghost in another.
So... Okay, let's unpack this. Well, to really
get it, you have to look at the mid -1960s. That
was the absolute gold rush of the spaghetti western.
And this film, which was directed by Alberto
DiMartino, it's just the perfect lens for understanding
how global pop culture actually works. Because
we usually think, you know, if a piece of entertainment
is massive, everyone everywhere knows about it.
Exactly. We assume its impact is universal. But
this film proves that cultural dominance can
be... Well, highly localized. Yeah, and the European
film industry back then was basically a factory,
right? Just rapidly mass producing its own bespoke
kind of cynical version of American mythology.
It really was. And the mythology they built in
this specific movie is just wild. It is. I mean,
to understand why European audiences were just
throwing money at this film, we have to look
at the plot because it takes that standard stranger
rides into town trope and just boom. violently
derails it. Instantly. Yeah. So our protagonist
is Lee Barton, played by Richard Harrison. He
arrives in this town called Rainbow Valley. But
instead of, you know, the usual silent glares
in a dusty saloon, the townspeople instantly
mistake him for this guy named Ward Cluster.
Right. A local guy who supposedly died in the
Civil War. Yeah. It's like walking into a high
school reunion where everyone is convinced you're
the prom king who vanished a decade ago. Yeah.
And not only that, they've already planned your
revenge mission for you. Exactly. The town just
assumes Barton is there to kill the Cherry brothers,
who apparently murdered this cluster guy's wife.
But, I mean, I have to push back on the logic
here a little bit. Oh, really? How so? Well,
even the dead man's son, right? A boy named Shang,
who was raised by an Indian chief named Gray
Bear. Yep. This kid just looks at a total stranger
and is like, oh, yes, my father. How do you just
roll with that? How did the writers expect the
audience to buy that instantly? Well, what's
fascinating here is that you have to look at
the mechanics of European genre filmmaking at
the time. OK. They weren't aiming for, like,
psychological realism or slow character studies.
They wanted immediate operatic stakes. So it's
a shortcut. Exactly. It's a massive narrative
shortcut. By having the child and Grey Bear accept
him, the writers instantly give Barton something
to lose. Oh, wow. He doesn't just inherit a feud,
he inherits a family. He steps into a pre -existing
web of grudges. That makes sense. I mean, speaking
of the writers, the source actually notes there
were four different people credited with this
screenplay. Right. Enchenna Sleflamini, Giovanni
Simonelli, Alfonso Balcazar, and the director,
Dave Martino. Four writers. You can almost see
the seams where they just decided to cram in
every single dramatic element possible. Yeah,
a four -writer room for a 1965 Italian production
usually meant, like, an assembly line approach.
One guy does dialogue, one does action. Pretty
much. And another ensures the tropes hit their
marks for the Spanish co -producers. So you get
this incredibly densely packed narrative with
corrupt towns, hidden military gold, makeshift
families. Which brings us to the villain, actually,
because the conflict driving the title $100 ,000.
It brings out a very specific type of bad guy.
Tom Cherry. Or Tom Cherry, depending on the castles
you read. Played by Gerard Tisci. And he is just,
he's a menace. He operates completely outside
that sort of gentleman villain archetype you
see in older Hollywood stuff. Right. He is terrifyingly
busy. Like, Tom is dealing with the Mexican army.
He's aggressively pursuing this married woman
named Deborah. Whose husband is Ive, the town
drunk. Yeah. And on top of all that, Tom is desperately
hunting for $100 ,000 in gold that a Mexican
general hid. He's a hurricane of greed. And that
greed is really the defining characteristic of
the whole spaghetti western landscape. It's about
opportunism. It's ruthless. And the movie really
leans into that bleakness. I mean, Tom captures
Barton and brutally whips him. Then he murders
both Deborah and her husband, Ive. Just takes
him off the board. It's a visceral level of violence.
It is. So then we get to the climax. Barton teams
up with this wandering sheriff from Tucson, they
hunt Tom down, and Barton kills him in this massive
shootout. The big payoff. Right. But the aftermath
is what trips me up. So Barton actually finds
the $100 ,000 from the Mexican general. He does.
And he decides to stick around in Rainbow Valley,
keep the stolen money, and build a future with
his fake son, Sean. Yeah, he does. Wait, think
about what that means. He takes a dead man's
identity, claims a kid that isn't his, pockets
foreign military money, and he just rides off
into the sunset. That is a wild definition of
a happy ending. Well, sure, if you're applying
the moral framework of, like, a 1950s John Wayne
movie. Fair point. But if we connect this to
the bigger picture, Barton's choice makes perfect
thematic sense for a spaghetti western. Because
it's about survival. Exactly. The hero here isn't
returning stolen goods to their rightful owners.
He's surviving an unforgiving frontier. If you
find a fortune in a family, well, you take them.
So it's just pure opportunism. Yeah. And that
cynical pragmatism resonated massively with European
audiences who were kind of tired of the purely
righteous heroes. OK. And when you say it resonated
massively, we need to talk about the real world
because Barton finding 100 grand is nothing compared
to the literal mountain of cash this movie made.
The box office numbers are just staggering. Yeah,
so it was released in Italy in November of 1965
and then Spain in July of 1966 and it grossed
over 1 billion 236 million 276 thousand lira.
Over 1 .2 billion lira. Yes. The source points
out it was one of only six spaghetti Westerns
to cross that billion Luremark in 1965. Which
is incredible. It became the 32nd highest grossing
film of all time in that specific regional context.
And it was a massive international hit for Richard
Harrison. They were just printing money. They
absolutely were. But here's where it gets really
interesting. Film scholar Thomas Weiser noted
that despite making billions of lira and being
a colossal hit abroad, the film was relatively
unknown in the United States. Almost entirely
off the radar. How does a 1 .2 billion lira juggernaut
just fail to exist in America? It really comes
down to the arrogance of regional markets at
the time. You know, the American film industry
in 1965 firmly believed it owned the Western
genre. Ah, right. So they looked down on it.
Exactly. U .S. distributors viewed these Italian
and Spanish co - productions as cheap foreign
knockoffs. They just didn't have the distribution
networks to force their way into mainstream American
theaters. They were effectively locked out by
a monopoly. Precisely. But the European audience
was starving for something America wasn't providing.
They wanted the morally ambiguous anti -hero,
the heightened violence. The operatic music.
All of it. And this challenges that assumption
we talked about earlier. We think cultural impact
is universal, but this shows a movie can be a
defining piece of pop culture in Europe and totally
miss the American radar. It forces you to wonder,
you know, like for everyone listening, how many
massive global phenomenons are we missing right
now? Just because of our geographic bubble. Oh,
for sure. Tons of them. Right. But creating a
regional hit like that, it requires a specific
kind of architect. And that brings us to the
director, Alberto DiMartino. He is such a fascinating
figure in this. He is. Looking at his other films
listed in the source, his ability to genre hop
is insane. Yeah, he wasn't really a precious
auteur. No. I mean, in 1961, he does The Invincible
Gladiator. Then in 63, he puts out a horror film,
The Blancheville Monster. Right. Then by 66,
he's doing spy stuff with special mission Lady
Chaplin, and later Holocaust 2000. He's like
a cinematic chameleon. He really is. Whatever
the audience was hungry for that year, gladiators,
spies, cowboys. He was just servin' it up like
a tech startup, pivoting to whatever the user
data says. And that kind of commercial adaptability
was vital for the Italian film industry. But,
you know, it often earned the disdain of critics
back then. Oh, because it was just seen as commerce,
not art. Exactly. Disposable commercial popcorn.
But history has a funny way of changing that,
doesn't it? Because decades later... this exact
film, this product of an agile commercial factory.
earned some serious historical validation. Yes.
It was selected to be shown at the 64th Venice
International Film Festival. Venice Film Festival.
Yeah. As part of a retrospective specifically
honoring the spaghetti western. So a movie designed
entirely to extract Lira from local theaters
in 1965 ends up preserved on one of the most
elite red carpets in global cinema. And this
raises an important question. How does commercial
popcorn become a treasured piece of secret history?
Time, I guess. Time strips away the commercial
context. When Venice mounts a retrospective like
that, they're acknowledging that you can't understand
the anxieties or the shifting morality of 1960s
Europe without looking at what the masses actually
paid to see. Wow. So popular culture just eventually
ages into anthropology. Beautifully said, yes.
It's almost like the movie pulled off its own
mistaken identity plot. It disguised itself as
a cheap action flick in 65, and then 50 years
later, it takes off the mask and reveals it's
actually vital cinematic heritage. I love that
comparison. And that is really why this deep
drive is so valuable for you listening. It's
not just about a 1965 movie. It's a lesson in
how success is totally subjective based on where
you stand on the map. Very true. You could be
the biggest deal in Rainbow Valley or Italy and
a total ghost in the U .S. It challenges us to
question our own blind spots. So before we wrap
up, do you have a final thought on this whole
billion -lira anomaly? I do, actually. Consider
the core premise of the film's plot. Lee Barton
steps into a town, assumes the identity of a
dead man, claims a son that isn't his, and takes
money that originally belonged to a Mexican general.
Right. Well, in a way, isn't that exactly what
the Italian spaghetti western did? Wait. It stepped
into a fading American genre, claimed its troops
as its own, and walked away with over a billion
lira. Oh, wow. They pulled off the exact same
heist in real life. That is such an incredible
insight. Thank you for diving into the wild localized
frontier of $100 ,000 per Ringo with us. Keep
questioning your pop culture boundaries, and
we'll catch you on the next Deep Dive.