WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.640 Imagine, like a blockbuster movie that rakes 00:00:03.640 --> 00:00:05.620 in the equivalent of over a billion dollars. 00:00:06.059 --> 00:00:08.740 It just completely shatters regional box office 00:00:08.740 --> 00:00:11.300 records. Yeah. Defines a whole generation of 00:00:11.300 --> 00:00:13.679 cinema. Right, an absolute juggernaut. Exactly. 00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:16.579 Now imagine that if you asked anyone in the United 00:00:16.579 --> 00:00:19.160 States about this monumental cultural event, 00:00:20.019 --> 00:00:23.539 they would just stare at you blankly. Like it 00:00:23.539 --> 00:00:26.820 didn't even exist. Yeah. Today's deep dive is 00:00:26.820 --> 00:00:29.420 all about that. We are looking at the ultimate 00:00:29.949 --> 00:00:32.530 Cinematic Blind Spot. Welcome to the Deep Jive, 00:00:32.609 --> 00:00:34.229 by the way. Thanks. I'm really excited for this 00:00:34.229 --> 00:00:36.850 one. Me too. Because we are looking at the Wikipedia 00:00:36.850 --> 00:00:40.289 article for a 1965 spaghetti western called $100 00:00:40.289 --> 00:00:43.890 .00 per Ringo. Or, you know, Centimila dollari 00:00:43.890 --> 00:00:46.609 per Ringo. Yep, the Italian title. Right. And 00:00:46.609 --> 00:00:48.770 our mission today is to figure out how a movie 00:00:48.770 --> 00:00:51.210 can be this, like, world -beating phenomenon 00:00:51.210 --> 00:00:53.689 in one hemisphere and just a total ghost in another. 00:00:54.070 --> 00:00:56.219 So... Okay, let's unpack this. Well, to really 00:00:56.219 --> 00:00:58.579 get it, you have to look at the mid -1960s. That 00:00:58.579 --> 00:01:01.619 was the absolute gold rush of the spaghetti western. 00:01:02.020 --> 00:01:04.140 And this film, which was directed by Alberto 00:01:04.140 --> 00:01:07.140 DiMartino, it's just the perfect lens for understanding 00:01:07.140 --> 00:01:10.120 how global pop culture actually works. Because 00:01:10.120 --> 00:01:12.540 we usually think, you know, if a piece of entertainment 00:01:12.540 --> 00:01:15.200 is massive, everyone everywhere knows about it. 00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:18.239 Exactly. We assume its impact is universal. But 00:01:18.239 --> 00:01:20.459 this film proves that cultural dominance can 00:01:20.459 --> 00:01:23.969 be... Well, highly localized. Yeah, and the European 00:01:23.969 --> 00:01:26.049 film industry back then was basically a factory, 00:01:26.189 --> 00:01:30.370 right? Just rapidly mass producing its own bespoke 00:01:30.370 --> 00:01:32.590 kind of cynical version of American mythology. 00:01:32.849 --> 00:01:35.230 It really was. And the mythology they built in 00:01:35.230 --> 00:01:38.109 this specific movie is just wild. It is. I mean, 00:01:38.150 --> 00:01:40.370 to understand why European audiences were just 00:01:40.370 --> 00:01:42.650 throwing money at this film, we have to look 00:01:42.650 --> 00:01:45.469 at the plot because it takes that standard stranger 00:01:45.469 --> 00:01:48.439 rides into town trope and just boom. violently 00:01:48.439 --> 00:01:51.019 derails it. Instantly. Yeah. So our protagonist 00:01:51.019 --> 00:01:53.239 is Lee Barton, played by Richard Harrison. He 00:01:53.239 --> 00:01:55.659 arrives in this town called Rainbow Valley. But 00:01:55.659 --> 00:01:57.560 instead of, you know, the usual silent glares 00:01:57.560 --> 00:02:00.159 in a dusty saloon, the townspeople instantly 00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:02.439 mistake him for this guy named Ward Cluster. 00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:04.939 Right. A local guy who supposedly died in the 00:02:04.939 --> 00:02:07.579 Civil War. Yeah. It's like walking into a high 00:02:07.579 --> 00:02:10.120 school reunion where everyone is convinced you're 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:12.719 the prom king who vanished a decade ago. Yeah. 00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:14.740 And not only that, they've already planned your 00:02:14.740 --> 00:02:17.409 revenge mission for you. Exactly. The town just 00:02:17.409 --> 00:02:19.729 assumes Barton is there to kill the Cherry brothers, 00:02:20.069 --> 00:02:22.030 who apparently murdered this cluster guy's wife. 00:02:22.610 --> 00:02:24.629 But, I mean, I have to push back on the logic 00:02:24.629 --> 00:02:27.389 here a little bit. Oh, really? How so? Well, 00:02:27.509 --> 00:02:29.849 even the dead man's son, right? A boy named Shang, 00:02:30.050 --> 00:02:32.490 who was raised by an Indian chief named Gray 00:02:32.490 --> 00:02:36.030 Bear. Yep. This kid just looks at a total stranger 00:02:36.030 --> 00:02:39.909 and is like, oh, yes, my father. How do you just 00:02:39.909 --> 00:02:42.050 roll with that? How did the writers expect the 00:02:42.050 --> 00:02:44.680 audience to buy that instantly? Well, what's 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:46.819 fascinating here is that you have to look at 00:02:46.819 --> 00:02:49.120 the mechanics of European genre filmmaking at 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:52.319 the time. OK. They weren't aiming for, like, 00:02:52.580 --> 00:02:55.719 psychological realism or slow character studies. 00:02:56.020 --> 00:02:58.740 They wanted immediate operatic stakes. So it's 00:02:58.740 --> 00:03:01.020 a shortcut. Exactly. It's a massive narrative 00:03:01.020 --> 00:03:04.099 shortcut. By having the child and Grey Bear accept 00:03:04.099 --> 00:03:06.680 him, the writers instantly give Barton something 00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:09.740 to lose. Oh, wow. He doesn't just inherit a feud, 00:03:10.099 --> 00:03:13.030 he inherits a family. He steps into a pre -existing 00:03:13.030 --> 00:03:15.430 web of grudges. That makes sense. I mean, speaking 00:03:15.430 --> 00:03:17.969 of the writers, the source actually notes there 00:03:17.969 --> 00:03:20.090 were four different people credited with this 00:03:20.090 --> 00:03:22.969 screenplay. Right. Enchenna Sleflamini, Giovanni 00:03:22.969 --> 00:03:26.569 Simonelli, Alfonso Balcazar, and the director, 00:03:26.830 --> 00:03:29.979 Dave Martino. Four writers. You can almost see 00:03:29.979 --> 00:03:32.560 the seams where they just decided to cram in 00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:35.039 every single dramatic element possible. Yeah, 00:03:35.159 --> 00:03:38.219 a four -writer room for a 1965 Italian production 00:03:38.219 --> 00:03:40.620 usually meant, like, an assembly line approach. 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:42.759 One guy does dialogue, one does action. Pretty 00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:45.139 much. And another ensures the tropes hit their 00:03:45.139 --> 00:03:47.759 marks for the Spanish co -producers. So you get 00:03:47.759 --> 00:03:51.159 this incredibly densely packed narrative with 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:53.819 corrupt towns, hidden military gold, makeshift 00:03:53.819 --> 00:03:56.099 families. Which brings us to the villain, actually, 00:03:56.199 --> 00:03:59.219 because the conflict driving the title $100 ,000. 00:03:59.639 --> 00:04:02.379 It brings out a very specific type of bad guy. 00:04:02.539 --> 00:04:04.759 Tom Cherry. Or Tom Cherry, depending on the castles 00:04:04.759 --> 00:04:09.360 you read. Played by Gerard Tisci. And he is just, 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:12.120 he's a menace. He operates completely outside 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:14.199 that sort of gentleman villain archetype you 00:04:14.199 --> 00:04:17.540 see in older Hollywood stuff. Right. He is terrifyingly 00:04:17.540 --> 00:04:19.680 busy. Like, Tom is dealing with the Mexican army. 00:04:19.899 --> 00:04:22.759 He's aggressively pursuing this married woman 00:04:22.759 --> 00:04:25.240 named Deborah. Whose husband is Ive, the town 00:04:25.240 --> 00:04:28.660 drunk. Yeah. And on top of all that, Tom is desperately 00:04:28.660 --> 00:04:31.720 hunting for $100 ,000 in gold that a Mexican 00:04:31.720 --> 00:04:34.410 general hid. He's a hurricane of greed. And that 00:04:34.410 --> 00:04:36.430 greed is really the defining characteristic of 00:04:36.430 --> 00:04:38.670 the whole spaghetti western landscape. It's about 00:04:38.670 --> 00:04:41.949 opportunism. It's ruthless. And the movie really 00:04:41.949 --> 00:04:45.209 leans into that bleakness. I mean, Tom captures 00:04:45.209 --> 00:04:47.870 Barton and brutally whips him. Then he murders 00:04:47.870 --> 00:04:51.430 both Deborah and her husband, Ive. Just takes 00:04:51.430 --> 00:04:53.850 him off the board. It's a visceral level of violence. 00:04:54.009 --> 00:04:57.110 It is. So then we get to the climax. Barton teams 00:04:57.110 --> 00:04:59.430 up with this wandering sheriff from Tucson, they 00:04:59.430 --> 00:05:02.449 hunt Tom down, and Barton kills him in this massive 00:05:02.449 --> 00:05:05.009 shootout. The big payoff. Right. But the aftermath 00:05:05.009 --> 00:05:07.189 is what trips me up. So Barton actually finds 00:05:07.189 --> 00:05:09.709 the $100 ,000 from the Mexican general. He does. 00:05:09.850 --> 00:05:11.569 And he decides to stick around in Rainbow Valley, 00:05:11.790 --> 00:05:13.990 keep the stolen money, and build a future with 00:05:13.990 --> 00:05:16.449 his fake son, Sean. Yeah, he does. Wait, think 00:05:16.449 --> 00:05:18.569 about what that means. He takes a dead man's 00:05:18.569 --> 00:05:22.009 identity, claims a kid that isn't his, pockets 00:05:22.009 --> 00:05:24.870 foreign military money, and he just rides off 00:05:24.870 --> 00:05:27.470 into the sunset. That is a wild definition of 00:05:27.470 --> 00:05:29.029 a happy ending. Well, sure, if you're applying 00:05:29.029 --> 00:05:32.550 the moral framework of, like, a 1950s John Wayne 00:05:32.550 --> 00:05:35.040 movie. Fair point. But if we connect this to 00:05:35.040 --> 00:05:37.540 the bigger picture, Barton's choice makes perfect 00:05:37.540 --> 00:05:40.019 thematic sense for a spaghetti western. Because 00:05:40.019 --> 00:05:43.120 it's about survival. Exactly. The hero here isn't 00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:45.420 returning stolen goods to their rightful owners. 00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:48.480 He's surviving an unforgiving frontier. If you 00:05:48.480 --> 00:05:50.579 find a fortune in a family, well, you take them. 00:05:50.699 --> 00:05:53.339 So it's just pure opportunism. Yeah. And that 00:05:53.339 --> 00:05:56.259 cynical pragmatism resonated massively with European 00:05:56.259 --> 00:05:58.540 audiences who were kind of tired of the purely 00:05:58.540 --> 00:06:00.839 righteous heroes. OK. And when you say it resonated 00:06:00.839 --> 00:06:03.180 massively, we need to talk about the real world 00:06:03.180 --> 00:06:06.660 because Barton finding 100 grand is nothing compared 00:06:06.660 --> 00:06:09.259 to the literal mountain of cash this movie made. 00:06:09.339 --> 00:06:11.600 The box office numbers are just staggering. Yeah, 00:06:11.699 --> 00:06:14.180 so it was released in Italy in November of 1965 00:06:14.180 --> 00:06:18.339 and then Spain in July of 1966 and it grossed 00:06:18.339 --> 00:06:22.199 over 1 billion 236 million 276 thousand lira. 00:06:22.639 --> 00:06:27.259 Over 1 .2 billion lira. Yes. The source points 00:06:27.259 --> 00:06:30.660 out it was one of only six spaghetti Westerns 00:06:30.660 --> 00:06:33.779 to cross that billion Luremark in 1965. Which 00:06:33.779 --> 00:06:37.000 is incredible. It became the 32nd highest grossing 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:40.519 film of all time in that specific regional context. 00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:43.019 And it was a massive international hit for Richard 00:06:43.019 --> 00:06:45.240 Harrison. They were just printing money. They 00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:47.339 absolutely were. But here's where it gets really 00:06:47.339 --> 00:06:50.220 interesting. Film scholar Thomas Weiser noted 00:06:50.220 --> 00:06:52.579 that despite making billions of lira and being 00:06:52.579 --> 00:06:55.740 a colossal hit abroad, the film was relatively 00:06:55.740 --> 00:06:57.980 unknown in the United States. Almost entirely 00:06:57.980 --> 00:07:01.740 off the radar. How does a 1 .2 billion lira juggernaut 00:07:01.740 --> 00:07:04.120 just fail to exist in America? It really comes 00:07:04.120 --> 00:07:06.339 down to the arrogance of regional markets at 00:07:06.339 --> 00:07:08.060 the time. You know, the American film industry 00:07:08.060 --> 00:07:11.079 in 1965 firmly believed it owned the Western 00:07:11.079 --> 00:07:13.199 genre. Ah, right. So they looked down on it. 00:07:13.319 --> 00:07:16.699 Exactly. U .S. distributors viewed these Italian 00:07:16.699 --> 00:07:19.610 and Spanish co - productions as cheap foreign 00:07:19.610 --> 00:07:22.149 knockoffs. They just didn't have the distribution 00:07:22.149 --> 00:07:24.790 networks to force their way into mainstream American 00:07:24.790 --> 00:07:26.610 theaters. They were effectively locked out by 00:07:26.610 --> 00:07:29.750 a monopoly. Precisely. But the European audience 00:07:29.750 --> 00:07:32.230 was starving for something America wasn't providing. 00:07:32.670 --> 00:07:36.209 They wanted the morally ambiguous anti -hero, 00:07:36.389 --> 00:07:38.689 the heightened violence. The operatic music. 00:07:38.949 --> 00:07:41.389 All of it. And this challenges that assumption 00:07:41.389 --> 00:07:44.139 we talked about earlier. We think cultural impact 00:07:44.139 --> 00:07:46.720 is universal, but this shows a movie can be a 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:49.720 defining piece of pop culture in Europe and totally 00:07:49.720 --> 00:07:52.120 miss the American radar. It forces you to wonder, 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:55.660 you know, like for everyone listening, how many 00:07:55.660 --> 00:07:58.639 massive global phenomenons are we missing right 00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:00.819 now? Just because of our geographic bubble. Oh, 00:08:00.839 --> 00:08:03.519 for sure. Tons of them. Right. But creating a 00:08:03.519 --> 00:08:05.939 regional hit like that, it requires a specific 00:08:05.939 --> 00:08:08.620 kind of architect. And that brings us to the 00:08:08.620 --> 00:08:11.709 director, Alberto DiMartino. He is such a fascinating 00:08:11.709 --> 00:08:14.329 figure in this. He is. Looking at his other films 00:08:14.329 --> 00:08:16.769 listed in the source, his ability to genre hop 00:08:16.769 --> 00:08:18.910 is insane. Yeah, he wasn't really a precious 00:08:18.910 --> 00:08:22.209 auteur. No. I mean, in 1961, he does The Invincible 00:08:22.209 --> 00:08:25.410 Gladiator. Then in 63, he puts out a horror film, 00:08:25.629 --> 00:08:27.949 The Blancheville Monster. Right. Then by 66, 00:08:28.110 --> 00:08:30.430 he's doing spy stuff with special mission Lady 00:08:30.430 --> 00:08:33.409 Chaplin, and later Holocaust 2000. He's like 00:08:33.409 --> 00:08:35.889 a cinematic chameleon. He really is. Whatever 00:08:35.889 --> 00:08:39.029 the audience was hungry for that year, gladiators, 00:08:39.289 --> 00:08:43.149 spies, cowboys. He was just servin' it up like 00:08:43.149 --> 00:08:45.090 a tech startup, pivoting to whatever the user 00:08:45.090 --> 00:08:48.070 data says. And that kind of commercial adaptability 00:08:48.070 --> 00:08:50.990 was vital for the Italian film industry. But, 00:08:51.029 --> 00:08:53.309 you know, it often earned the disdain of critics 00:08:53.309 --> 00:08:55.850 back then. Oh, because it was just seen as commerce, 00:08:56.009 --> 00:08:59.409 not art. Exactly. Disposable commercial popcorn. 00:08:59.909 --> 00:09:01.649 But history has a funny way of changing that, 00:09:01.730 --> 00:09:05.409 doesn't it? Because decades later... this exact 00:09:05.409 --> 00:09:08.429 film, this product of an agile commercial factory. 00:09:08.970 --> 00:09:11.990 earned some serious historical validation. Yes. 00:09:12.330 --> 00:09:14.889 It was selected to be shown at the 64th Venice 00:09:14.889 --> 00:09:17.409 International Film Festival. Venice Film Festival. 00:09:17.629 --> 00:09:20.009 Yeah. As part of a retrospective specifically 00:09:20.009 --> 00:09:22.769 honoring the spaghetti western. So a movie designed 00:09:22.769 --> 00:09:25.110 entirely to extract Lira from local theaters 00:09:25.110 --> 00:09:27.850 in 1965 ends up preserved on one of the most 00:09:27.850 --> 00:09:30.190 elite red carpets in global cinema. And this 00:09:30.190 --> 00:09:32.370 raises an important question. How does commercial 00:09:32.370 --> 00:09:35.389 popcorn become a treasured piece of secret history? 00:09:35.629 --> 00:09:38.100 Time, I guess. Time strips away the commercial 00:09:38.100 --> 00:09:41.039 context. When Venice mounts a retrospective like 00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:43.600 that, they're acknowledging that you can't understand 00:09:43.600 --> 00:09:46.799 the anxieties or the shifting morality of 1960s 00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:49.320 Europe without looking at what the masses actually 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:52.899 paid to see. Wow. So popular culture just eventually 00:09:52.899 --> 00:09:55.259 ages into anthropology. Beautifully said, yes. 00:09:55.419 --> 00:09:57.720 It's almost like the movie pulled off its own 00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:00.600 mistaken identity plot. It disguised itself as 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:03.639 a cheap action flick in 65, and then 50 years 00:10:03.639 --> 00:10:07.379 later, it takes off the mask and reveals it's 00:10:07.379 --> 00:10:09.539 actually vital cinematic heritage. I love that 00:10:09.539 --> 00:10:11.559 comparison. And that is really why this deep 00:10:11.559 --> 00:10:13.159 drive is so valuable for you listening. It's 00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:16.240 not just about a 1965 movie. It's a lesson in 00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:19.019 how success is totally subjective based on where 00:10:19.019 --> 00:10:20.940 you stand on the map. Very true. You could be 00:10:20.940 --> 00:10:23.320 the biggest deal in Rainbow Valley or Italy and 00:10:23.320 --> 00:10:26.240 a total ghost in the U .S. It challenges us to 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:28.480 question our own blind spots. So before we wrap 00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:30.759 up, do you have a final thought on this whole 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:33.919 billion -lira anomaly? I do, actually. Consider 00:10:33.919 --> 00:10:36.860 the core premise of the film's plot. Lee Barton 00:10:36.860 --> 00:10:39.220 steps into a town, assumes the identity of a 00:10:39.220 --> 00:10:42.279 dead man, claims a son that isn't his, and takes 00:10:42.279 --> 00:10:44.639 money that originally belonged to a Mexican general. 00:10:44.799 --> 00:10:48.340 Right. Well, in a way, isn't that exactly what 00:10:48.340 --> 00:10:51.019 the Italian spaghetti western did? Wait. It stepped 00:10:51.019 --> 00:10:53.600 into a fading American genre, claimed its troops 00:10:53.600 --> 00:10:56.379 as its own, and walked away with over a billion 00:10:56.379 --> 00:11:00.019 lira. Oh, wow. They pulled off the exact same 00:11:00.019 --> 00:11:02.740 heist in real life. That is such an incredible 00:11:02.740 --> 00:11:05.240 insight. Thank you for diving into the wild localized 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:08.279 frontier of $100 ,000 per Ringo with us. Keep 00:11:08.279 --> 00:11:10.159 questioning your pop culture boundaries, and 00:11:10.159 --> 00:11:11.480 we'll catch you on the next Deep Dive.