WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.240 Imagine sitting down to tell your daughter the 00:00:03.240 --> 00:00:05.500 story of how you and her mother first met. Right. 00:00:05.900 --> 00:00:08.060 And the story goes something like, well, I had 00:00:08.060 --> 00:00:10.619 just spent 10 years rotting in a 19th century 00:00:10.619 --> 00:00:14.060 prison, and I was in the middle of hunting down 00:00:14.060 --> 00:00:16.920 my own brother for murdering our father. It's 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:20.179 just like the ultimate subversion of a me cute. 00:00:20.300 --> 00:00:23.359 It really is. I mean, you have this incredibly 00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:26.940 grim, violent. totally dust -choked narrative 00:00:26.940 --> 00:00:29.940 playing out on the screen. And yet paradoxically, 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:33.520 it becomes the crucible for new life, a genuine 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:36.380 family off the screen. Which is exactly why we 00:00:36.380 --> 00:00:38.679 are taking you on this deep dive today. Yeah. 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.679 We've pulled together this really fascinating 00:00:41.679 --> 00:00:44.399 stack of sources for this. We've got translated 00:00:44.399 --> 00:00:47.359 1960s Italian box office records, behind the 00:00:47.359 --> 00:00:50.079 scenes cast biographies, historical film archives, 00:00:50.159 --> 00:00:51.659 and some contemporary critiques. There's a lot 00:00:51.659 --> 00:00:54.000 of ground to cover. It is. But our mission is 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:56.380 to extract the the real story hidden beneath 00:00:56.380 --> 00:00:59.520 the surface of the 1960s spaghetti western boom. 00:00:59.719 --> 00:01:01.280 Right, because there's so much more going on 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:04.579 there. Exactly. So we are going to look at the 00:01:04.579 --> 00:01:08.120 psychological weight of this specific film, Vengeance 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:13.680 is Mine, but also the deeply mercantile, almost 00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:16.719 cynical machinery of the Italian film industry 00:01:16.719 --> 00:01:19.260 that willed it into existence. And to really 00:01:19.260 --> 00:01:22.129 understand what we are looking at, You kind of 00:01:22.129 --> 00:01:24.109 have to picture the environment first. Set the 00:01:24.109 --> 00:01:26.769 scene for us. So we are talking about the sun 00:01:26.769 --> 00:01:29.370 -baked, rugged landscapes of El Maria, Spain. 00:01:29.409 --> 00:01:32.129 Right. This was the iconic shooting location 00:01:32.129 --> 00:01:34.769 for the genre. It provided this perfectly desolate, 00:01:35.189 --> 00:01:38.010 unforgiving backdrop that looked, you know, just 00:01:38.010 --> 00:01:40.569 enough like the American Southwest to fool an 00:01:40.569 --> 00:01:42.370 international audience. To make them think they 00:01:42.370 --> 00:01:45.010 were looking at Texas or Arizona. Exactly. And 00:01:45.010 --> 00:01:47.629 beneath that stark imagery, you have this incredibly 00:01:47.629 --> 00:01:50.769 tense, pulsing musical score by Nora Orlandi. 00:01:50.859 --> 00:01:52.799 Oh, it's so good. It really drives the narrative 00:01:52.799 --> 00:01:55.640 forward with this raw, almost anxious energy. 00:01:56.099 --> 00:01:57.799 But you know, when you start digging into the 00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:00.480 historical archives we gathered, something immediately 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:03.099 jumps out. Before we even look at the heavy family 00:02:03.099 --> 00:02:05.799 trauma playing out in the script, the way this 00:02:05.799 --> 00:02:08.419 movie was packaged and sold is, well, it's a 00:02:08.419 --> 00:02:10.479 story in itself. Oh, absolutely. The marketing 00:02:10.479 --> 00:02:13.439 is wild. OK, let's unpack this, because trying 00:02:13.439 --> 00:02:15.639 to figure out the actual name of this movie is 00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:18.340 like trying to nail jelly to a wall. It really 00:02:18.340 --> 00:02:21.259 is. So the literal Italian translation of the 00:02:21.259 --> 00:02:25.120 title is $100 ,000 for killing you. Right. But 00:02:25.120 --> 00:02:27.000 depending on the country or the theater you went 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:30.340 to, you might see it advertised as $100 ,000 00:02:30.340 --> 00:02:34.419 for a killing. Or for $100 ,000 per killing. 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:37.900 Yeah. And then eventually it gets rebranded to 00:02:37.900 --> 00:02:40.759 Vengeance is Mine. Which is completely different. 00:02:40.860 --> 00:02:44.870 It feels a lot like... modern -day YouTube clickbait, 00:02:45.330 --> 00:02:47.729 like where a creator constantly changes the video 00:02:47.729 --> 00:02:49.830 title and the thumbnail just to game the algorithm. 00:02:50.069 --> 00:02:52.669 That is a very apt comparison. It really is. 00:02:52.669 --> 00:02:55.069 Right. But it goes so much deeper than just the 00:02:55.069 --> 00:02:56.789 title and the poster. I mean, look at the credits. 00:02:56.870 --> 00:03:00.129 Oh, the freak names. Yeah. The director, Giovanni 00:03:00.129 --> 00:03:02.949 Fago, is making his directorial debut here. But 00:03:02.949 --> 00:03:06.889 he isn't credited as Giovanni Fago. He is listed 00:03:06.889 --> 00:03:10.830 under the pseudonym Sidney Lean. Sidney Lean. 00:03:11.069 --> 00:03:13.250 It just sounds so made up. Right. And the lead 00:03:13.250 --> 00:03:16.229 actor, Gianni Garco, who basically carries the 00:03:16.229 --> 00:03:19.210 entire film, is credited as Gary Hudson. Gary 00:03:19.210 --> 00:03:22.030 Hudson. They completely erased their Italian 00:03:22.030 --> 00:03:24.469 identities. I have to admit, when I first read 00:03:24.469 --> 00:03:26.830 that in the sources, I initially took it as just 00:03:26.830 --> 00:03:29.750 like... a cheap marketing gimmick. Just a trick. 00:03:29.930 --> 00:03:31.789 Yeah, like slap an English name on the poster 00:03:31.789 --> 00:03:34.009 to trick a couple of unsuspecting theater -goers 00:03:34.009 --> 00:03:35.969 in London or New York into thinking they're watching 00:03:35.969 --> 00:03:38.770 a massive Hollywood blockbuster. Right, right. 00:03:38.830 --> 00:03:41.250 But I mean, was it really that simple? Were audiences 00:03:41.250 --> 00:03:43.289 just that gullible? Well, what's fascinating 00:03:43.289 --> 00:03:45.689 here is that this wasn't just a post -production 00:03:45.689 --> 00:03:48.729 marketing trick. It was actually an absolute 00:03:48.729 --> 00:03:50.909 financial prerequisite for getting the movie 00:03:50.909 --> 00:03:53.189 made in the first place. Wait, really? A prerequisite? 00:03:53.270 --> 00:03:55.849 Yeah. You have to look at the funding mechanisms 00:03:55.849 --> 00:03:58.830 of the 19... 60s European co -production boom. 00:03:59.469 --> 00:04:01.490 Italian studios didn't have the deep pockets 00:04:01.490 --> 00:04:04.189 of the American studios. OK. So to green light 00:04:04.189 --> 00:04:07.590 a film, producers relied heavily on pre -sales. 00:04:07.930 --> 00:04:09.990 Like selling it before it's even made. Exactly. 00:04:10.110 --> 00:04:13.330 They had to sell distribution rights to Germany, 00:04:13.509 --> 00:04:15.610 Spain, and the United States before the cameras 00:04:15.610 --> 00:04:18.110 even rolled. So they're pitching a product that 00:04:18.110 --> 00:04:21.050 doesn't literally exist yet. Precisely. And the 00:04:21.050 --> 00:04:24.470 global demand at that time was completely for 00:04:24.470 --> 00:04:27.089 the American West. Right. Everybody wanted cowboys. 00:04:27.329 --> 00:04:29.649 The audiences wanted cowboys, frontier justice, 00:04:30.050 --> 00:04:33.350 dusty saloons. And they inherently associated 00:04:33.350 --> 00:04:36.300 that authenticity with America. So an Italian 00:04:36.300 --> 00:04:38.500 name ruins the illusion. Exactly. If an Italian 00:04:38.500 --> 00:04:40.660 producer walks into a distribution meeting with 00:04:40.660 --> 00:04:44.060 a pitch for a Western starring Gianni Garco and 00:04:44.060 --> 00:04:46.899 directed by Giovanni Faggo, the international 00:04:46.899 --> 00:04:49.839 distributors just balk. They won't buy it. They 00:04:49.839 --> 00:04:51.759 see an Italian name and immediately think, you 00:04:51.759 --> 00:04:53.699 know, my audience won't buy this as a real Western. 00:04:53.759 --> 00:04:57.540 Wow. So adopting these rugged. English sounding 00:04:57.540 --> 00:05:00.519 pseudonyms, Gary Hudson, Sydney Lean. It was 00:05:00.519 --> 00:05:02.819 a survival tactic. That is crazy. It was literally 00:05:02.819 --> 00:05:05.500 the only way to secure the international funding 00:05:05.500 --> 00:05:07.920 required to actually shoot the movie. That makes 00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:10.660 so much more sense. The Americanization wasn't 00:05:10.660 --> 00:05:12.939 just like an afterthought in the marketing department. 00:05:13.240 --> 00:05:16.220 It was built into the economic DNA of the project. 00:05:16.500 --> 00:05:19.540 Absolutely. And the obsession with $100 ,000 00:05:19.540 --> 00:05:21.699 and all those alternate titles. I assume that's 00:05:21.699 --> 00:05:24.500 playing the exact same game. Oh, 100%. Think 00:05:24.500 --> 00:05:27.339 about the challenge of marketing. a film globally 00:05:27.339 --> 00:05:31.720 in 1967. Right. You are dealing with multiple 00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:35.259 languages and varying cultural contexts. Sticking 00:05:35.259 --> 00:05:38.160 a massive, specific dollar amount in the title, 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:41.519 it bypasses the need for complex translation. 00:05:41.620 --> 00:05:44.480 It is just universal. Exactly. It's an instantly 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:46.279 recognizable signal. You don't need to speak 00:05:46.279 --> 00:05:48.519 Italian or German to look at a poster, see $100 00:05:48.519 --> 00:05:50.860 ,000, and understand what the movie is about. 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:53.470 You know, the future is high stakes. action, 00:05:53.750 --> 00:05:57.829 greed, and inevitable violence. Right. It's a 00:05:57.829 --> 00:05:59.889 purely psychological shortcut to communicate 00:05:59.889 --> 00:06:02.300 value to the audience. brilliantly pragmatic, 00:06:02.399 --> 00:06:05.160 but also, you know, incredibly cynical. It really 00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:07.680 is. When you read through these box office records 00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:10.480 and see the sheer artifice of it, all the fake 00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:13.319 names, the financial desperation, the click bait 00:06:13.319 --> 00:06:16.360 titles, you naturally assume the art itself is 00:06:16.360 --> 00:06:18.459 going to be terrible. You really do. Like you 00:06:18.459 --> 00:06:21.160 expect a highly derivative paint by numbers spaghetti 00:06:21.160 --> 00:06:24.779 western that relies entirely on standard tropes 00:06:24.779 --> 00:06:27.420 just to make a quick buck and move on. You expect 00:06:27.420 --> 00:06:30.850 a totally hollow product. Right. And yet. That 00:06:30.850 --> 00:06:32.889 is the brilliant contradiction of Vengeance is 00:06:32.889 --> 00:06:35.370 Mine. Yeah. Because the actual narrative of the 00:06:35.370 --> 00:06:37.889 film completely subverts those low expectations. 00:06:37.970 --> 00:06:40.329 It really does. It throws out the standard good 00:06:40.329 --> 00:06:43.569 versus evil shootout over a bag of gold. And 00:06:43.569 --> 00:06:46.269 instead, it delivers this deeply intimate, psychologically 00:06:46.269 --> 00:06:49.110 grueling family tragedy. It gets so dark. Yeah. 00:06:49.389 --> 00:06:52.129 So we are introduced to our lead, John, played 00:06:52.129 --> 00:06:54.689 by Johnny Garco or Gary Hudson, depending on 00:06:54.689 --> 00:06:56.639 which poster you're looking at. Right. And the 00:06:56.639 --> 00:06:58.600 film doesn't ease you in at all. It opens with 00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:00.980 John working as a bounty hunter. He just rides 00:07:00.980 --> 00:07:03.480 up to the local sheriff's office and casually 00:07:03.480 --> 00:07:06.500 unloads four wanted criminals. And they're all 00:07:06.500 --> 00:07:08.680 dead. All of them dead. It's a very deliberate 00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:12.279 character introduction. The filmmakers are immediately 00:07:12.279 --> 00:07:14.480 establishing John's relationship with violence. 00:07:14.939 --> 00:07:17.120 He's used to it. He isn't conflicted about it 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:20.540 at all. He is completely desensitized hauling 00:07:20.540 --> 00:07:23.279 human corpses across the desert simply to collect 00:07:23.279 --> 00:07:26.100 a paycheck. But the archives point out a pivotal 00:07:26.100 --> 00:07:28.220 moment that changes the entire trajectory of 00:07:28.220 --> 00:07:31.000 the film. Yeah, the wanted poster. Exactly. John 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:32.920 is at the sheriff's office, and he glances at 00:07:32.920 --> 00:07:36.120 the wall of new, wanted posters. He sees a bounty 00:07:36.120 --> 00:07:39.800 for $6 ,000. And the face staring back at him 00:07:39.800 --> 00:07:42.360 from the parchment is his own half -brother, 00:07:42.680 --> 00:07:45.180 Clint. Played by Claudio Camusso. Right. And 00:07:45.180 --> 00:07:48.199 the backstory we get here is just devastating. 00:07:48.879 --> 00:07:50.620 Clint didn't just rob a stagecoach or something. 00:07:50.899 --> 00:07:53.040 Clint murdered their mutual father in a fit of 00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:56.529 jealousy. A visceral, horrific act of patricide. 00:07:56.870 --> 00:07:59.370 It instantly elevates the stakes from a standard 00:07:59.370 --> 00:08:02.750 Western dispute to like a Shakespearean family 00:08:02.750 --> 00:08:04.930 collapse. And the betrayal layers on even thicker. 00:08:05.649 --> 00:08:07.569 Because after killing their father, Clinton just 00:08:07.569 --> 00:08:10.550 ran away. He actually framed John for the murder. 00:08:10.750 --> 00:08:14.029 Which is just so cold. Right. Because of his 00:08:14.029 --> 00:08:17.740 own brother's lie. John spent 10 years in a brutal 00:08:17.740 --> 00:08:20.660 19th century prison for a crime he didn't even 00:08:20.660 --> 00:08:23.439 commit. Ten years. A full decade of his life. 00:08:24.199 --> 00:08:27.899 Stolen. So when John sees that $6 ,000 bounty 00:08:27.899 --> 00:08:31.399 on his brother's head, he sets off on this incredibly 00:08:31.399 --> 00:08:34.000 dark path of revenge. And if we connect this 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:36.879 to the bigger picture, you really start to see 00:08:36.879 --> 00:08:39.840 the psychological depth that the director, Giovanni 00:08:39.840 --> 00:08:41.940 Faggo, is playing with. Yeah, he really digs 00:08:41.940 --> 00:08:44.299 into it. We need to critically examine John's 00:08:44.299 --> 00:08:48.000 profession here. The bounty hunter is a staple 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:50.639 of the Western genre. Right. Usually it's portrayed 00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:54.240 as a stylistic choice. Exactly. The cool lone 00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:56.820 wolf who operates outside the law because he 00:08:56.820 --> 00:08:58.799 loves the thrill of the hunt. Like the man with 00:08:58.799 --> 00:09:01.820 no name. Right. But look at the reality of John's 00:09:01.820 --> 00:09:04.559 situation in this specific film. He didn't choose 00:09:04.559 --> 00:09:06.659 this life at all. I was actually thinking about 00:09:06.659 --> 00:09:08.179 this while reading the contemporary critiques 00:09:08.179 --> 00:09:11.059 of the film. John is basically an ex -con with 00:09:11.059 --> 00:09:13.200 a ruined resume. That's a great way to put it. 00:09:13.419 --> 00:09:17.360 He spent 10 years locked in a cage. In the context 00:09:17.360 --> 00:09:20.440 of that society, he has a felony conviction for 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:23.580 patricide hanging over his head. No one is going 00:09:23.580 --> 00:09:25.679 to hire him to work in a general store or run 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:28.120 a ranch. Society has completely rejected him. 00:09:28.259 --> 00:09:30.879 The bounty hunter profession isn't a cool stylistic 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:33.519 choice for him. It's the ultimate gig economy 00:09:33.519 --> 00:09:37.679 job for a societal outcast. Wow, yeah. He is 00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:41.460 hunting humans because it is literally the only 00:09:41.460 --> 00:09:44.379 avenue of survival left to him. That is a phenomenal 00:09:44.379 --> 00:09:46.960 read on the character. His identity is entirely 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:49.820 reactionary. And that brings us to the core motivation 00:09:49.820 --> 00:09:53.100 of the film. I want you to consider that $6 ,000 00:09:53.100 --> 00:09:56.600 bounty on Clint's head. For a man who just hauled 00:09:56.600 --> 00:09:59.259 in four dead bodies for cash, you might think 00:09:59.259 --> 00:10:01.500 the money is the driving factor for going after 00:10:01.500 --> 00:10:03.940 Clint. You would assume so. But it's not. The 00:10:03.940 --> 00:10:06.620 money is entirely incidental. It's completely 00:10:06.620 --> 00:10:09.200 personal. It goes beyond even personal revenge 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:11.870 for the stolen time. The psychological engine 00:10:11.870 --> 00:10:13.909 of this narrative is that Clint didn't just steal 00:10:13.909 --> 00:10:16.750 10 years of John's life. Right. Clint dictated 00:10:16.750 --> 00:10:20.269 John's entire existence. John is a hardened, 00:10:20.549 --> 00:10:23.330 desensitized killer only because Clint forced 00:10:23.330 --> 00:10:25.789 him into that corner. Because he ruined his life. 00:10:26.149 --> 00:10:29.289 Exactly. Clint manufactured the monster that 00:10:29.289 --> 00:10:31.970 is now hunting him down. It's a deep exploration 00:10:31.970 --> 00:10:34.850 of stolen identity. So John isn't just angry 00:10:34.850 --> 00:10:38.019 about the prison time. He is mourning the destruction 00:10:38.019 --> 00:10:40.139 of the person he was supposed to become exactly 00:10:40.139 --> 00:10:43.389 that that is such a heavy suffocating theme to 00:10:43.389 --> 00:10:47.230 explore in what was ostensibly marketed as a 00:10:47.230 --> 00:10:49.450 cheap action flick. Right it is. It's essentially 00:10:49.450 --> 00:10:51.889 a story about a man trying to kill the author 00:10:51.889 --> 00:10:54.169 of his own misery. Beautifully put. And this 00:10:54.169 --> 00:10:57.370 incredibly dark brother hunting brother dynamic 00:10:57.370 --> 00:10:59.870 propels us toward the climax of the film. Which 00:10:59.870 --> 00:11:02.429 is quite the climax. Yeah, so John tracks Clint 00:11:02.429 --> 00:11:04.850 down through the desolate landscapes of El Maria. 00:11:05.549 --> 00:11:07.769 When he finally catches up to him, Clint is in 00:11:07.769 --> 00:11:10.129 the middle of a chaotic violent dispute. with 00:11:10.129 --> 00:11:12.389 his own gang of outlaws. And what are they fighting 00:11:12.389 --> 00:11:15.169 over? A massive hidden booty of exactly $100 00:11:15.169 --> 00:11:18.690 ,000. There is the titular hook. The marketing 00:11:18.690 --> 00:11:21.789 department's favorite number finally materializes 00:11:21.789 --> 00:11:24.549 in the plot to ruin everyone's lives. It all 00:11:24.549 --> 00:11:28.090 comes full circle. The $100 ,000 is the poison 00:11:28.090 --> 00:11:30.830 at the center of the climax. It ties it all together 00:11:30.830 --> 00:11:34.090 perfectly. So you have this intense, bloody resolution 00:11:34.090 --> 00:11:37.559 playing out on screen. driven by Nora Orlandi's 00:11:37.559 --> 00:11:40.259 anxious score, with Garco channeling a decade 00:11:40.259 --> 00:11:44.299 of manufactured trauma and rage. Right. But while 00:11:44.299 --> 00:11:46.320 this absolute destruction of a family is being 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:48.740 filmed behind the scenes, something entirely 00:11:48.740 --> 00:11:50.820 different is happening in the dust of the Spanish 00:11:50.820 --> 00:11:53.440 desert. This is where the historical archives 00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:56.519 provide that incredible twist of reality. Yeah. 00:11:56.700 --> 00:11:59.039 So what does this all mean? When you look at 00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:02.340 the cast biographies, the irony is just staggering. 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:05.080 It's almost unbelievable. On this exact set, 00:12:05.340 --> 00:12:07.580 in between takes of glaring at the man playing 00:12:07.580 --> 00:12:10.039 his treacherous brother, our leading man Gianni 00:12:10.039 --> 00:12:13.460 Garco meets a young actress named Susana Martinkova. 00:12:13.639 --> 00:12:16.240 And she is Czechoslovakian, right? Yes. And this 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:18.860 is her very first time acting in an Italian production. 00:12:19.299 --> 00:12:21.240 She plays a character named Mary. Think about 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:23.580 the improbable logistics of that for a second. 00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:27.120 It's wild. You have... an Italian actor pretending 00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:30.179 to be an American, and a Czechoslovakian actress 00:12:30.179 --> 00:12:32.879 stepping into the Italian studio system. Right. 00:12:32.980 --> 00:12:35.940 Both brought together in Spain to film a movie 00:12:35.940 --> 00:12:39.159 funded by international pre -sales. It's a logistical 00:12:39.159 --> 00:12:42.600 miracle they were even in the same room. Truly. 00:12:42.779 --> 00:12:46.759 And here is the beautiful reality. While Garco's 00:12:46.759 --> 00:12:49.639 character is steeped in the darkest, most traumatic 00:12:49.639 --> 00:12:53.139 family destruction imaginable, Garco, the human 00:12:53.139 --> 00:12:56.379 being, is falling in love. It's such a contrast. 00:12:56.559 --> 00:12:58.779 The director yells cut on a scene about patricide 00:12:58.779 --> 00:13:01.440 and stolen lives, and Garco walks over to craft 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:04.179 services and flirts with his costar. Right. They're 00:13:04.179 --> 00:13:06.059 literally surrounded by the aesthetic of death 00:13:06.059 --> 00:13:08.519 and betrayal, and yet they're laying the foundation 00:13:08.519 --> 00:13:10.639 for their actual future. Because it wasn't just 00:13:10.639 --> 00:13:13.120 a fling. No. They didn't just have a brief set 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:15.940 romance. They fell in love, eventually got married, 00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:18.120 and had a daughter together. See, this raises 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:20.600 an important question about how we as audiences 00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:24.879 consume media. How so? in this massive invisible 00:13:24.879 --> 00:13:28.259 wall between the art being produced and the lived 00:13:28.259 --> 00:13:30.419 reality of the people producing it. That's very 00:13:30.419 --> 00:13:32.860 true. We look at vengeance as mine and we see 00:13:32.860 --> 00:13:35.519 a product. And frankly, as we discussed with 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:38.340 the box office records, it was designed as a 00:13:38.340 --> 00:13:40.519 highly cynical product. Yeah, a cash grab. It 00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:43.840 was manipulated, renamed, and repackaged purely 00:13:43.840 --> 00:13:46.220 to generate international revenue off the back 00:13:46.220 --> 00:13:48.580 of violent tropes. It was a commercial asset, 00:13:48.700 --> 00:13:51.320 first and foremost. Exactly. It was a commercial 00:13:51.320 --> 00:13:54.820 asset depicting relentless misery. And yet, the 00:13:54.820 --> 00:13:57.679 sheer mechanical act of making that cynical product 00:13:57.679 --> 00:14:00.340 became one of the most profound, life -affirming 00:14:00.340 --> 00:14:03.299 milestones for the people involved. Wow. The 00:14:03.299 --> 00:14:06.059 fake tragic family that was destroyed on screen 00:14:06.059 --> 00:14:09.399 acted as the direct catalyst for a real loving 00:14:09.399 --> 00:14:11.840 family to be built off screen. That is amazing. 00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:14.519 It forces you to re -evaluate the artifacts of 00:14:14.519 --> 00:14:17.940 pop culture. You know, a 92 -minute film is a 00:14:17.940 --> 00:14:20.220 closed narrative for the viewer, but for the 00:14:20.220 --> 00:14:22.559 creators, it's a chapter of their actual lives. 00:14:22.779 --> 00:14:25.220 It's months of travel. Months of travel, shared 00:14:25.220 --> 00:14:28.100 meals, inside jokes, and sometimes meeting the 00:14:28.100 --> 00:14:29.639 person you will spend the rest of your life with. 00:14:29.820 --> 00:14:31.679 You almost couldn't pitch that as a script in 00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:33.539 Hollywood today. because it feels too perfectly 00:14:33.539 --> 00:14:36.620 structured. It's too neat. Gianni Garco literally 00:14:36.620 --> 00:14:40.059 had to allow the studio to erase his Italian 00:14:40.059 --> 00:14:43.360 name, except the moniker Gary Hudson, and pretend 00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:46.360 to be a ruined man consumed by vengeance. Also, 00:14:46.480 --> 00:14:48.440 the universe could maneuver him into a Spanish 00:14:48.440 --> 00:14:51.750 desert to meet Susana Martin -Covas. It really 00:14:51.750 --> 00:14:55.149 makes you wonder how many other gritty, bleak 00:14:55.149 --> 00:14:57.830 pieces of media are secretly the backdrop to 00:14:57.830 --> 00:15:00.370 someone's greatest joy. Oh, for sure. It happens 00:15:00.370 --> 00:15:02.909 more than we realize. The environment of filmmaking, 00:15:03.090 --> 00:15:06.409 even for a bleak spaghetti western, is an intense, 00:15:06.769 --> 00:15:08.370 highly collaborative crucible. You're in the 00:15:08.370 --> 00:15:10.450 trenches together. Exactly. You were working 00:15:10.450 --> 00:15:12.909 long hours in difficult conditions, problem -solving 00:15:12.909 --> 00:15:16.250 on the fly. That kind of shared struggle naturally 00:15:16.250 --> 00:15:19.529 strips away superficiality and breeds very fast, 00:15:19.629 --> 00:15:22.620 very deep human connections, the tone of the 00:15:22.620 --> 00:15:24.580 script doesn't dictate the tone of the set. So 00:15:24.580 --> 00:15:26.539 to pull all of these threads together for you, 00:15:26.980 --> 00:15:29.799 when you look back at 1967's Vengeance is Mine, 00:15:30.360 --> 00:15:32.720 you are looking at a master class in contradiction. 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:35.620 On a commercial level, it was a spaghetti western 00:15:35.620 --> 00:15:38.279 that bent over backwards to hide its Italian 00:15:38.279 --> 00:15:42.399 roots. It adopted fake director names, fake actor 00:15:42.399 --> 00:15:45.820 aliases, and a revolving door of titles desperately 00:15:45.820 --> 00:15:49.580 pushing a $100 ,000 hook just to secure international 00:15:49.580 --> 00:15:53.019 funding. But beneath that veneer of mercantile 00:15:53.019 --> 00:15:56.019 desperation, it delivered a narrative that subverted 00:15:56.019 --> 00:15:58.919 the very genre it was exploiting. Yeah. It used 00:15:58.919 --> 00:16:01.740 the familiar dusty trappings of the West to explore 00:16:01.740 --> 00:16:04.240 the devastating psychological weight of a stolen 00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:06.820 identity, really examining what happens when 00:16:06.820 --> 00:16:09.440 a man is forced by his own family to become a 00:16:09.440 --> 00:16:11.500 monster. Yet the most enduring legacy of the 00:16:11.500 --> 00:16:13.990 film. wasn't the cynical marketing or the dark 00:16:13.990 --> 00:16:16.490 on -screen tragedy. No, not at all. It was the 00:16:16.490 --> 00:16:19.370 historical reality that this chaotic, profit 00:16:19.370 --> 00:16:22.009 -driven production in the Spanish desert accidentally 00:16:22.009 --> 00:16:24.309 provided the exact coordinates for two actors 00:16:24.309 --> 00:16:27.230 from completely different worlds to meet, fall 00:16:27.230 --> 00:16:29.379 in love, and create a family of their own. It 00:16:29.379 --> 00:16:31.840 is a brilliant reminder that art and reality 00:16:31.840 --> 00:16:34.159 are often running on parallel but completely 00:16:34.159 --> 00:16:36.620 inverted tracks. Which leaves us with a final 00:16:36.620 --> 00:16:38.360 thought we want you to mull over today as you 00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:40.399 look at the world around you. Yeah. We've just 00:16:40.399 --> 00:16:43.059 explored how a difficult, cynical, and chaotic 00:16:43.059 --> 00:16:46.399 environment, a dusty film set driven by profit 00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:49.659 and focused on a grim narrative, inadvertently 00:16:49.659 --> 00:16:52.279 created the perfect conditions for profound human 00:16:52.279 --> 00:16:54.320 connection. It really does make you wonder about 00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:57.960 our modern lives. Exactly. Today, we obsess over 00:16:57.960 --> 00:17:00.799 creating perfectly sanitized, highly optimized, 00:17:01.340 --> 00:17:03.779 frictionless workspaces and digital environments. 00:17:03.879 --> 00:17:06.819 Everything has to be smooth. Right. But if adversity 00:17:06.819 --> 00:17:09.019 and shared struggle are what actually strip away 00:17:09.019 --> 00:17:11.579 our defenses and forge real bonds, are these 00:17:11.579 --> 00:17:13.660 perfectly comfortable, sanitized environments 00:17:13.660 --> 00:17:16.140 actually robbing us of the chance to truly connect 00:17:16.140 --> 00:17:17.859 with one another? That's a great question. Until 00:17:17.859 --> 00:17:19.839 next time, keep looking beyond the frame.