You've got to love a Spaghetti Western that opens like a horror film and begins with a guy losing a hand to a tomahawk. Better still, the guy losing his hand is Donald O'Brien of Zombie Holocaust and Ghosthouse, and the guy throwing the tomahawk is Maurizio Merli of Violent Naples and Fear in the City. I nearly fainted when I discovered that John Stiener of The Last Hunter and Tenebrae was in this too!
Mannaja is one of a handful of twilight era Spaghetti Westerns full of vicious violence and dark imagery filmed in the latter half of the seventies. This one is directed by Sergio Martino, the guy who brought us Torso and 2019:After the Fall of New York, and this might possibly be his best film.
Mannaja (the name of Merli's character), brings Obrien into some run down town permeated by the stink of the nearby Silver mine. After discovering he can't claim a reward for OBrien, Mannaja beats Steiner in a game of cards and lets OBrien go. Stiener's not the greatest loser in the world however, which leads to several showdowns with Mannaja (including him getting blown up at one point).
Some generous dancing ladies find a wounded Mannaja and nurse him back to health, and they all head back into town, where they meet McGovern, pious and religious owner of the silver mine, who doesn't know that right hand man Steiner is in cahoots with a local bandit. Many double crossing and switches of allegiance follows (as usual for an Italian Western).
There's many shootouts here, not all of them involving Merli's character. I've got to say I've never seen John Steiner act better than he does here, coming across as an overconfident slimeball. Rik Battaglia helps as the religious nutter and land owner McGovern, wheeling around in his wheelchair in a permanent huff. Merli holds his own as the enraged Mannaja, with the always dependable OBrien backing things up.
As this is the late seventies, the violence quota is high, what with hands being cut off, many innocent people being gunned down and one character being buried up to his neck in sand, with his eyes stitched open so the sun can burn out his corneas. Martino films just about every frame really inventively, with a lot of wide angled lens work, fog and rain adding to the atmosphere.
I'd say Keoma has the slight edge on this one as it comes across as more poetic and Shakespearean (no, really), but Mannaja is a heavyweight film that should be viewed as a classic in it's own right. Similar music from the same composers too (just try and sing along to the guy with the amazing baritone who sings "You're alone " – you'll have a sore throat in no time).
If you grabbed a few beers and watched this, Keoma, and Lucio Fulci's Four of the Apocalypse, you'd have a fine, fine, night in. Why these films didn't revive the genre I'll never know – instead, Martino turned his hand to cannibal films and made Mountain of the Cannibal God ("Because you never forget the taste of human flesh!").
Mannaja is one of a handful of twilight era Spaghetti Westerns full of vicious violence and dark imagery filmed in the latter half of the seventies. This one is directed by Sergio Martino, the guy who brought us Torso and 2019:After the Fall of New York, and this might possibly be his best film.
Mannaja (the name of Merli's character), brings Obrien into some run down town permeated by the stink of the nearby Silver mine. After discovering he can't claim a reward for OBrien, Mannaja beats Steiner in a game of cards and lets OBrien go. Stiener's not the greatest loser in the world however, which leads to several showdowns with Mannaja (including him getting blown up at one point).
Some generous dancing ladies find a wounded Mannaja and nurse him back to health, and they all head back into town, where they meet McGovern, pious and religious owner of the silver mine, who doesn't know that right hand man Steiner is in cahoots with a local bandit. Many double crossing and switches of allegiance follows (as usual for an Italian Western).
There's many shootouts here, not all of them involving Merli's character. I've got to say I've never seen John Steiner act better than he does here, coming across as an overconfident slimeball. Rik Battaglia helps as the religious nutter and land owner McGovern, wheeling around in his wheelchair in a permanent huff. Merli holds his own as the enraged Mannaja, with the always dependable OBrien backing things up.
As this is the late seventies, the violence quota is high, what with hands being cut off, many innocent people being gunned down and one character being buried up to his neck in sand, with his eyes stitched open so the sun can burn out his corneas. Martino films just about every frame really inventively, with a lot of wide angled lens work, fog and rain adding to the atmosphere.
I'd say Keoma has the slight edge on this one as it comes across as more poetic and Shakespearean (no, really), but Mannaja is a heavyweight film that should be viewed as a classic in it's own right. Similar music from the same composers too (just try and sing along to the guy with the amazing baritone who sings "You're alone " – you'll have a sore throat in no time).
If you grabbed a few beers and watched this, Keoma, and Lucio Fulci's Four of the Apocalypse, you'd have a fine, fine, night in. Why these films didn't revive the genre I'll never know – instead, Martino turned his hand to cannibal films and made Mountain of the Cannibal God ("Because you never forget the taste of human flesh!").