User Reviews

Luigi Bazzoni's "L'Uomo L'Orgoglio, La Vendetta" aka. "Man, Pride & Vengeance" is a quite original little film, as it narrates the story of the famous opera/novel "Carmen" in the style of a Spaghetti Western. Contrary to the common belief, however, this movie is actually not (originally) a Western. The film, which originally takes place in 19th century Spain, was made a Spaghetti Western in the German language version (and in the English version I suppose) by simply changing the plot. Spain becomes Mexico in these versions of the movie, and that's why this film that is often incorrectly referred to as a Western. The plot makes a lot more sense when the movie is regarded in is original context (I've never heard of Mexican Gypsies at least). Although this is actually no Western, however, it has all the elements of a typical Spaghetti Western, and can therefore be classified as a film of that genre, even though it actually takes place in Europe. Western or not, this is certainly a pretty original and entertaining (allthough in no way outstanding) film, with a brilliant cast. This movie unites two of the most outstanding Spaghetti Western actors, Franco Nero, since "Django" one of the greatest leading men of the Italian Western, and Klaus Kinski, one of my personal favorite actors of all-time, and furthermore features the great and stunningly beautiful Tina Aumont (who sadly passed away last year) in the female lead.

The plot, which is taken from the "Carmen" plot, begins when soldier Don José (Franco Nero) first meets the stunningly beautiful Gypsy woman Carmen (Tina Aumont), a femme fatale, who makes him range between his passion and his sense of duty...

As mentioned above, the performances are brilliant. Franco Nero once again delivers an excellent performance in the lead, Tina Aumont fits perfectly in her femme fatale role and Klaus Kinski is great as always in his typical role of the villainous psycho. The supporting cast furthermore includes Guido Lollobrigida, Franco Ressel and Alberto Dell'Acqua.

In German speaking countries this movie was, by the way, marketed as a "Django"-sequel, which is even more inappropriate with this movie than with other Franco Nero Westerns that were inappropriately given Django-titles (such as "Massacre Time" and "Texas Addio").

The movie is original and entertaining, but it also has its flaws, and gets quite boring in some parts. The best parts of the movie are those featuring Kinski (whose villain-role is unfortunately not too big). Anyhow, an enjoyable film that I recommend to my fellow Spaghetti Western enthusiasts as a quite different genre-entry that is, strictly speaking, not really a Western. 6/10

This is a peculiar adaptation upon the known classic novel written by Próspero Merimee . Here a gypsy , Tina Aumont , seduces a straight-lace brigade called José , Franco Nero . This one falls big time for the beautiful gypsy who is working at a cigarette factory . The soldier then runs off after he kills an officer , Franco Ressel , and quits the army . José abandons everything to follow her band formed by various nasty brigands as Klaus Kinski , Lee Burton , José Luis Martín and Alaberto Dell'Aqua . José becomes interested in robbing , but Carmen tired of the pretty boy wanders upon a prize bullfighter .

This is an exciting story about a crazy love , in which a soldier , Don Jose , falls in love with a beautiful factory worker , but she does not reciprocate his feelings , she is a gorgeous gypsy who becomes the object of obsession for a local brigade and things wind up badly of his jealousy . Here cast does a fine job , giving acceptable interpretations . Nero and Tina Aumont are great to look at and the film's main selling point . Passable support cast plenty of secondaries from Spaghetti/Paella Western , as Klaus Kinski , José Luis Martin , Franco Ressel , Guido Lollobrigida or Lee Burton who is Gina Lollobrigida's brother , and Alberto Dell'Acqua who played along with Franco Nero in the classic ¨Adios Texas¨ . It packs colorful cinematography shot on location in Guadix , Granada and desert of Tabernas , Almeria , where was filmed a lot of exteriors and marvelously shown . Thrilling and atmospheric musical score by Carlo Rustichelli . This Carmen film version was well directed by Luigi Bazzoni who gives a surprisingly effective realization . Luigi directed a few films , 3 giallos as ¨The Firth cord¨ , ¨Footprints on the moon¨ and ¨Donna Del Lago¨ , and 2 Spaghetti Westerns : ¨Blue Gang¨ and this one.

The story has been adapted several times , such as : First silent retelling (1915) by Cecil B De Mille with Geraldine Farrar , Wallace Reid , Pedro De Cordoba . Hollywood rendition 1948 ¨The loves of Carmen¨ by Charles Vidor with Rita Hayworth , Glenn Ford , Ron Randell , Victor Jory , Luther Adler . ¨Carmen De Ronda¨ by Tulio Demicheli with Sara Montiel , Mauricio Ronet , German Cobos . ¨Carmen Jones¨ by Otto Preminger with Harry Belafonte , Dorothy Dandridge . ¨Carmen Baby¨ (66) by Radley Metzger . Musical rendition ¨Carmen¨ (83) by Carlos Saura with Laura Del Sol , Antonio Gades . ¨Carmen of Bizet¨ by Francesco Rosi with Julia Migenes Johnson , Plácido Domingo , a film version of the famous Bizet opera and to use spoken dialogue between all the musical numbers rather than being sung all the way through . ¨Carmen: A Hip Hopera¨ by Robert Towsend with Beyoncé Knowles , Mekhi Phifer . And ¨Carmen¨ by Vicente Aránda with Paz Vega and Leonardo Esbaraglia

Scores of films have been inspired by Georges Bizet's opera Carmen, but here is one with a difference. The director Luigi Bazzoni (working with Italy's most illustrious script-writer, Suso Cecchi d'Amico) chose to ditch the opera, go back to Prosper Merimee's original novella - and shoot it in the style of a Spaghetti Western!

Bazzoni's camerawork is more frenetic than inventive, and his film never quite works. Still, it does boast a wondrous cast. Franco Nero, blue eyes blazing in his dark-bronzed face, is the naive young soldier Jose. Klaus Kinski, teeth gnashing and lips curling in his usual manner, is the sadistic bandit Garcia. And lovely Tina Aumont enjoys a rare leading role as Carmen - the amoral and seductive gypsy who drags both men to their doom.

Aumont may not be the world's greatest actress. (In fact, she can barely act at all!) But like her mother, Maria 'Cobra Woman' Montez, she seems to have the words FEMME FATALE emblazoned in bright scarlet letters across her forehead. Her enormous dark eyes are wells of untold depravity. Her pouting, voluptuous mouth would lure any man to his ruin. If you remember anything in this film, it will be her.

I was excited to watch this film, a spaghetti western starring Franco Nero, of Django fame. However, this film had little to show for it. It is not a western in the usual sense, but takes place in Spain. It follows the exploits of a solider Hose, who is enthralled with a gypsy woman Carmen, and is led down an increasingly dark path, as he loses rank and privilege, and ends up joining a group of outlaws in the Spanish countryside. They begin to suspect each other of treachery however, and competition over Carmen leads them to conflict. Carmen herself is not always honest, and plays the men off of each other in order to survive.

This movie is full of issues however. The story is weak and muddled. The romance that develops between Carmen and Hose is interesting, but transparent. There were many problems with the story and action that made the movie closer to unwatchable than enjoyable. The action is shot in the dark, and difficult or impossible to view properly. Hose's character is very shallow.

However, there are some interesting points. As I said, the romance that develops between the two leads is interesting. Nero plays his part well, as do most of the actors/actresses. There were some interesting scenes and shots. Carmen's character is also complex and interesting. All in all, this is a bit of a mess. I would say this is a pretty safe "no" if you are looking for a good film. It isn't a complete waste of time however.

This is an adaption of the classic novel Carmen which puts the main characters into a Spaghetti Western setting, but instead of yet another Spaghetti Western director Luigi Bazzoni created a brooding drama full of psychological tension and visually spectacular sequences. If you are looking for an action movie, look somewhere else, although the movie does contain a very well photographed chase sequence.

Franco Nero again proves to be a great actor and Tina Aumont does a splendid job, too. Klaus Kinski is typecast as the crazy villain again and he again plays this part very well. Look out for the guest appearance of the Austrian Burgschauspieler Karl Schönböck!

Carlo Rustichelli's score matches the movie perfectly since it's a lavish mix of operatic music and brooding low-key pieces. (Get the soundtrack CD released by CAM!)

Only a heavily cut version made it to the German cinemas and again it was tried to sell a movie as yet another adventure of Django, which is even more nonsensical if the literary source of this movie is considered.

Two thumbs up and many thanks to Black Hill/McOne who released the uncut version on DVD in Germany!

An auto 9 for noir. A bit slow though and Klaus Kinski was in it.

Intriguing hybrid adventure, as much a ripping yarn as a western.

Unredeemed human suffering, violence, lust and betrayal – this could be a spaghetti western inspired by Dostoevsky.

In a recent interview, Franco Nero contrasted the Hollywood western hero with the Italian spaghetti western hero:– the former is indeed a hero, while the latter is more a 'son-of-a-bitch'. Yet Nero plays no such 'son-of-a-bitch' role in this film. Trauma and tragedy are his lot. Nero's attitude to the marketing fixation with the 'Django' name was simply – 'It's their problem'. He maintains that he only ever made one 'Django' film, and it certainly was not this one, so don't be taken in by the German title of 'Mit Django kam der Tod' ('With Django Came Death').

It is hard to believe that such awesome landscapes exist within our very own EU (shot in Andalucia!). I particularly enjoyed the careful rationing of images of water, which contrasted so starkly with the bone-dry natural setting. The change of location from Spain to Mexico in the uncut German version gets away with murder. For example, one scene showing the longing for an escape from an outlaw's exile in the desert is expressed in some shot-reverse-shot images of a tortured gaze at flamingos taking off from a lake. The birds are fortunately native to both Spain and Mexico...

Gypsies too are native to both – though our Carmen (i.e. Django's 'Conchita' in the uncut German) would be a rather Spanish-looking gypsy for Mexico, were it not for the black mourning clothes she wears in remembrance of her mother. The Italian-to-German dubbing has been done to a high standard – no mean feat considering that the names of characters and locations have also been altered in the German. Soldiers of the Spanish Bourbon regime must have had uniforms that almost pass for those of the US Civil War – or can some military history hack out there expose the shameless German tampering ...?

Why are all the beautiful gypsies women so difficult? To make your life so miserable that you want to kill them? I had a similar experience with one, but I didn't kill her, in the end I found another woman. The film is well done, Franco Nero and Tina Aumont, in particular, they are very good, very believable and natural. What didn't convince me are two scenes: when they make love fully clothed and when Klaus Kinski shot the boy, although in the previous scene he had no bullets left in his revolver, because he had shot them all (far too many than a revolver can have - usually only 6) in the man he had been following on horseback. To appreciate the ease with which Klaus Kinski always knew how to make himself unbearable, to want to kill him too.

Although "Man, Price & Vengeance" has more on one occasion been labelled a spaghetti western on this side of the Atlantic - as well as in a few other countries - it really isn't. What it happens to be is a twist on the Prosper Mérimée novella of the same name, which was later turned into the well-known opera by Georges Bizet. The twist is that a number of familiar spaghetti western elements are thrown in, from the Spanish desert landscape (though this particular story IS set in Spain instead of the American southwest) to the cinematography. If it sounds offbeat, that's because it is, and this offbeat telling does make the movie interesting at times. However, there are some significant flaws to the entire enterprise. The movie feels really rushed at times, which may have been inevitable given the movie crunches the story down to about 90 or so minutes. And because of this rushed pace, some things are not given enough detail, like just why Franco Nero's character quickly gets infatuated with the character of Carmen. There is definitely some interest with this movie, but I think its prime audience will consist of spaghetti western fans wanting to see something significantly different, as well as for fans of the opera/novella wanting to see a radically different than usual take on the story.

The reviews here can be modified by the Blu-ray version of 26 May 2015 by Blue Underground in the USA with the title "Man, Pride and Vengeance" that matches the original "L'uomo, l'orgoglio, la vendetta." The movie is clearly and credited as based on Prosper Mérimée's "Carmen." The second half of the movie is realized in the style of Italian Westerns, but to attach it to a Django would be to raise the actor, Franco Nero, above the plot.

The box for the DVD does almost claim too much in saying that the film was "lensed" by Vittorio Storaro. He was the camera operator, and Camillo Bazzoni, brother of the director, was the cinematographer. There are lively travelling shots of running and horseback, lucid fight scenes, and desolate landscapes.

A problem it seems to me is dewy teen-aged Tina Aumont as Carmen. The character is a woman who could have a Klaus Kinski type as a husband. Who could have played her? Sophia Loren? But her agent wouldn't have let her. Aumont's mother, Maria Montez? Vanessa Redgrave.