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The year was 1966, and actor Clint Eastwood had already established himself as a world movie star with “A Fistful of Dollars”, directed by Sergio Leone. Leone’s film had not yet been published in the United States, but “fistful” was a success such as actors in America and Italy became aware of it. Eastwood had already established itself in the television series “Rawhide”, playing Yates Rowdy in 217 episodes of the show. “Fistful” of Leone took the image of the already known Western hero of Eastwood and updated it in a more elegant way, borrowing (quite strongly and without authorization) of “Yojimbo” by Akira Kurosawa.
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The rest of the world immediately ran to imitate the success of this film, and the Italian westerns already victims, nicknamed Westerns Spaghetti, continued to proliferate. At the time, a young actor name and to come Burt Reynolds followed an arc of career similar to Eastwood. He had small pieces in Hollywood films for the general public and played one of the main characters in a television series entitled “Riverboat”. He too would have loved the acclamation of an Italian western stylized to his credit, and even obtained advice for this purpose of Eastwood himself. The two were friends. Eastwood advised Reynolds to search for a Western director named Sergio, knowing that he did a good job.
However, there was a little mixture. Reynolds has indeed found an Italian director named Sergio, and he indeed learned that Sergio had an aligned western, but it turns out that it was bad Sergio. Reynolds spoke to Sergio Corbucci, the director of “Django”, as well as several peplum films and criminal films. Reynolds agreed to make Corbucci Western, assuming that it was he who made “a handful of dollars”. Reynolds involuntarily agreed to make “Navajo Joe”, a racist Westerner who subsequently, the actor has long considered one of his worst films. The story is detailed in Howard Hughes’ book “Once upon a time in the Italian West: the film buff on the spaghetti westerns.”
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Burt Reynolds plays a Navajo man in Navajo Joe
It seems that there was also chaos at the end of production of Corbucci. Reynolds was looking for Sergio Leone, while Corbucci thought he could secure the talents of the American star Marlon Brando. The producer of Corbucci, the late (an inimitable) Dino de Laurentiis, gave him a script entitled “A Dollar a Head” and promised to its director that Brando was already attached. Either Laurentiis lied or Brando abandoned, letting Corbucci find a new man of the lead. He said that Reynolds, hoping to play in a Westerner anyway, was an appropriate replacement because he looked a little like Brando.
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The resulting film was “Navajo Joe”, a violent photo of a man from Navajo (Reynolds) fighting a nasty criminal named Duncan (Aldo Sanbrell) and his army of lips to protect a small village and take revenge on the slaughter of his village. Navajo Joe wants a dollar a head for each bandit he kills. Yes, the actor of Navajo not quite Reynolds played a Navajo character. This type of casting of white and non -white actors was unfortunately current in the world of westerns.
Reynolds recorded Hughes’ book by saying that he hated his costumes in “Navajo Joe” and that he had been directed strangely. He was ordered to deepen his voice, which he felt that he did not do well, and strangely, he was asked to shave his arms. Reynolds also hated his wig, feeling that it made him look like Natalie Wood. Later, he pushes the film, saying it was “so horrible that he was only shown in prisons and planes because no one could leave. I killed ten thousand guys, wore a Japanese sling and a frightened wig.”
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Despite Reynolds’s opinion, some Western spaghetti enthusiasts are still talking about violence and grain in “Navajo Joe”. He also has an excellent Ennio Morricone score, the composer behind the Leone westerns.
And all because Reynolds mixed his Sergios.
