Nebraska Jim (Ringo de Nebraska) 1966 Mario Bava Spaghetti Western

In Praise of Broken Chairs

Steve Nyland aka Squonkamatic, October 2018

Seriously. For such an artful little film “Nebraska Jim” as I first got to know the movie has an *awful* lot of broken furniture in it. Plus broken doors, broken stair railings, tables, jars, mantelpiece touch-me-nots, bedstands, benches. Anything which a stunt performer can be thrown, flipped, and decked onto. Or use as a blunt force trauma weapon by smashing it over the back or skull of their opponent. Guys go careening across the marvelously claustrophobic sets to smash into clocks, cupboards, bookshelves, furniture. Any wooden chairs decorating a given set are toast. Not sure what the body count was — three to six, comparatively little killing in this one — but at least a dozen chairs, six to ten tables, and whatever urns were placed onscreen end up destroyed in short order. Next scene, the tables are back, ready to be smashed up all over again.

The smashing of these fake chairs over each other’s skulls is also fascinating in that they split, crack, break, or shatter so comparatively easily. No clue what the production team were constructing them out of but it sure wasn’t hardwood in the way we know it. “Softwood”, built specifically to be demolished. Yet not cardboard as they actually do break apart into flinders & often over the backs of the lead performers. Who seemed to have been cast for their ability to smash set elements to pieces as much as glower menacingly at each other while dressed up like hip Italian cowboys, their Uberti reproduction pistols slung low as near phallic symbols of machismo. And as they are all armed by firearms using metallic cartridges we can presume the setting is post-1872, but other than a lack of electrical goods the look is modern, trim, and replete with welcome cleavage. In short a "New Wave" Western made by a primarily Italian crew who had seen their Goddard & took notes.


French language release poster. The original Italian 1960's Spaghetti Western promotional art is definitely part of the appeal and contributes to the unreal comic book like aura of them. By contrast, dig the chesty but otherwise unimpressive rendering for German and English language spoken at the very top of the post ... Not quite the same, is it.

For that matter the film’s low budget design work adds a certain rugged validity to the movie. Director Mario Bava has a little Holodeck production here: A convincing artifice of reality made up primarily out of nothing. None of the sets are fancy or lavish as in the Sergio Leone favorites of the genre. And are surprisingly well lit for late 1800’s era interiors or moody Italian genre cinema; I used to do shooter game level creation and the term we would use to describe it is “Fulbright”, with no shadows or dynamic lighting during the bulk of the scenes. A surprising choice for Bava given his attention to even the slightest flicker of light being a primary attribute of his skills as a filmmaker. I think there is one scene where a character smokes quietly in the dark. The rest is “fullbright” or endearingly obvious day for night shooting.

The existing print of the film can be found on Amazon Prime’s video service courtesy of the incredible Wu Tang Collection of remastered Eurowestern films, many ultra-low budget and seldom seen obscure titles only die-hard fans would have heard of. I got to know the film as “Nebraska Jim” via a fan created digital composite using a foreign language VHS release which then had the audio of a severely cut English version pasted over the dialog scenes. The Wu Tang presentation utilizes a similar approach (though some of their audio is still in the original Italian language dub used, d’oh) and both are very strange viewing experiences as the pitch of the audio changes, sometimes even during conversations, as the film speed of the source clips used varies between the 24fps NTSC film rate common to North America/Japan and the 25fps PAL speed rate common to Europe & Britain.

I believe this the title of the print used by Wut Tanng, with the oddly sped up or slowed down English audio pasted ontop of the bulk of it's Italian language dub. Most Euro Westerns were filmed without sound with the actors speaking their native languages which would then be dubbed for distribution in different countries by voice actors in post-production. English, French, German and Italian language dubs were most common, with the English language prints often severely cut for distribution in North America's comparatively tame market.

Nerdy observation for sure, but it sort of twists your brain back and forth as the mournful music theme chosen for the film speeds up or slows down, all while confronted with Bava’s compact 1:66:1 ratio shots, jamming the scene with information and confined into claustrophobic spaces defined by walls, boulders, building exteriors, and hillsides strewn with bizarrely shaped rocks. The Star Trek comparison also a decent metaphor for not just the fake broken chairs, but how some of the location shots look “phony”, or like they were meant to be comprised of paper mache simulating the natural formations they actually are — How weird is that? This is a starkly surreal, or even “unreal” vision of the old west, at times almost playing out like a dream vision as the actors smash various items of furniture over each other’s heads like eggshells. Doesn't look like it hurt much.

Piero Lulli, one of the great villain actors of the Spaghetti Western era, with
some of his familiar looking thugs. They get killed off in every one.

The acting is competent enough for a foreign language dubbed Western, I guess. Ken Clark projects a durable & rugged persona which works well as a wandering gunslinger with his white pants never getting so much as a speck of dirt on them. Piero Lulli’s eyes glint as he grins menacingly during his villain scenes. Familiar Spaghetti Western supporting characters populate a credible cast. Redhead Yvonne Bastien’s plunging necklines and ample bosom are themselves a worthy distraction as she is purposefully costumed in only tops from which her chest can be barely confined by. Still not sure why Clark’s “Nebraska” leaves her behind at the end  to ride off in Wu Tang print titled either “Ringo de Nebraska” or “Savage Gringo”, can’t remember. “Savage to a Smashed Up Fake Chair”. Will have to watch it yet again, the plotting on these things are always so similar that you can’t keep track of them no matter what they are called. Which I think was the point.

"Nebraska Jim" at Amazon Prime Video