Word: cleef
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...cast that looks even meaner than he does. As before, acting is forbidden; histrionics are kept to a contest of who can give his lip the tightest curl and who can give his eyes the narrowest squint. The competition results in a slit decision between Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef, another Hollywood-to-Italy refugee cast as a rival bounty hunter...
...inevitable showdown, the two men make a lot of threatening sounds but never get around to any blood sport. Two hotheads, they reason, are better than one, and together they ride out to gun down a gang of Mexican bank robbers and split the reward. As Van Cleef and Eastwood close in for the kill, bodies begin to pile up like cordwood, and enough lead is exchanged to re-equip the Egyptian army. Long before the end, the violence becomes a bit like a Grand Guignol show-raucous, incessant and absurd...
Through it all, Eastwood walks around with a woolen blanket covering a fleece-lined vest and shirt-in the midst of what is supposed to be an El Paso summer. He and Van Cleef scarcely look at their victims before knocking them oft, never waste a shot, and never utter a sentence when a grunt will do-which gives the picture, despite moments of serious relief, the feverish aura of madcap comedy. For those who like an elemental western with galvanic gestures, a twanging score full of jew's-harps and choral chanting, and a lofty disdain for sense...
When most men visit Van Cleef & Arpels, the jewelry salon on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, the result is likely to be an overdrawn bank account. When George Balanchine visits Van Cleef & Arpels, the result is a ballet. Jeweler Claude Arpels once suggested that Balanchine create a jewel-inspired dance, so the choreographer took a stroll past the store's gleaming showcases, and sure enough, his head filled with visions of bedecked ballerinas. Why not a trilogy, he thought, based on the motifs of emeralds, rubies and diamonds...
Fantomas is the name of France's glossy riposte to both James Bond and Batman. Modeled on a French fictional supercriminal, he is dedicated to evil rather than good deeds. Fantomas steals diamonds from Van Cleef & Arpels, hijacks a gambling casino, terrorizes Paris and kidnaps blondes, all the while disguised as several law-abiding characters by means of "the most perfect artificial skin." Beneath the masks lurks another mask, a bluish-grey rubbery face girdle that gives him the fiendish aspect of a dirty Mr. Clean...