Monday 6 March 2017

A Dollar to Die For by Brian Fox (1967)

Those two on either side of Blondie are definitely not in the review.

As you know, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is my all time favourite movie. It's a beautifully crafted masterpiece, and the main character, the lovable thief and outlaw Tuco Ramirez, is very close to my heart and has inspired me immensely in my artwork and self expression. What's more, Eli Wallach is, to say the least, a triumph in the role. So when I learned that there were spinoff novels and he was in one of them, I was nervous, excited, anxious and finally bought my copy, and first read it in October 2015.

The Dollars Trilogy movies were always going to be a hard act to follow, especially when the novels were written in a short amount of time to capitalize on the movies' success. They were basically licensed fanfiction.

This book isn't the worst thing I've read as far as Western pulp novels go, but it does have a lot of problems.

First of all, the book is not as humorous as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It's very dramatic and violent, with a lot of double crossing from different directions and a very strange Apache torture device.
Second, Blondie and Tuco have very few scenes together, for those that miss the violent bromance that they shared in the film.

The story introduces us first to the Man with No Name, bringing in an outlaw for the money and then freeing him, as he did with Tuco. I guess the scam just keeps being a good idea for him. He's out to capture a presumably "half-Apache" criminal named Pinky Roebuck, who has the distinction of being a charismatic Albino.
The MacGuffin of the story is the gold that the Count de Cabronet failed to send puppet Emperor Maximilian to save his life. I like the presentation of authority brutality in the story. There's a short scene where the greedy and corrupt governor kills the guard who had slipped Maximilian the note telling him he would be saved while torturing him for information. It's a nice demonstration how in such a huge political crisis, no side is innocent.

On that note, despite supporting a capitalist dictatorship, the Count de Cabronet is far too benevolent to be considered a threat. De Cabronet reminds me of the Baxters from 'A Fistful of Dollars'. Apart from attempting to free the pawn of a tyrant, who is portrayed in a sympathetic light here, he doesn't really do anything all that bad towards the other couple of guys. In fact, greed and dodgy political views aside, he's about Blondie's moral level. No wonder the bounty hunter trusts him.
The Mexican Army is out to recover the money, and Sgt. Tuco Ramirez is among them. That part surprised me. Those who have seen him in GBU will know that Tuco is not a political man, and finds war and rebellion just an obstacle in the way of money. He wouldn't sign up as a soldier, at least not enlisting using his real name ("One name is as good as another. Not wise to use your own name.") . He's too two-faced for that and he knows it. He knows better than to risk being caught and executed for treason. One of his charges did list him as "misrespresenting a Mexican general", but it's likely that he made that up to raise the bounty when he and Blondie were doing their scam together. And I doubt he would commit the same crime twice, or not twice in the same place.

I preferred Tuco when he was just a tinhorn bandit. He was the constant victim of pratfalls and outright horrible luck. He constantly got tied up, nearly hanged and then left behind in the desert only to start mouthing off like he had suffered a breakup. And his obsessive determined revenge against Blondie, like that of a rejected lover, was a distinguishing and relatable feature, and so petty it was hilarious.  The fact that he's so down and out was a constant source of humor, and I think that if Brian Fox had taken a different creative direction he'd have made the book as funny as the movie that inspired it.
Reading this, I feel like he's changed so much that I barely recognize him anymore.
He's still energetic and very entertaining to read about, but I think he could have suffered a little more consistently. We could have laughed at him a bit more. His humour is what makes him one of the greatest movie characters of all time.
Also, Fox is mean to him. He calls him ugly constantly. I know that's his designation, but the point is he's ugly on the inside. And Eli Wallach was one handsome fellow, up until the age of about 60.

After killing De Cabronet's men, Sgt. Ramirez and his fellow bandits murder members of their own company, and Tuco promotes himself to General. As highly as he thinks of himself, he wouldn't go shouting that out in a forest. He'd know that he'd get caught and somebody would be listening. Even joining the army in the first place is out of character for him, or at least lasting in the army without getting fired for speaking out of turn or something.
Another thing, he keeps calling himself Tuco the Terrible. Yeah, that caught on really well.
While that went on, Blondie captures Pinky Roebuck, who is a fairly interesting character, if not merely delightfully evil. He's like this charismatic Giuliano Gemma type, only, you know, a terrifying albino. They find De Cabronet with his throat cut, but alive, so Blondie saves his life and the Count informs them about the gold that Tuco and his buddies made off with.
Meanwhile "General Tuco", having hidden De Cabronet's gold in various places and replaced the money in his men's bags with rocks, is out partying, and passes out by the well. This little gaffe that the bandit makes is one of a few moments where Fox actually does get the character down.
Apaches attack the town, kill Tuco's men and take him hostage, mistaking him for someone more important than he really is.
Pinky arrives, interrogates him, and despite the fact that Tuco is frightened out of his wits, we are aware Fox has abstained from him most of his own humanity. However find out that Roebuck's going to double-cross Blondie as well to get the gold for himself.

And here's where it gets weird. The book has this bit where Apaches would stake their prisoner on an anthill and have ants eat them alive. I don't know if that's a real Apache form of torture or not. It sounds really made up. Maybe Fox was racist against Native Americans, I dunno. It seemed really pointless for the Count de Cabronet to arrive with his sword (which Tuco conveniently left behind trying to fend off Apaches), and kill a bunch of guys who explicitly aren't interested in gold.
I think at this point I'd have instead had Blondie and Tuco, tied together against a tree, attempt to get out, instead of having Apaches slash their shoulders with spears as they remained trussed up there. That would have been true to the spirit of their relationship. Then they'd have had a chance to turn on Pinky together. That I'd have liked to see.
But no, instead Blondie had to have that ant thing happen to him, almost, so that this Cabronet he trusts can save him.

Meanwhile Pinky is leading the captive Tuco through the desert and the poor bandit is starved half to death. That big beautiful body of his (which Fox doesn't speak of so favourably) has pretty much shrunk as he bravely refuses to tell Pinky where he hid the money. He's depressed and drained of energy, and at this point, we really feel bad for him.
It's sort of the same thing that Tuco himself had put Blondie through in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, only the physical effects on him are described to be much worse. 
It also recalls the horrible beating that he took in the Union camp on orders from Angel Eyes, and yet again here he gets his revenge.
We start to root for him as he turns the tables on the albino Apache, tying him to a tree and making off with the gold. If I were Tuco, I'd have killed Roebuck for what he did to me.

What I like about the book is that there's moments of peace. There's moments where our bandido can just kick back and relax and once more, you feel it with him. You feel his health returning and you can't help but smile with him.
Yes, I'm in love with him, can't you tell?

There are few funny moments in the novel, but one is where he's dreaming that a beautiful woman is touching his shoulder when really it's Captain Alvarez. You can just picture his expression, a goofy, sleepy smile morphing into a mask of dread.

The last act of the book was rather weak.
Tuco is found by Captain Alvarez and promoted to Lieutenant, then found by Blondie. The book mentions Pablo in passing, although not by name, as "one of [Tuco's] brothers". I know I sound like a purist for the movie but it worked better when Pablo was his only brother. It makes them feel closer somehow.

Blondie and Tuco kill the Mexican soldiers to get to the gold and it's all a confusing mess. De Cabronet joins the fight, but his leg gets wounded, and Pinky and Tuco get turned in for their crimes against humanity. I don't understand why Pinky had to survive, other than the fact that Blondie is all too generous. We know the guy is worse than the Apaches, and yet the Apaches die for their trouble.
Good news is, Blondie yanks open the jail cell window because he feels that "a world without Tuco would be far less interesting." I knew it! He does feel something for him!

This book was just okay. Not good, not bad. But it has serious problems with characterisation, the most glaring example being Tuco. Fox gets a fair grasp of his personality but chooses to portray him as more of a stereotypical bandido than the complex, morally ambiguous figure he is. Also, he doesn't call Blondie "Blondie". I wonder why Fox made that choice.

Speaking of Blondie, Fox makes better sense of his personality, but there is one issue. Why does he accept that spiked drink from the Count de Cabronet? He would be streetwise enough not to do a thing like that.

The plotting doesn't go as all over the place as something like Flaming Irons. It does have something close to a beginning, a middle and an end.

Like I've said, although it's licensed,  it's nothing more than just glorified fanfiction.

Not as good as it could have been, but if you're really curious, maybe check it out.

Also, it inspired an animation from me! A short, pencil one, anyway. This one's called Tuco in Tyopa, and it depicts the scene where he's collapsed by the well in a deep, drunken slumber, and wakes up to find the town being sacked by Apaches!


Here's the Vimeo link in case it doesn't play very well.

https://vimeo.com/167015752



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