Django, Prepare a Coffin

Django, Prepare a Coffin
Italian film poster
Directed by	Ferdinando Baldi
Produced by	Manolo Bolognini
Screenplay by	Franco Rossetti Ferdinando Baldi
Story by	Franco Rossetti
Starring	Terence Hill Horst Frank George Eastman Pinuccio Ardia Lee Burton José Torrès
Music by	Gianfranco Reverberi Giampiero Reverberi
Cinematography	Enzo Barboni
Edited by	Eugenio Alabiso
Production company	B.R.C. Produzione S.r.l.
Distributed by	Titanus Distribuzione
Release dates	January 27, 1968 (1968-01-27)
Running time	92 Minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

Django, Prepare a Coffin (Italian: Preparati la bara!, “Prepare the Coffin!”), alternatively titled Viva Django, is a 1968 Italian Spaghetti Western film directed by Ferdinando Baldi.^[1] The film stars Terence Hill in the title role, which was previously played by Franco Nero in Sergio Corbucci's original 1966 Django. Django, Prepare a Coffin is unique among the plethora of films which capitalized on Corbucci's hit in that it is not only a semi-official, legitimate follow-up, but was also originally meant to star Franco Nero.

A piece from the film's score, "Last Man Standing", was sampled in the song "Crazy" by American soul duo Gnarls Barkley.^[2] The film's title song, "You'd Better Smile", is performed by Nicola Di Bari.^[2]

It was shown as part of a retrospective on Spaghetti Western at the 64th Venice International Film Festival.^[3]

Cast

Premise

Django, Prepare a Coffin is presented as a loose prequel to Corbucci's film, but without his (or original Django Franco Nero's) collaboration. The film deals with events alluded to in Corbbuci's film, such as the murder of Django's wife (however; the circumstances of her murder differ from those inferred in the original Django). Terence Hill stars as a younger incarnation of Django, dressed in Nero's distinctive outfit (minus some accessories which Nero's chronologically older incarnation brandishes). In the beginning of Django, Prepare a Coffin, Hill's younger Django works as an armed courier, delivering gold between depositories. Later, after the murder of his wife, he works as a hangman.

In the original film, Django infers that his wife was killed by the main antagonist, Major Jackson, but this was never shown on-screen. In Django, Prepare a Coffin, the main antagonist, would-be senator David Barry, orders the death of both Django and his wife in order to get the gold Django was delivering for himself. Gold was the subject of the original film as well. Django, Prepare a Coffin's final shootout takes place in a similar cemetery to that of the original film, although in a more extreme manner. Django opens fire employing his signature machine gun against Barry's henchmen (who outnumbered him by thirty to one), unlike in the original film, in which Django is forced to wield his pistol using ruined and broken hands.

Plot

Django is wounded and his wife is killed when the gold transport that he guards is attacked by the men of his ”friend” David Barry, who wants the gold to finance a political career.

Django pretends to be dead and starts working as a hangman, who spares the lives of the condemned victims of David Barry’s conspiracies. He organises them in a band to ”haunt” the perjurers that sent them to the gallow. This is part of a plan to disclose Barry and bring him to justice. The ”hanged” are supposed to intercept an attack on a gold transport and capture Barry’s men to get evidence, but Garcia - who earlier has saved Django’s life during a fight within the group - convinces the rest of the men that instead they should take the gold for themselves. Garcia then kills the others.

Django saves Garcia’s wife from hanging, and she then saves Django after Barry has captured him. Garcia regrets his treachery, which he explains by the fact that he is poor, and helps Django lure Barry to the graveyard, where Django digs up his own grave coffin and then kills Barry and his gang with the machinegun kept in the coffin. Garcia dies in the fight. Django leaves a sack of gold to Garcia’s wife ”for you and the children” before he leaves.

Reception

In his investigation of narrative structures in Spaghetti Western films, Fridlund suggests that though Django, Prepare a Coffin is basically a story of vindication and retribution, the relationship between Django and Garcia shows some affinity with the Gringo specialist/social bandit pair in "political" spaghetti westerns like The Mercenary.^[4]

Restoration

Django, Prepare a Coffin was restored at L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna. The film was transferred at 2K resolution with Arriscan from a 35mm interpositive print. Django, Prepare a Coffin was digitally restored in high definition and then digitally colour corrected with Film Master by Nucoda. The sound was digitalised using the Chace Optical Sound Precessor from the original soundtrack negative. The restored high definition edition of Django, Prepare a Coffin made its Blu-ray debut in June 2013 from the United Kingdom's Arrow Video.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Django, Prepare a Coffin.

• Django, Prepare a Coffin at the Internet Movie Database