Take 50 Beautiful Women, A Very Drunk Ringo Starr, A Blind Gunfighter: BLIND MAN (1971)
Spaghetti westerns were ending, The Beatles had ended the year before, Ringo was escaping with booze. Yet it's still a damn good movie! Plus Ringo's TV Special!
By 1971 the spaghetti western was coming to an end, the Beatles had ended in 1970 and John Lennon worried if Ringo would be able to continue in music. Ringo buried himself in drink and put out records which actually scored higher on the charts than John and Yoko's did. He also turned to movies and BLIND MAN, in which we can actually see him very drunk, but- BLIND MAN is a really good movie. Ringo pulls off the role, though he may not have known it as he had begun what would become a 20 year alcoholism binge. IMBD says of the film:
The locations are great, the supporting cast includes Ringo Starr, as the younger of the two villainous brothers. Not very well known, but full of dark humor and action, Blindman, a Spaghetti Western with a very good soundtrack, is one of the genre's little treasures. Brutal, witty, bizarre, unique!
Blindman (also known in Italian as Il Pistolero Cieco, lit. "The Blind Gunfighter") is a 1971 Spaghetti Western film directed by Ferdinando Baldi and co-written and co-produced by Tony Anthony. The film's protagonist, played by Anthony, is an homage to Kan Shimozawa's Zatoichi character: a blind transient who does odd jobs and is actually a high-skilled warrior.
The film has achieved cult status over the years, mainly due to the involvement of Ringo Starr, a former member of the Beatles, in one of the roles.
A blind but deadly gunman is hired to escort fifty mail order brides to their miner husbands. When he is double crossed by his friends and a Mexican bandit, he heads for Mexico to settle scores and save the women. -Wiki
Click this link for BLIND MAN!
Ringo even did a song for the film that was rejected and ended up as the B side of his hit BACK OFF BOOGALOO - but because few had seen the film no one knew what the song was about (and before the internet there was nowhere to look). You can hear the song here:
Here are the lyrics:
Blindman, with your piece of paper, what you gonna do?
Blindman, with your paper, can you see it through?
Your name on that paper means so much to you,
You made a promise, you would get them through.
The girls to the miners, you would fix them too.
They've been taken,
You've lost them all and the money too.
They've been taken,
You've lost them all and the money too.
Come on, blue, what you gonna do now?
Come on, blue, what you gonna do now?
Mexico, you've got to go, you know it just ain't fair-
To get your women back, now hurry because they're all there.
You're all alone but you'll make it alright,
You'll find your women there
But to get them, you'll have to fight.
Come on, blue, what you gonna do now?
Come on, blue, what you gonna do now?
Come on, blue, what you gonna do now?
Come on, blue, what you gonna do now?
Come on, blue, what you gonna do now?
These words were just confusing to anyone who hadn't seen the film.
Riccardo Pallottini did the cinematography, and it is really good. Stelvio Cipriani does the music, he had done music before for Mario Bravo (TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE and BARON BLOOD), but his work in BLIND MAN is outstanding. Then you have 50 beautiful actresses while the free love era was going on out in the desert with an almost all male crew. And Ringo was by all accounts, drinking until he passed out.
What memories he could have had!
Watch BLIND MAN by clicking here
"Ringo", a Ringo Starr US-TV special
A 44-minute film telling the story of Ringo and his poor look-a-like Ognir Rrats, narrated by George Harrison. Songs include: 1. "I Am The Greatest", 2. "Act Naturally", 3. "Yellow Submarine", 4. "You''re Sixteen" (with Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame), 5. "With a Little Help from my Friends", 6. "Heart On My Sleeve" and 7. "Hard Times". Ognir Rrats is of course Ringo Starr spelled backwards.
Ringo is a 1978 American made-for-television comedy film starring Ringo Starr as both a fictionalised version of himself and his fictional half-brother “Ognir Rrats”. Ringo, stressed out by fame, trades places with a schmuck who looks exactly like him. Then the problems start. It was broadcast on the US NBC network on 26 April 1978.
Ringo Starr as Ringo Starr/Ognir Rrats
Art Carney as Ognir's Father
Angie Dickinson as Sergeant Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson
Mike Douglas as Himself
Carrie Fisher as Marquine
Vincent Price as Dr. Nancy
John Ritter as Marty Flesh
George Harrison as Himself
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