The Taste of Violence (1961) User Reviews (3)

Viva Guzman???

[ulicknormanowen · 7/10 · 1 November 2022]

Unlike his most famous works as a director, which are thrillers (the best being certainly "toi le venin" ),this one takes place in South America , where revolutionary guerilleros take the president's daughter hostage ,after the attack of a train and a massacre.

The fight is already lost because some of the men are not convinced by their revolution; some (Mario Adorf) would like to get a hefty ransom ,a young one ,in love with the prisoner he compares to a madonna , would like to take her back to her father and thus betray his companions.

A slow-moving movie, with some good scenes , which stems from Hossein's flair for film noir: the walking through the main street of a town,between two rows of hanged men ; the discovery of a tortured man in the night ; the final on the beach ; the great Madeleine Robinson has only one scene but she makes it count :"what's the point of carrying on so meaningless a fight ? What are you gonna win? Is it worth at all?.

José Giovanni would resume the subject of the illusive revolution in "le rapace"(1968) and surpass Hossein.

A bit disappointing

[searchanddestroy-1 · 22 November 2012]

I have nearly seen every Robert Hossein's films, as a director I mean. And I have enjoyed all of them. They are different of the all others. But this one, a sort of western - made I presume in Spain - did not bring me what I first waited from it. OK, this feature is some kind of an offbeat movie, nothing to do with American films like this. The characters are quite all right, in the right move. But I don't know exactly why, I am not entirely satisfied as I expected. The story of a bunch of revolutionaries in Mexico kidnap the daughter of a military chief and get away with her, expecting a further ransom. And, as you may guess, nothing will proceed as they wish.

Nothing really new here.

But see for yourself.

A rare gem, although.

Scuzzy black and white western is too cheap to succeed

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 6 February 2017]

THE TASTE OF VIOLENCE is a cheap-looking black and white western that might have worked better had it been made a decade later when the genre was in full bloom. Here, it seems a bit like an anachronism, a film before its time; the version I watched was fuzzy looking which didn't help. The story seems cheaply-staged without much in the way of action or incident to propel it along.

The main characters are guerrillas fighting back against a cruel dictator. They manage to capture the dictator's daughter in an opening train ambush which isn't even shown given the film's lack of budget. What follows is a plodding journey narrative of sorts as the characters bicker among themselves and occasionally die. Mario Adorf, a star of Italian cinema in the 1970s, is one of the protagonists. The script attempts depth and explores moral courage at times, but it's all so routinely staged by Rober Hossein - who definitely bit off more than he could chew in directing/writing/starring in the film - that it's a chore to watch.