BLINDMAN (1971) – HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RINGO STARR

BLINDMAN (1971) – Richard Starkey aka Ringo Starr turns 86 years old today. In his younger years he was affiliated with some musical group, but REAL Ringo fans know him as a Master Thespian who appeared in plenty of memorable movies.

We loved him as Ognir Rrats in his Prince and the Pauper adaptation titled Ringo, as one of Mae West’s ex-husbands in Sextette, as the adopted son of Peter Sellers in The Magic Christian and so on and so forth. For today I’m taking a look at his villainous turn in the Spaghetti Western Blindman. 

Okay, let’s get serious now.

This intentionally bizarre film stars and was co-written by Tony Anthony, known for many Spaghetti Westerns including the Stranger series. Years before Tony’s 1975 flick Get Mean, his Italo-Western that threw in Vikings, Moors, Gondoliers and other anachronisms, came this oddity.

Blindman is a riff on Japan’s franchise about the blind swordsman Zatoichi, as was the Rutger Hauer movie Blind Fury. While it was already a stretch to seriously depict a blind man outfighting multiple other swordsmen on a regular basis, the Zatoichi stories succeeded mostly on style and sincerity.

Blindman goes full absurdist by elevating the concept to the use of projectile weapons like six-guns and rifles. Obviously, Blindman would be blown away from a distance immediately but because it’s just a romp our hero manages to outshoot and outdo the bad guys.

Our sightless protagonist has invested in 50 mail-order brides from Europe so that he can in turn sell them for a profit to a group of miners waiting for them further out west. Blindman planned to personally escort the brides to his customers to keep them safe (shades of the Mormon brides in John the Bastard), but the ladies get shanghaied to Mexico by Domingo (Lloyd Batista) and his gang, which includes his sister Sweet Mama (Magda Konopka) and brother Candy (Ringo Starr).

Candy is a thug who treats his lady Pilar (Agneta Eckemyr) very badly. In truth, he has little screen time but his prominent credit as co-star paid off, since Ringo making his “acting” debut in Blindman has kept the flick a cult hit for decades now.

And speaking of treating ladies badly, the movie is pure Eurosleaze in its handling of the mail-order brides. Even notoriously callous Jess Franco might have told the filmmakers to tone down the abuse a little.         

The violence and sexuality are contrasted by the bizarrely cartoonish storyline, which sees Blindman and the villains stealing the brides from each other time and again. Our sightless main character recruits Pilar to help him recover the 50 ladies with Candy ultimately caught in the middle.

Throw in a LOT of dynamite, a Mexican general targeted by Domingo and a happy (?) ending and you’ve got a Spaghetti Western for the ages.

At any rate, in 1981 Tony Anthony would re-use the plot about dozens of women getting abducted to Mexico for his 3-D Spaghetti Western Comin’ at Ya!

Two quintessentially Ringo Starr footnotes about Blindman: 1.) The original actor considered to play Candy (Frank Wolff) got Pete Bested out of the role in order to give it to Ringo. And 2.) Though Ringo wrote a song titled Blindman to use in the movie it was rejected. Starr later used it as the B-Side of his single Back Off Boogaloo.