The Taste of Violence Blu-ray Review

Radiance Films

Blu-ray Release: November 18, 2025 (as part of Wicked Games: Three Films By Robert Hossein)

Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Black & white

Audio: French LPCM 1.0 Mono

Subtitles: English

Run Time: 85:34

Director: Robert Hossein

A revolutionary kidnaps the daughter (Giovanna Ralli) of a dictator to negotiate a prisoner swap with his two lieutenants, Chamaco (Mario Adorf) and Chico (Hans H. Neubert). (From Radiance’s official synopsis)

The European continent had been making American frontier style ‘western’ films since the turn of the previous century, but the pop-culture idea of the Eurowestern is typically tied to the Italian western boom that resulted from the international popularity of Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (Italian: Per un pugno di dollari, 1964) and Sergio Corbucci’s Django (1966). Those films helped establish a genre now known as the spaghetti western, but they didn’t spring out of the void – they were built on a foundation. Some of that foundation was made in Italy, but it was arguably more dependent on Spanish and, especially, West German imports*. 

The spaghetti westerns of the 1960s were very popular in France, where Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (Italian: C'era una volta il West, 1968) became a huge regional hit. Inspired by Italian filmmakers, French actor and director Robert Hossein made Cemetery without Crosses (Italian: Une Corde, un Colt; aka: The Rope and the Colt, 1969), in part as an homage to Leone, who he had befriended and who had secretly directed a scene without credit. Outside of Hossein’s film, French westerns of this era tended to be comedies, musicals, or sex farces, such as Richard Pottier’s Serenade of Texas (French: Sérénade au Texas, 1958), Louis Malle’s Viva Maria! (1965), or Christian-Jaque’s The Legend of Frenchie King (French: Les pétroleuses, 1971).

Cemetery without Crosses enjoyed positive rediscovery on digital home video, eventually emerging with a good reputation as a melancholic, surrealistic variation of the Italian western formula. But something was overlooked during this reevaluation – Cemetery without Crosses was actually the director’s second western, following The Taste of Violence (French: Le goût de la violence, 1961). I knew this film existed, because I noted it in my review for Cemetery without Crosses, but I was under the impression that it was a sort of Nouvelle Vague take on the western. All of the books and essays I have on the subject of European westerns either don’t mention it at all or mention it in conjunction with Cemetery without Crosses.

I’m guessing that the major reason Taste of Violence was overlooked, beside its lack of availability outside of France, was because it wasn’t really a spaghetti contemporary. It predates Django, A Fistful of Dollars, Mario Caiano’s Spanish/Italian/French co-produced Duel at the Rio Grande (Italian: Il Segno di Zorro, 1963), and even Harald Reinl’s Treasure of Silver Lake (German: Der Schatz im Silbersee, 1962), which was the first of 11 movies in the highly influential, German/Italian/Yugoslavian co-produced Winnetou series, making it perhaps the earliest entry in Europe's then-burgeoning revisionist western canon. 

As a black & white, Nouvelle Vague-adjacent picture, Taste of Violence doesn’t have many of the major visual characteristics of a spaghetti western (aside from the always important crucifixion imagery), but its ethos fits the mode, especially the subgenre of Zapata westerns, which were made by leftwing filmmakers, who used the events of the Mexican Revolution as an allegory for modern Italian political strife. In this case, Hossein appears to be exploring an unspecified, probably fictional Central American conflict** and its parallels to German occupied France. He’s also less interested in Marxist principles than in the human drama of insurgency and the shifting loyalties of a hostage situation. Still, Taste of Violence may be an overlooked stopgap between Elia Kazan’s Viva Zapata! (1952) and the Italian Zapata westerns of the ‘60s and early ‘70s.

The cast includes a couple of actors that would eventually be known for their work on spaghetti westerns, namely Giovanna Ralli, who starred in Sergio Corbucci’s The Mercenary (Italian: Il Mercenario, 1968) – another Zapata western – and Swiss-born character actor Mario Adorf, whose mixed German and Italian descent helped him to bridge the gap between West German westerns, like the aforementioned Treasure of Silver Lake, and spaghettis, like Corbucci’s The Specialist (Italian: Gli specialisti, 1968). Admittedly, Ralli is better known for her romantic dramas and comedies, and Adorf is better known for his giallo and poliziottesco parts, but this was each actor’s first western. 

* This is similar to the Italian giallo thriller movement, which was built off the popularity of West Germany’s krimi fad.

** Hossein’s main character, General Guzman, might be in reference to General Juan José Guzmán, the first President of El Salvador, but there’s little evidence to back up this theory. Critic/author Tim Lucas seems to agree and refers to the historical timeline as fictional in his commentary track.

Video

The Taste of Violence was not previously released on North American video and the film’s 2021 French Blu-ray debut, from Gaumont, didn’t include any English subtitles. Fortunately, this US/UK/Canadian Blu-ray debut does come with English subtitles and utilizes the same 2K restoration Gaumont put together for their Blu-ray. It is currently only available as part of Radiance’s Wicked Games collection. The 2.35:1, 1080p transfer was produced with help from the CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de L’image Animée). The naturalistic, sun-baked, black & white photography looks crisp and includes complex, deep-set textures, bold, contrasting black levels, and a fuzzy veneer of film grain. 

Audio

The Taste of Violence is presented in its original French mono and uncompressed LPCM. The sound design is minimalistic, leaning on dialogue and incidental effects over atmospheric sounds. The music, by André Hossein (the director’s father), is similarly sparse, often made up of traditional folk songs and simple drums. Elements are clearly separated, but there is a condensed quality to the volume levels and a slight hiss throughout the vocal performances. Unlike their popular Italian counterparts, I believe many French films were actually shot with sync’d on-set sound at the time, though that doesn’t seem to be the case here, at least not for the scenes shot on location. 

Extras

• Commentary with Tim Lucas – The critic and author of Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark (Video Watchdog, 2007), who supplies commentary for all three movies in Radiance’s Wicked Games boxset, explores the film’s connections to the spaghetti and Zapata westerns (he notes a few background actors who’d appear in future Sergio Leone films), its philosophy, its place in the Eurowestern canon, its faux historical basis, and the larger careers of the cast & crew.

• Appreciation by Alex Cox (7:24, HD) – The Repo Man (1984) director, author of 10,000 Ways to Die: A Director's Take on the Spaghetti Western (Oldcastle, 2009), and general Eurowestern expert briefly discusses Hossein’s career and style, similarities between Taste of Violence and Cemetery without Crosses (which is playing on a screen behind him while he speaks), and the film’s Yugoslavian locations.

• Interview with C. Courtney Joyner (26:24, HD) – The screenwriter, actor, director, and author of The Westerners: Interviews with Actors, Directors, Writers and Producers (McFarland, 2009) finishes things off with a deeper look at the Zapata western movement and the ways that Taste of Violence sets the precedent. It’s a good interview and primer on the subject, though Joyner does refer to Dario Argento as the co-writer of Cemetery without Crosses – a claim that Hossein himself has disputed, but that persists due to Italian prints and misattributed IMDb credits.

• Theatrical trailer

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