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Eurowesterns Ratings From Worst To Best! (Spaghetti Westerns)
As for my ratings, I consider C'era una volta il West to be the only truly great film that the genre produced. The others are rated in relation to this film on a Spaghetti Western scale =) It seems silly to rate all movies on the same scale. What point is there in comparing, say, Carl Dreyers "Joan of Arc" to "Arizona Colt?" These movies were meant to entertain and to provide surprising variations of the basic formula. Some were fairly decent films, but a great many more were very entertaining ones.
How do my ratings work? The order of the films doesn’t matter too much. However, if two films have the same SW Rating, then they are considered to be of similar quality. I have also included Eurowestern clones like High Plains Drifter or Three Bullets For A Long Gun.
[This would be a "Best to Worst" list, but IMDB won't allow you sort that way in their defaults! Weird.]
I am building a wordpress blog that will have a more detailed version of this list as well (that can make finer distinction between movies than the IMDb ratings allow) as a Eurowestern podcast later this summer! Check it out at: [link]http://eurowesterns.wordpress.com/eurowestern-ratings-at-eurowesterns-wordpress-com/[/link]
Best Shakespeare Adaptations For Film
B-Westerns
The movies are historically interesting in that they are one of the precursors of the serialized TV show (along with radio drama and movie serial), often following a single character/star through a series of formulaic genre stories. In fact, the early TV western is essentially a half-hour version of the earlier b-western.
As with my spaghetti western list, my ratings are genre-relative. To compare "Phantom Thunderbolt" with "Citizen Kane" or "The Red Desert" along a single scale is silly . . . though this is how most critics seem to rate films. I think most non-critics rate movies based on how much they enjoy them . . . which makes a lot of sense. However, this means that things that are unfamiliar may be rated more harshly than familiar types of movies. Most people are not familiar with silent films or Bollywood which means that they don't enjoy the movie because it is strange to them, not that it isn't a good or interesting movie. The oldest b-westerns were made almost 100 years ago, making them somewhat strange and unfamiliar.
I think about rating a movie differently: Given the expectations of the genre's audiences, how does each film stack up to the others? So if I give "Tombstone Canyon" an 8 rating it means that this is a great and successful example of a b-western. A 5 indicates a fairly average film while ratings lower than 5 are given to films that are remarkable in their badness.
I will be updating the list as I go, so check back in a few weeks!
Reviews
Urutoraman: Kûsô tokusatsu shirîzu: Shinjugai bôei shirei (1966)
One of the more dynamic episodes in the series
This episode stands out from earlier ones with its more interesting visual style.Shots were composed of more interesting angles. The monster has a fun design w/ its vacuum cleaner tongue for sucking up pearls. Also, the opening and ending give a feel for swinging 60s Tokyo.
This episode was also the first episode to streamline the basic series formula. Instead of going through the whole set-up of monster origin, science patrol investigation, etc. This episode moves right to monster action after a short prelude.
There is some goofy stuff about women and their love of pearls, but that adds to the period charm. There is no reason to get offended over Ultraman . . .
Tombstone Canyon (1932)
Cool Ken Maynard movie
Cool Ken Maynard movie. The 'texture' of the movie is perfect b-western including the crusty actors, early-talkie technology, sets and staging, and costumes. There are some fun shots of characters moving ominously toward the camera or seen at a distance through binoculars. B-westerns really don't get much better than this one.
Basically, Ken's returns to his birthplace to discover the secret of his birthright. He becomes entangled in feud between the crooked crew of the Lazy S ranch and the mysterious black-clad figure called the Phantom who is killing them off one after the other.
The locations, especially "Tombstone Canyon" are incredible. The opening to the movie is evocative and fun. Gothic or pulp touches like the mysterious Shadow-like Phantom character are cool in this rugged landscape. Interestingly, 3 years before director Alan James helmed another movie called The Phantom (1931). Like many b-western directors, he had deep roots in the silent era.
B-Western Rating Scale: 8 of 10
Dos mil dólares por Coyote (1966)
Flat rendition of WAI with a few missing ingredients
What is most interesting about the euro-westerns (Western alla'italiana) made in Italy and Spain in 1960s and 70s are the creative and idiosyncratic ways that the filmmakers came up with to deal with low budgets and limited resources. Given the peculiar economics of the Italian industry there was a great deal of freedom for how to make satisfying movies for a wide export audience. The offspring of Fistful of Dollars (1964) included everything from crazy pop-westerns like Matalo! (1970) or Dove si spara di più (1969) to Marxist westerns such as Tepepa (1968). This is why there is still a devoted cult audience for this fascinating, bizarre, and often unpredictable genre. Unfortunately, many of the 400-700 films made during this cycle were similar to Dos mil dólares por Coyote (1968).
Perhaps "unfortunately" is a bit harsh -- just a but -- as Dos mil dólares por Coyote is a modest b-western that brings to mind the lesser Randolph Scott or Audie Murphy vehicles of the 1950s but with TV actor James Philbrook as a stand-in. It also brings to mind the strange Zorro films of made in Spain and Italy in the early 1960s that, together with the German Winnetou films, ignited the Italisn western boom. The technical crudeness and strange histrionics in those movies combined to create a bizarre and fascinating surreality that can be attractive even though the films are, without exception, bad. This movie has a little of this odd quality, but not a enough to save it from overall dullness.
Dos mil dólares por Coyote has elements of the For A Few Dollars More (1965) / Da uomo a uomo (1968) mentor/student or father/son plot as well as the usual confusions of identity and hidden parallels that recur again and again in these movies. However, the complications that arise are handled crudely and abruptly while the ending involves a redemption that brings to mind Hollywood westerns instead of the usually Italian liminal or "resurrection" plot, though this may be present in the scenes at White Eagle's camp. The movie is visually static both in terms of the camera setups and editing while the score brings to mind the earliest, clumsiest euro-westerns. Style and ironic self-consciousness are among the most interesting elements in the WAI and both are largely missing from this example.
Top spaghetti western list http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849907 Average SWs http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849889 For fanatics only (bottom of the barrel) http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849890
Pagó cara su muerte (1968)
Decent, Unpretentious Spanish Western
In the film-zine Westerns Alla Italiana (No.1, Vol.2), Ken Petit writes "My theory concerning why these films are disliked so intensely by film critics is that by and large, the Western film, by its very nature, presents a working class outlook." That is very much the case with Tierra Brava. If you like euro-westerns, Spanish westerns in particular, you my find this "proletarian" b-western worth your time.
Martin Roja's home is destroyed while he an his neighbors, poor peasants, are forced to flee to Mexico after they kill a rancher and some of his men who were responsible. Rojas forms a band of bandits which raids the border, attempting to gain back some of what they have lost. Roja's wife dies in childbirth while the Sheriff's men close in and he gives himself up, overcome with grief. The Sheriff adopts the boy. Ten years later, Rojas escapes from prison to see his son. An old partner of his is after a fortune in gold that Rojas had hidden. Rojas finds himself a danger to his son as well as unable of providing what the sheriff can, so he is forced to make a choice. . .
Thematically, this movie is interesting. It has some of the elements of the political westerns that were being made in Italy at the time, but for the most part it feels like a fairly standard paella western; Martin Rojas is the usual doomed protagonist. In the beast Spanish westerns, violence is portrayed as an epidemic that leaps from person to person, perverting and destroying them. What starts as self-defense ends in blood-lust. This pessimistic view presumably arises from the experience of the Spanish Civil War and fascist Spain. It is quite different that the exuberant optimism of their Italian counterparts. Unlike For A Few Bullets More, Garringo, or Cutthroats Nine, Rojas maintains his humanity through his love for his son and wife. This humanizing element of the family connections that bind a person to the community is another important aspect of these movies. In For A Few Dollars More, Billy maintains his dignity as long as his mother is alive. In A Bullet Sandoval, it is the death of the protagonist's lover and infant that provokes his slide into brutality.
This movie is not as bleak as these others; the connection is not severed and Rojas is in this sense an uncharacteristic paella western hero - he is redeemed in the end.
Lately, the portrayal of race and racism in American, as seen from across the Atlantic, has really been striking me in these movies. In this movies, and Long Days of Vengeance (1967), notice how the only time that you see an African-American is in the prison scenes. Also, the prisoners are for the most part people of color. It would be interesting to know what this means - was it an intentional comment on the US or an imitation of prison scenes in American movies?
Guglielmo Spoletini does a decent job as Rojas. Eduardo Fajardo steals the show with an over-the-top performance as Roja's malignant former partner, Trevor. This is the sort of nutty, histrionic villain that fans expect from the genre.
Carlo Savina provides a solid score. His other euro-western scores include Bullet and the Flesh (1965) and Vengeance(1968).
Leon Klimovsky is best known to fans of "eurotrash" cinema for his horror movies like Vampire Night Orgy, however he did direct a number of westerns. I have only seen this one, Rattler Kid, and Fedra West. While those movies were dull both thematically and aesthetically, Tierra Brava is competently made and fairly interesting. At the beginning of the film the new federal marshal arrives to find the aftermath of a gun battle. This is an effective scene, with corpses splayed on the ground, on the floor of the bar, under the water in a horse trough. The torture scene and the sequences in the desert are also well done. Telling the story in flashback adds some additional interest as enigmatic scenes and dialog from the beginning of the film are explained at the end.
Cinematograhoer Emilio Foriscot shot a number of euro-cult movies, including the Sergio Martino directed giallos Lo strano vizio della Signora Wardh (1969) and La coda dello scorpione (1971). His westerns include Anda muchacho, spara! (1971) and Due croci a Danger Pass (1967).
Un colt por cuatro cirios (1971)
Watch Ironically
I've seen quite a few spaghetti westerns and can usually find something interesting in them; genre movies are improvisational. They must deliver a familiar formula, images, and music while at the same time altering the performance enough to make it interesting – they need to be different, but not too different. Because over 500 westerns were made in Italy and Spain the 1960s and 1970s and the prescription of "intellectual property rights" was not exactly observed, the mutation rate and variation was incredible. They almost have to be spoken of in Darwinian terms: a Cincecitta film cycle (western, peplum, giallo, etc) were like the Pre-Cambrian explosion. Some were very good and others were like Un colt por cuatro cirios (Four Candles For My Colt) – just nutty.
A gang holds up a tax shipment of gold. That night, when celebrating, Farley steals the gold, but is found dead the next morning. The gang and the sheriff (Woods) believe that Rogers and Farley's wife conspired to steal the loot and run off together. The sheriff stands between the gang and Rogers while investigating the robbery and murder. Hangings, gunfights, beatings and other mayhem ensue.
Not as quite as badly made as some other late spaghetti westerns which are amateurish (though there were some high quality productions still, like the later Keoma or Four of the Apocalypse), this movie is simply chaotic. There are elements of giallo, mystery, Gothic western or hard-bitten spaghetti mixed into a film that could not decide if it wanted to be a brutal vicious Italian western or a comedy western. All of this is wrapped in a sleazy package that actually may recommend the movie to fans of "trash cinema." The movie can't quite make up its mind whether misogyny and (threatened) rape is funny or not.
Based on a novel, the screenwriters seem to have been doing whatever they could to fill the running time. The plot bounces around the Italian countryside like a pinball. Italian westerns have a tendency to be episodic in structure, as in Sabata (1970) or The Big Gundown (1967). Death Sentence (1968) used this structure to incredible effect. However, in this movie it simply leads to incoherence. The last 15-20 minutes of the movie appear to have been an afterthought tacked on simply to pad the running length.
In other words, this movie emptily goes through the motions at a frantic pace - but it really rushes nowhere.
This cut-and-paste approach makes the movie entertainingly bad but does not allow for the usual subtexts and undercurrents to develop that can make these movies.
The opening scenes, a stage robbery, were actually fairly well-done in a no-budget sort of way. Camera angles and editing are interesting. There is gunfight in a bar which is also well-executed. Though there are some of the static staging that is common in later eurowesterns, presumably to cut down on cost, this movie is much more dynamic than many of its contemporaries. Though it is far from good, it is the sort of movie that you can watch ironically, mock the insanity, and have a good time (if you are into that sort of thing).
Most of Ignacio F. Iquino's credits were as writer, though he did direct a number of fairly undistinguished westerns during the western boom. His best directorial effort was the very entertaining God in Heaven. . .Arizona on Earth with Peter Lee Lawerence. He was involved in writing the interesting El Puro.
Robert Woods was one of the more popular leading men in the genre, starring in the enjoyable if wacky Starblack and the grimy, brutal My Name Is Pecos.
Maria Martin was also in the classic Sergio Corbucci western The Hellbenders (1966).
Antonio Rameriz aka Lou Carrigan, who wrote the novel that this was based on, also wrote the novels on which several other euro-westerns were based on including 20 Steps to Death and Stagecoach of the Condemmned.
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Blu Gang e vissero per sempre felici e ammazzati (1973)
Good Late Italian Western, Incredible Cinematography by Storaro
In the late 1960s and the 1970s, revisionist American westerns re-represented the genre in a more pessimistic, more irreverent, and perhaps more human including The Wild Bunch, The Hired Hand, McCabe and Mrs Miller, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The American genre had become simply an agglomeration of gestures and conventions which were performed mechanically, without the thematic dynamism which had once made the movies of John Ford and others so compelling. These movies, and similar films like Bonnie and Clyde, influenced the tail-end of the Italian western cycle in films like Keoma, Mannaja, and California. Enzo Castellari even edited Keoma to Bob Dylan's soundtrack from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid; unfortunately, the soundtrack that the DeAngelis brothers wrote for his own film was terrible. Most of these late Italian westerns are somewhat different than the American ones in that they are often nostalgic for the early years of the western boom. Keoma recreates numerous scenes from Django while California is return to the type of films that Gemma made with Lupo, Tessari, and Gastaldi.Matt Blake (The Cheeseplant, Issue 3) described these movies as having a "strangely dissociated feeling of looking at the spaghetti western genre rather than being a part of it."
Blu gang vissero per sempre felici e ammazzati (The Short and Happy Life of the Brothers Blue) is another one of these late films that has picked up on the flavor of the American revisionist western. Unlike the other Italian and Spanish examples, it is not a nostalgic and self-conscious rehash of early spaghetti westerns but idiosyncratically very close to its American models. Overall, its a decent movie, though marred with a number of sequences which have not aged well. These include a series of 1970s style montages, a naive adulation of an adolescent conception of freedom, and some slightly heavy-handed if fun symbolism. Furthermore, it conforms predictably to the narrative of movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Bonnie and Clyde - the free spirit of the West and of youth are doomed as the forces of capitalism and the state close in and smother them. Though filled with populist political rhetoric, this film is really about the end of youth. It is very different from the buoyant optimism in the earlier working class Italian westerns - the revolution is coming and the worker will be elevated. This movie portrays a revolt also, but a much different self-indulgent one. Ultimately, its a little silly. That said, this is still one of the better late spaghetti westerns made a time when the boom was going bust. All considered, it is worthwhile for fans of the genre as well as general viewers.
This is one of the most difficult to find Italian westerns. For years, finding copies of this movie was something of a holy grail for fans of the genre.
Bazzoni and Storaro did an excellent job staging scenes, creatively using color, light, shadow, and angles to make this movie visually appealing. Vitorio Storaro is a legendary cinematographer, noted for his philosophy regarding the color, the use of which is stunning in this film. There is a stunning sequence in a jail with blue light falling through the windows across the profile of Palance which should be one of the iconic images of the genre, up there with the final gunfights in the Dollars movies or of Django dragging his coffin in sea of mud. Storaro's most famous work includes shooting Appocalypse Now and The Last Emporer, for both of which he won Oscars.
Bazzoni's attractive, spaghetti-western style adaptation of Carmen starring Franco Nero is better known (Man, Pride, and Vengeance, 1968), but it is not very emotionally involving. This is the better film. The violence is more realistic than the grand stylizing typical of this Leone-inspired genre and is really effective. While the characters are unequally developed, character is focused on instead the of the dynamics of the plot. The plot is episodic and predictable. As is the case with most genre movies, it is not a question of how it is going to end - we already know the formula (modeled on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). Instead, we are interested in the style, in how it conforms to the formula and how it varies. In this case, the film delivers an interesting variation and so it is satisfying.
Augusto Caminito churned out screenplays for a large number of Italian westerns, especially in 1967-68, including: Turn the Cheek (1974), The Rutheless Four (1968), Poker With Pistols (1967), Days of Vengeance (1967), Django the Last Killer (1966), The Greatest Robbery in the West (1967), and Pecos Cleans Up (1967).
Jack Palance is top-billed, but he does not really do much except stand around and look really cool.
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For completest only (bottom of the barrel) http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849890
...Altrimenti vi ammucchiamo (1973)
Bad Western, Good Finale
When I first saw this movie a couple of years ago, I considered it the second worst spaghetti western of all time, second only to the mind-blowingly bizarre Cipolla Colt (1976). However, on a second viewing I think that I was wrong. First 50 minutes of the movie are awful, about as crudely executed as it is possible in a film. Amateurishness was really common in the bottom-shelf euro-westerns of the 1970s. Given the self-consciousness of style that was so central to genre and the excesses in character and situation, this led to some mind-bending weirdness from directors like Demofilo Fidani or Gianni Crea. In other instances it is simply boring, which is the case with this film. Man Yi Yang was prolific producer, but he only directed three films in his career. The lack of experience is obvious.
However, the finale, with a long cat-and-mouse scene reminiscent of For A Few Dollars More (a standard situation in the genre) and a long kung fu dual between the brother, Angelo (William Berger!), and Dragon (Kang) is actually pretty entertaining and decently executed consdiering the poverty of the production. The terrible, stereotypical "Chinese: and "Western" music from the beginning of the film is replaced by a better, eerie score that sounds like something that escaped from a slasher giallo. The shots are less static; the acting even improves marginally. The rest of the movie was just filler.
Not nearly as good as the ultimate kung fu western, Il mio nome è Shangai Joe (The Fighting Fist of Shanghai Joe, 1972), it is still not a bad diversion for genre fans as long as they are willing to sit through the first bad half (maybe with a few laughs at the movie's expense). Whereas Il mio. . . was directed by the Mario Caiano who was experienced in making westerns, this movie feels a lot more like a standard bottom of the barrel 1970s kung fu movie. While Il mio. . .is the better movie, Kung Fu nel... has a rawer kung fu finale.
It does shares an interesting focus on racism in American which provides the fulcrum for the plot and the justification for all of the stylisitc violence, a focus which is not unique in spaghetti westerns. Movies like Day of Anger (1967), The Price of Power (1969), and many others share this theme, though the racism is variously focused on Mexican peasants, African-Americans, Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, outcasts of various sorts (Day of Anger (1967), or even Anglos (in The Return of Ringo (1965)0. This trend probably started with the use of the Old South and its ethos as a setting for a number of early Italian westerns such as The Hellbenders (1966).
William Berger and Donal O'Brien both of which starred in a number of spaghetti westerns. They appeared with each other in the excellent Keoma (1975).
It is impossible to find a good print of this movie currently. I watched a washed, fullscreen VHS copy with Spanish subtitles.
Synopsis: Two brothers are dueling to replace the master of kung fu at their school. The match is intense and the brothers attempt to kill each other, at which point the master angrily stops the match. In order to complete the duel, the elder brother Chen (Piao) challenges Chou (Tang) to meet him at dawn at a lake. Instead of meeting him, Chou and their sister flee (Leo), ending up running a Chinese restaurant in the United States. Just as Chen arrives in town, the town is taken over by Steve (O'Brien) and his gang, who work for Angelo (Berger) and Dragon (Fang). Steve's henchmen repeatedly instigate fights with the brothers and are repeatedly whipped until the final confrontation between the brothers, Angelo, and Dragon.
Lo ammazzò come un cane... ma lui rideva ancora (1972)
Ultra-Cheap, But Interesting, Late Spaghetti Seasoned With Giallo
Lo ammazzo come un cane... ma lui rideva ancora (Requiem For A Bounty Killer, Death Plays the Flute) is an interesting late Italian western well worthwhile for fans of euro-westerns. Afficiandos of giallo and euro-trash cinema in general may also enjoy this strange little film. Most other viewers will probably conclude that it is simply bad. There is material here that would have made an incredible film, however. It is unfortunate that the limitations of the production - money and talent - did not allow for their realization.
It has the look and feel of the ultra-cheap westerns being made at the end of this film cycle just before it went bust, falling somewhere between the rushed crudeness of W Django (1971) and Fidani's or Crea's bizarre movies. The closest thing that I can think to describe the execution for these movies to are yountube videos or fan flicks.
The best aspect to the movie are some short montage sequences and editing which strips down the violence to an explosive, brief ugliness. For instance, the initial attack on the ranch is an effective montage of rape, murder, and music; fist fights are edited down to the blows, giving them a strange quality that is interesting; flashbacks are well handled; the murders are sudden and vicious, such as the killing of the sheriff's brother by Ransom. All of this stuff is lean and hangs together in an effective way. These sequences stand out in disconformity from the rest of the movie, which is static in comparison. It is easy to see where the director's interest lay.
The story is a remix of the Death Rides a Horse (1967) plot (which in turn is a variant of the For A Few Dollars More plot) in which a man seeking vengeance unknowingly partners with one of the assailants that (usually) massacred his family. The movie was obviously structured around the revenge plot, but it is somewhat incoherent and largely an after-thought. The protagonist Barton (Forest), avenging the murder of his family and rape of his daughter, is largely a non-entity. This movie is about the parallel stories of Kimble "the Whistler" (Bien?), a psychotic gunman dressed up like Django, all in black, and Barton's daughter Suzy (Levi). Lo ammazzo. . . is more similar to the gory slasher giallo movies being made in Italy at the time. Patucchi's score is nothing special, but its elevator music repetitive pensiveness seems closer to giallo than western alla italiana.
Kimble is sexually dysfunctional; he lurks in the dark; his face twitches and he giggle sadistically like a child pulling the legs off a grasshopper. When he stalks and kills his victim, giallo style music (electronic moans and screams) begins and we are given distorted shots of watching eyes.
Suzy moves from being marginal in the movie – the passive attacked object - to becoming central – the ultimate agent of revenge. Her father, in comparison, is slow and inept. While most protagonist in a revenge western move from assailant to assailant, killing them in spectacular fashion, the entire group is killed by either Suzy, her lover, or Kimble. In that, this movie is similar to many of the American horror movies of the time, such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The final, excessively drawn out slow motion scene between her and Kimble tie together the real plot in this movie. It is unfortunate that this relationship between them was not made the focus of the film. Together with a larger budget, this would have been a real spaghetti western classic. This is the sort of movie that calls out for a Tarantino-style remake.
From the perspective of the genre, this is a fascinating realization of the bounty hunter as amoral anti-hero. Contrary to their reputation, Italian westerns are in no way "amoral;" in fact, they are sometimes very heavy handed in their morality. The heroes are often sadistic and brutal, but they are placed in the context of a corrupt world ruled by vicious, crude, and destructive men far worse than they are. The usual spaghetti western hero usually ends up killing all the Rojos and Baxter, freeing Marisol and her family to flee. This element was later developed into the leftist "Zapata" westerns, like A Bullet for the General (1965) and The Big Gundown (1967). This movie is far different, in that it revels in the empty viciousness of bounty killer. He is marginally better than his associates, but that is not the focus of this film. The moral center lie in Suzy's character, who is the only one who is really justified to act in this film's world. Unfortunately, neither she not here motivation were as well developed.
Il piombo e la carne (1964)
Early Eurowestern Melodrama
Il piomo e la carne is an early, obscure Western alla Italiana closer in look and feel to the German Winnetou films or to pre-Leone westerns like Gunfight At Red Sands (1963). Sergio Leone successfully translated the genre into an Italian sensibility (the Marchent brothers did the same for Spanish westerns). Before Fistful of Dollars (1964), the films were an odd bricolage of earlier American westerns, attempting to recreate the feel of the American genre. The results were a number of odd films that are equally ridiculous, surreal, and enjoyable in their enthusiasm for the genre – enthusiasm for dressing up in cowboy hats and strapping on holsters (or warpaint, the mask of Zorro, and so on). The bright cartoonish colors, a sense of phoniness that removes them from the real world, and crude execution give them something of the feel of comics or of the cover illustrations on dime novels. This is not to say that most of them are good, but they can be enjoyable in their own way.
Il piombo e la carne is a Romeo and Juliet story focusing on the relationship of a Cherokee chief Chata (Piergentili) and the Mabel (Viterbo), the daughter of Nathaniel Masters (Cameron). Chata has been meeting Mabel and playing with her brothers since they were children. Masters, driven by hatred over the infidelity of his ex-wife when he was at war, has slowly been strangling to death the Cherokee, recently stealing their last fields. They are forced to sell trinkets in the streets. Masters and a wealthy backer, Mortimer (Mayo), have a contract to supply timber to the railroad, but his timber holdings are inferior to those of the Cherokee. They burn the forest and blame Chata, justifying their theft of the tribe's forest, which they consider sacred. Chata is sent to prison and forsaken by Mabel. When he returns after one year, he attempts to resist the treatment of his community and violence erupts.
Much of the movie is pretty hokey with Italian or Spanish extras in "red-face" (as Cherokee) or black-face (a "mammy-type" servant). These Cherokee are a strange amalgam of any scavenged gesture or prop signifying "Indian" – totem poles, warbonnets, vaguely African masks hung in wigwams, and so on. In a way this is no less ridiculous than practices in earlier American westerns, but in these early eurowesterns it is brought to the fore and is really surreal; Sergio Corbucci would slyly play off of this in his clever Navajo Joe (Yes, the casting of Burt Reynolds as a Navajo Brave is ludicrous; that's the whole point!). However, there are some interesting aspects: There is a hint of interesting psychological and story-telling subtly in the motivation of Viterbo's character forsaking lover for family; there is the usual eurowestern view that those in power are corrupt and essentially no more than common thieves, something emphasized by the surname of Rod Cameron's character "Masters" (think Day of Anger, Django, Price of Power, Tepepa, The Big Gundown, Sabata, Vengenance Trail, Flying Fists of Shanghai Joe); and there is the recurrent spaghetti western theme of the role of racism which may reflect the view from the Mediterranean of the American civil rights movements of the 1960s (as in many of the already listed movies).
Piergentili is not an inspiring lead. Easily the best performance was provided by Luigi Pistili in one of his rare good-guy roles as a pistol-packing preacher. He is a familiar face to fans of the genre, appearing in 34 other films. Director Marino Girolami directed 77 films in a long career. His son Ennio has a role in this movie. His brother Enzo Castellari is one of the most popular directors in Italian popular cinema, directing the excellent WAI Johnny Hamlet (1968) and Keoma (1976), as well Inglorious Bastards (1978) which was recently remade by Quentin Tarantino.
(I watched a fullscreen print that was somewhat faded.)
Giurò... e li uccise ad uno ad uno... Piluk il timido (1968)
Revenge of the Coffin Maker
Following the lead of Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo, many spaghetti westerns had a coffin-maker character. Giurò... e li uccise ad uno ad uno (Gun Shy Piluk) was the only movie in the genre to feature the elderly coffin maker (Edmund Purdom), Piluk, wielding an 'infallible gun' in pursuit of the killers of his son.
This movie is probably most similar to ultra-low budget spaghetti westerns like Pistol for a Hundred Coffins (1968). It follows a serial/comic book mysterious avenger plot similar to the early Italian Zorro movies or westerns like Starblack (1965) and The Last Gun (1964). The good and the evil are identifiable on sight - this is not a the murky moral twilight of most euro-westerns - in those other movies violence is justified politically, by being on the side of the oppressed. In this movie, this pole orienting the viewer is missing. However,like those early pre-Leone movies it has a bizarre enthusiasm that is enjoyable in and of itself, even if the movie itself is simply silly.
Pistol for a Hundred Coffins, with its goofy madmen escaped from an insane asylum, is reminiscent of the portrayal of the mentally ill in poverty-row American horror movies of the 1930s and 1940s. Similarly, Gun Shy Piluk is evocative of American b-westerns from the 1930s, especially the hoe-down scene. These movies can have a rawness to their aesthetic that is really intriguing; to some degree, Gun Shy Piluk also has that quality. To think that it was made in the late 1960s is a little startling.
Piluk's son, the sheriff, has been shot in the back by Sebastian Mason (Dan Harrison), who with his brothers dominates the town. He is feuding with Wyler and his three sons, stealing his water in an attempt to get hold of the Wyler's land. After a new sheriff (Peter Holden) arrives in town, the Masons murder Wyler. The sheriff sets out to investigate while at the same time wooing Piluk's daughter, Margaret (Micaela Pignatelli). Meanwhile, Piluk is carrying out his revenge, slowly killing of the Mason's men one after the other. He then rides into with his cart, claiming that he has found by the side of the road. Each has a bullet hole between the eyes. . .
There are a few typical spaghetti elements, such as trick weapons and a town dominated by brutal, crude frontier "aristocrats." The opposition of the Wylers and Masons beings to mind Fistful of Dollars (1964) and Django (1966), with the new sheriff between them.
Guido Celano was a prolific actor, but he only directed one other film, the 1966 euro-western Cold Killer. Fabio Testi, who appeared in a number of classic Italian pulp movies, has an uncredited role.
This is one of the few euro-westerns (The Outlaw of Red River, 1965, comes to mind as another) that actually has cattle in it.
(I watched a washed, fullscreen Dutch VHS with poor sound quality. There is a high quality French DVD available, but it is only French langauage.)
Ramon il Messicano (1966)
For Spaghetti Western Completists Only
When you photocopy an image repeatedly, each copy will be slightly more blurred and cruder than the original. When it comes to the Euro-westerns of the 1960s and 1970s, something similar happened. Movies like Ramon il messicano and Nato per uccidere (Born to Kill, 1967) are virtual carbon copies of scenes from Leone's Dollars movies. However, they were made by less talented or resourceful film-makers.
Genre movies are all about the reproduction of earlier films, but in order to keep the audience interested they have to be surprised with new variations on the tried-and-true themes. Movies like Django (1966) or Johnny Yuma (1966) from the same year show how this should be done - they are more respectful of the audience. Then there are ultra-cheap examples like this Ramon il Messicano.
For the most part, the movie is a remix of Fistful of Dollars (1964). Character names are the same - a Ramon (Morales instead of of Ramon Rojo), against the Baxters. The barkeep is a Silvanito look alike; Slim is hidden in a cave by an elderly sympathizer; the storyline of FoD involving Ramon and Marisol is refashioned into between Ramon and Esmeralda; both movies have a massacre of the Baxters; the music is very similar to music from the first two Dollars movies; and so on.
For the most part the film is crudely shot and staged, appearing pretty amateurish. This works in it's favor in a couple of scenes near the beginning of the movie,such as during the funeral of Ramon's brother. The static quality and the slow pacing actually work in the scene's favor, especially the funeral scene which is the best one in the movie. I was briefly hoping that this was a hidden if unpolished gem. Much of the rest of the movie is filled with inane scenes of men riding horses to pad the running time or a hilarious and nonsensical wagon scene - this scene may actually be a reason to see this movie.
Maurizio Pradeaux was not a very prolific director or screenwriter, but he did write the screenplay for one other Euro-western, 1972's I senza dio, a better (thought equally low-budget) effort than this one. Claudio Undari appeared in a number of Euro-westerns, including I tre implacabili (1963), Il mio nome e Shanghai Joe (1972), and Condenados a vivir (1972).
Synopsis: Ramon's brother attempts to rape Esmeralda (Vilma Lindamar) and is shot by Slim Baxter (Jean Louis). His father and older brother urge him go into hiding as Ramon Morales (Claudio Undari) and his gang will seek vengeance. Ramon has paid off the drunken sheriff, so a reward is put out on Slim. Ramon kills Slim's father and rapes Esmeralda, provoking Slim to come out of hiding to face him. Slim is shot down, but not killed. Esmeralda prays to the Virgin Mary, saying that she knows that she sinned with Ramon and will marry him if she allows Slim to recover, which he does. Slim then forms an outlaw gang to seek revenge and Esmeralda goes to Ramon. On Ramon's wedding day, Slim arrives disguised as the priest and they face each other in a final duel.
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Le colt cantarono la morte e fu... tempo di massacro (1966)
Fratricide, patricide, and confused identities: a must-see for genre fans
One of the best Italian westerns, Tempo di massacro (1966) is an interesting and enjoyable riff on many of the genres recurrent themes. It is one the must-see films for any fan of the genre. Known mostly for his horror films, Lucio Fulci directed two westerns, this and Quattro dell'apocalisse, I (1975). Horror fans would probably prefer Quattro dell'apocalisse, I (1975) but Spaghetti Western fans would most likely prefer this one, made during the first post-Fistful of Dollars (1964) tidal wave and having the Leonesque ethos of that initial cinematic flood.
Fistful of Dollars (1964) was a remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) which was itself based on Dashiell Hammett's classic hardboiled thriller Red Harvest (1929). The various elaborations and translations of this basic story led to many of the unique features of the Italian western, most specifically the strange catholic/Marxist resurrection/revolution plot in which the action is often driven by the hero's attempt to resolve some central mystery (often in the form of an ambiguous flashback, as per Leone). What is really interesting about Tempo di Massacro (1966) is that it plays a lot like a hardboiled detective story along the lines of The Big Sleep (1939) with Franco Nero's character Tom Corbett playing the role of the detective. Called back home after an absence of several years, he finds his hometown inexplicably distorted and that he is somehow central to this change and to its undoing. The Scotts, father and son, form a brutal aristocracy that is degrading and desolating the community. Their private conflicts embroil and destroy the lives of the townspeople. With its dark tangle of confused lineages and identities (in the manner of classical Greek, Roman, or "freudian" mythology), the movie is a Gothic family western like Pistolero dell'Ave Maria, Il (1969), Ritorno di Ringo, Il (1965), or Texas, addio (1966).
The movie stars two of the genre's most popular actors, Franco Nero and George Hilton. Nero starred in three classic westerns in 1966: Django (1966), Tempo di massacro (1966), and Texas, addio (1966). Hilton (Born in Uruguay) never achieved the level of international fame that Nero did, but he starred in a number of Euro-cult classics. His westerns include movies such as Desesperados, Los (1969) and Professionisti per un massacro (1967). Nero is a little wooden in this role, but Hilton is great as the drunken, reckless brother, Jeff Corbett. Unfortunately, the dubbing is terrible in the English version.
While Fulci does a good job at reproducing Leone's style in the use of widescreen and angles, he does add a sense of claustrophobic pressure all his own. The violence has a strange angular quality with a focus on geometry and impossible, artificial kinetics. As with other films that it was competing at the box office with, their was a focus on more exotic, baroque violence. However, unlike some later films, the violence was in the service of the plot and the atmosphere of the film.
The final gunfight is a variation of the finale of Leone's For a Few Dollars More(1965) in which heroes and villains stalk each other, with the heroes using misdirection and deception to prey on their opponents who accept to-readily surface appearances. In most of these westerns one of the qualities that makes the hero/anti-hero superior is their ability to understand what another person thinking, what their motives are, and how things look from another's perspective. Parolini's movies such as Se incontri Sartana prega per la tua morte (1968) represent the most extreme development of this theme.
La vendetta è un piatto che si serve freddo (1971)
Good Italian Western With All The Usual Elements
La Vendetta è un piatto che si serve freddo (1971) is one the better Italian westerns from late in the Eurowestern film cycle. It combines a naturalistic cinematographic style with an excellent score and the classic Italian western plot. Except for some ridiculous 1970s platitudes about Native American, it is intelligent scripted though the character dynamics seem unintelligible to many viewers. This is due to the fact that the ideology which informs this movie is not that of the American western or other film genres but instead the special ethos and logic of the Italian Western, of its makers, and of the culture in which they were living. This movie is actually a distillation of many early preoccupations within the genre. Many late cycle Eurowesterns are distilled versions of earlier narratives developed in the genre, with the most notable being Sonora (1969), Keoma (1976), Grand Duel (1972), or California (1977). The significance of the cinematic gestures and images is embedded in that historical ethos. Approaching it from another is to misunderstand it a senseless jumble of incoherent images.
Basically, the film is a rendition of the Fistful of Dollars(1964) plot with elements borrowed from other Leone films and political westerns (such as Tepepa (1968) or Faccia a Faccia (1969)). Very generally, in this basic plot the hero is usually more skilled and dangerous than those around him. At first, he follows his own narrow interest, but he becomes involved in the wider society and ends up shot, stabbed, beaten, and sometimes literally crucified. He is then resurrected, returns to purge the society of those who are using their power and prowess to corrupt and oppress. This plot is liminal, which means that its crisis (the near-death/return) represents a point in which the hero is transformed in some significant way.
Recurring tropes from Leone's movies (and Dario Argento's such as in Profundo Rosso (1975)) are flashbacks that are mystery to either to the audience or, more often, to both the hero and the audience. There is uncertainty as to what this memory means and it is returned to again and again with it's resolution being pivotal to the plot. This movie is structured around a memory as well, but in a slightly different way that makes it somewhat unique. The initial scene in the film, ending with the family's massacre, comprises the memory whose changing meaning to the hero provides the narrative drive to the movie. These scenes are shot as though seen at a distance, sometimes through windows or frame din other ways. As such, they are similar to a flashback sequence.
The basic liminal plot together with the pivotal memory of Jeremiah's family provides the scaffolding for the political western plot. This is a West in which the powerful use the newspapers to manipulate the public with fear and racism. Jeremiah, who has become sociopath scalp-hunter, believes that his family was murdered by Native Americans. He is an outcast who barely utters a word through the first half of the movie. The near-death is accompanied by clues that his understanding of what happened was false and the second half of the film is about his accumulation of evidence that his family was murdered so the rancher Perkins would have an excuse to seize his family's land. The truth revealed, he can redirect his action in a manner that does not support Perkins but destroys him. This action is reproduced for the community and they do the same.
This widening of awareness beyond the bounds of Jeremiah's own experience to the wider social manipulations of power and perception are what this strange little Eurowestern is about. The movie lacks psychological realism, instead opting for a leftist view of the dynamics of society and politics. Of course, this is not an art-film not is it Salvatore Guliano (1962) or La Battaglia di Algeri (1966). However, even Pasolini played a revolutionary priest in Requiescant (1967) and Franco Solinas wrote a number of Italian Westerns. These movies were intended for export throughout the 3rd world and the filmmakers were sincere about their politics. In a sense, this modest western may have been portraying on the screen what it was trying to reproduce in the audience the transformation of people's political consciousness. I don't know if Pasquale Squitieri had the same intention with this film or whether he was simply following the conventions of the genre, but even if he was just following the formula he understood it well enough to execute a decent and entertaining spaghetti western.
Leonard Mann plays the same wounded, haunted persona that he did in Il Pistolero dell'Ave Maria (1969) and Ciakmull - L'uomo della vendetta (1970). Perkins (Ivan Rassimov) is a sadistic semi-feudal land-baron in classic Italian western fashion, dragging Chinese slaves to death behind his carriage in street. Klaus Kinski is enjoyable as the scheming newspaper editor Prescott.
Ocaso de un pistolero (1965)
Decent low budget Iberian western with usual themes
Made early in the Eurowestern boom of the mid-1960s, Ocaso de un pistolero (1965) is yet another underrated Spanish western that is actually a decent B-western of surprising psycho-social realism. The westerns written and directed by Spaniards tend to be very different in terms of technique, tone, and thematic preoccupations from those made by Italians. Like most Spanish westerns, this movie is more crudely made than their Italian westerns, but as the movie progresses there are actually a number scenes which are evocative if rough-hewn such as the Carter Brother's funeral, the sequence in they stalk their victims and in turn are hunted, and especially the movie's final scene. As such, it is much better than contemporary films like Tierra de Fuego (1965) or I Tre del Colorado (1965). If you enjoy Eurowesterns, it is worth giving this movie a chance on it's own (limited) terms.
Ocaso de un pistolero (1965) was written by Joaquin Marchent and directed by his brother Rafeal. Together they were responsible for many of the best "Paella westerns." The story is told economically and skillfully, with two partially independent story lines dovetailing in the psychological deterioration of Dan Murphy and not in the usual series of (unneeded) plot complications.
Where these "Paella westerns" match the Italian examples of the genre is in their own unique conception of the relationship of the individual and their society, one presumably rooted in the Franco regime and the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Violence is a brutalizing contagion, resorted to by the protagonists out of necessity to protect something they value, but resulting in their corruption and ambiguous destruction. Their actions are motivated by good intentions, but in a world where the law is a tool available to anyone who can seize it each act only results in the confirmation of the inevitable final condemnation. Violence corrupts them and they become like those the brutalized them. The powerful individual may be killed (and usually is), but power itself is a raw enveloping force and physical presence that will collapse on the protagonist regardless, annihilating them. By the end, the protagonist must be destroyed as well in an ambiguous exorcism. Personally, I find some of these "Paella" westerns" fairly effective because of this recurrent desperate drama.
In contrast, the Italian movies tend to have subtexts of resurrection and revolution, leaving them with a strange optimism only thinly disguised beneath overt, cynical gestures. Though westerns declined as a genre in Italy in the early-1970s, many of their themes were taken up in the popular crime movies of the time. It is in these movies that a similar disillusionment can be seen.
In this movie, the filmmakers do a surprisingly good job imitating a low-budget 1950s American B-western with only a small amount of the usual surreal pre-Leone pastiche. Yet, the Iberian western underneath slowly rips through the facade, force and violence rending the image. The basic plot involves a gunman named Dan Murphy (Craig Hill) and his wife (Gloria Milland). Years before, on the run and attempting to find a place to settle down, Sheriff Rogers (Jesus Puente) accidentally shoots and kills there son, Andy. In retribution, they steal Roger's own son. They raise the boy as their own, naming him Andy. At the wedding of a neighbor, Roger's deputy finds Murphy. The same evening, the Murphy gets into a fight with the Carter brothers, the local criminal bullies. These threads are pulled and Murphy's life begins to unravel.
Much of the movie seems to be focused on the contrast between the institutions of law and the insoluble problems of justice. Murphy is seeking justice for the murder of his child and, later, of his friends. The Carter's are seeking justice for the death of their younger brother. The town's sheriff is simply an impediment to justice and is denounced, then murdered.
The movie seems to modeled after American westerns such as The Gunfighter (1950) and The Fastest Gun Alive (1956), in that it centers on a famous gunman attempting to escape is reputation. In the conflict between Murphy and the Carters, the movie seems to be recreating that between Earp and the Clantons in My Darling Clementine (1946). The overarching "gothic family" plot is a favorite trope that recurred in a number of Eurowesterns such as Pistolero dell'Ave Maria, Il (1969) or Tempo di massacro (1966).
The dubbing is terrible. The theme music by Angelo Lavagnino was reused in number of low-budget Eurowesterns. While unspectacular, but it does have a strange "lounge Morricone" vibe to it, being a laid-back deguello.
Seminò morte... lo chiamavano il Castigo di Dio! (1972)
Clumsy . . .
Seminò La Morte... Lo Chiamavano Castigo Di Dio [1972] was the last of Roberto Mauri's string of ultra-low budget Italian westerns. Two of his films, Vendetta è Il Mio Perdono, La [1968] and Sartana Nella Valle Degli Avvoltoi [1970] are straightforward b-movies that are alright diversions for euro-western fans, but this movie and Colorado Charlie [1965] are exercises in incompetence and would serve as good fodder for Mystery Science Theater. The dubbing, in particular, is so bad that it has to be seen to be believed.
Durango (or Django in the English version) is seen leaving a midnight tryst the same night that a bank robbery occurs. Accused of the robbery, he is thrown in jail with the bandit/revolutionary Santo. When Santo is freed out by a mysterious figure, Durango flees with him and sets out to discover the identity of the bank robbers.
Italian and Spanish westerns were something of an improvisational genre based on a foreign model, then off of a few successful translations of that model (Leone, Tessari, Corbucci), these movies took the same basic elements and recombined or re-emphasized them, a tendency that in the end gave the genre unique delirious over-the-top character. While this movie was late in the cycle and poorly made, it is variation on earlier, better films. The relationship between Santo and Durango is reminiscent of the Gringo/Revolutionary duos of La Resa Dei Conti [1966] or Vamos A Matar, Compañeros (1970). The overall revenge film plot was very popular through the genre, though what is often emphasized is the aspect of mystery of this type of plot.
In Mauri's better westerns, dialog is sparse. However, in this movie the villain Scott spends far too much time in his study describing his traps for Django. Then Mauri cuts to Django and his escape from the dastardly plan. Mauri never figured out how the more successful films in the genre created tension and narrative drive. They used distorted angles and tense, faces and presences that imposed themselves onto the scene and the audience in a dynamic visual tension, and eccentric music and gestures that were exaggerated until they were radically out of proportion.
This is movie would only be of interest to euro-western fans.
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Colorado Charlie (1965)
Ultra-low budget
Roberto Mauri directed a number of rather pedestrian Italian western such as Sartana nella Valle degli avvoltoi [1970], Seminò la morte... lo chiamavano Castigo Di Dio [1972], and La Vendetta è il mio perdono [1968] as well as Colorado Charlie [1965], which was his first film in the genre. Unlike Baldenello, Mulargia, and a few other ultra-low budget directors, Mauri didn't master the technique of focusing his resources to achieve a single effect (like Django il bastard' s [1969] focus on a Gothic atmosphere)and so his movies tend to be a little dull.
Wild Bill, sheriff of Springfield and the fastest gun in the territory, is retiring at the request of his new wife, a widow with a young son whose father had been killed in a gunfight. Colorado Charlie, notorious Mexican bandit, learns of this and of the celebrating cattle buyers that have recently returned to town. Waiting for Wild Bill to leave, Charlie robs the buyers and kills the new sheriff, forcing Wild Bill to pursue him.
This movie is reminiscent of the early WAI which attempted to pass themselves off as American product. While some of these films are descent b-movies, they are not as dynamic and interesting (to most viewers) as later movies that were inspired by Leone's cinematic and financial success (not necessarily in that order). Colorado Charlie is a strange little melodrama with music that at times brings to mind 1940s b-westerns and histrionics that belong to the silent era. Given the utter poverty of the production, it is difficult to determine the intention of the filmmakers. Was this supposed to be ironic in the manner of the same year's Una Pistola per Ringo [1965] in which the conventions of the western are played up and almost border slapstick? Was this supposed to be a social melodrama about the consequences of violence like later Spanish westerns such as El Hombre Que mató a Billy el Niño [1967]? This confusion arises from what must have been the mismatch between means and goals as well as shifting goals themselves - melodrama or comedy? Furthermore, Leone's techniques of extreme closeup and the idiosyncratic use of music were not intuitively understood by many of the filmmakers that tried to replicate his success after the reception of the first two Dollars films. Colroado Charlie was probably intended to be a pastiche or farce of sorts like Navajo Joe [1966], but in the end it doesn't work.
Given this, there are the usual WAI motifs of mirrors, assumed identities, and parallels between protagonist and antagonist in which the one is the reverse image of the other. Livio Lorenzo gives one his strange, over-the-top performances(see Jim il primo [1964]) as the title character that may imply some comic intentions it is hard to tell.
The ironic pastiche that recurs throughout many of these movies is due to the genuine enthusiasm that the filmmakers had for the American western and the recreation of the conventions and situations of those movies. However, by the mid-60s the conventions of the classic westerns may have appeared absurd. Additionally, the Italian popular filmmakers tended to be very self-conscious and more than a little aware of what might seem like the sarcastic absurdity of their productions shot in the Almerian desert or the Italian countryside. The idea of a Mediterranean western might have struck them as a sort of clever joke. This irony informs the movies of Corbucci, especially Il Grande Silenzio [1968], and it led to the inevitable development of the often unwatchable slapstick westerns of the 1970s. In a film like Colorado Charlie the seeds of this development can be discerned.
This movie would only be of interest to die-hard euro-western fans.
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Desafío en Río Bravo (1964)
Early Western alla' italiana
This early Italian westerns title Sfida a Rio Bravo (1965) gives away the inspiration for this movie, Howard Hawk's Rio Bravo (1959), which was very popular in Italy. Guy Madison stands in for John Wayne while Gerard Tichy plays the drunken friend on the mend. This movie is a decent if unremarkable b-western from early in the Cinecitta western cycle. While it is clearly influenced by Leone's Per un pungo di dollari (1964), both stylistically and in terms of the motives for it's production, it is not based as much in those stylistic conventions that would soon come to define the genre as later films in the genre. As the Americanized pseudonyms for actors, directors, and composers in these early WAI suggest, there was an initial impulse to pass off these movies as an American product. However, as movies by Leone and Corbucci found an international audience, it later became more important to imitate their movies than the earlier American models. However, in 1965 and 1966 these conventions were not completely established and there were a number of films like Sfida a Rio Bravo (1965).
Though this is an early WAI and at first glance appears to be simply an antiquated imitation of the American original, there are a number of euro-western motifs derived largely from Leone's Dollars trilogy. Wyatt Earp is stalked from a distance by gunmen that haunt the ridges of the canyons, there is the focus on mirrors, confused or concealed identities, traps that use misdirection and misperception, feints and hidden alliances; these are all typical WAI elements. Even Lavagnino's score, which appears so imitative of the American example, has moments which are clearly inspired by Morricone.
The most interesting narrative element of this movie is the difference between those characters who are honorable, whether lawmen or outlaws, and those that are not. Wyatt Earp and the bandit Bogan can respect each other because they do not hide their intentions, but the judge and powerful Zach Williams are dishonorable because their actions are concealed. This is an old western trope, but is fairly well done here. The fistfight between Bogan and Earp is one the best scenes in the movie.
Overall, the action sequences are handled pretty well while the characterization and story are pretty standard American b-western fare, though even more artificial. The last gunfight is well done if conventional. As with many of the lesser WAI, this movie will be of interest only to genre fans as long as they are not expecting Leone.
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El precio de un hombre: The Bounty Killer (1966)
Excellent Iberian Western
Along with El Hombre que mató a Billy el Niño (1967), Condenados a vivir (1972), and a few other, El precio de un hombre (1966) is one of the best "Spanish" or "Iberian" westerns (written or directed by a Spanish filmmaker). Most of these films have tended to be overlooked next to the flashy and flamboyant Italian variant, which is unfortunate as they have a narrative coherency all their own that is well worth a look at. Of all of these movies, this one is perhaps the most accessible to Leone fans.
Though based on a novel by American Marvin Albert, this movie follows the same basic patterns as other Mediterranean westerns. The basic Italian "resurrection/insurrection plot" (the protagonist is nearly killed, rises from the grave, then liberates the community) is represented by Richard Wyler's Luke Chilson, a bounty hunter whose monetary motivations prove to be the only reliable ones on this baroque frontier.
The movie's primary focus, the "Ugly ones" of the American title, represents the preoccupations of the other Spanish westerns mentioned above. Outlaws are always distinguished from the rest of society by their desperate bestiality. In these movies, violence and corruption trap an innocent protagonist who, led by his own good intentions, in the end is corrupted and becomes as violent as those that brutalized him. This storyline is represented by Tomas Milian's Jose Gomez.
These two story lines occur within a basic plot that seems to be based on the classic "siege westerns" of the 1950s like 3:10 to Yuma (1957). This creates an interesting social skein in which these two characters act. Neither is able to gain an advantage over the other without the support of the community, support that is based in the perceptions of these characters, their past and their roles, and the world in which all of this takes place. Halina Zalewska's Eden plays a similar role to the women in the Gastaldi written movies like Arizona Colt (1966) in which the alienated hero is integrated into the community through his relationship with her. In this movie, Eden is perhaps more active and her choices are as important as the actions of Chilson or Gomez. Altogether, this creates an interesting story that is very sophisticated for what is, basically, a B movie. The Italian/Spanish film industry was both decentralized and competitive enough for there to be strange, creative permutations of popular story lines that both satisfied and surprised. This movie does both.
The movie starts slowly, carefully setting up the final acts in which it becomes more dreamlike as we participate in Jose's intoxicated, surreal disintegration. These scenes are similar to the almost psychedelic "pop-westerns" such as Sentenza di morte (1968) or Se sei vivo spara (1967). Typical of the Iberian variant, the ending is represents an ambiguous exorcism. In the other Spanish westerns mentioned, this exorcism is the ironic confirmation of a contagious violence. With this movie, instead we have a community that has been stripped of it's pretensions and is left truly disillusioned. The professional the bounty hunter once rejected in favor of the romantic Robin Hood is the only one left standing. At one point early in the movie Chilson's dollar to pay for a meal is rejected by the townsfolk, left in the dust. They won't except his currency and how it is earned. At the end of the film they are forced to except his "currency," at least in a sense.
Enzo Barboni's cinematography helps give the film slightly more polished and stylized look than other, often static and crude, Spanish westerns. Barboni's was one of the most important filmmakers in the euro-western, shooting Django [1966] and Viva Django [1969] and also directing the two Trinity movies. Crispiani's score is effective and was reused in later films.
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Condenados a vivir (1972)
Most extreme, and sad, Spanish western
Conedandos a vivir (1972) was and is marketed purely as a violent exploitation film. Viewers approach it that way and either find it terribly vacant and crude or enjoy those aspects of the movie that are hyped up by hucksters. As the euro-western was widely marketed as violent and cynical, this advertising tactic that often blinds viewers to what is actually occurring on-screen. This is unfortunate as this movie is actually a well thought out and decently executed western that provides the nihilistic capstone to an interesting series of Spanish westerns made in the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s. Viewed in that tradition, as the terminal point in a genre narrative that began much earlier in films like Joaquin Marchent's own El Sabor de la venganza (1963), it is a moving and fascinating movie.
Contrary to the reputation of the "Mediterranean westerns" made in Italy and Spain in the 1960s and 70s, these movies are not simply absurd and extreme distortions of the original American genre somewhat like Red River (1948) or Rio Bravo (1959) projected into a hall of mirrors. Instead of warped conventions without significance, these movies contained their own views of society and morality. Many of the westerns written or directed by Spaniards have a very interesting perspective of the nature of violence that is central to plot and character. Violence is a contagion that consumes everything and everyone in it's vicinity. In movies like El Hombre que mató a Billy el Niño (1967), El Sabor de la venganza (1963), or Garringo (1969) victims are transformed into victimizers through the alchemy of good intentions in a corrupt society. There is always a character who has a close personal relationship with the victim-turned-victimizer who both opposes the political corruption and also it's products, including their friend or brother/son. Outlaws are portrayed in bestial terms, a pack dominated by the most brutal one. These movies always end with an ambiguous sacrifice to necessity.
With Condenados a vivir, this formula reaches it's fullest development. Isolated in the wilderness, there is nothing to stall the corrosive assault of brutality. Every member of the group is degraded and virtually every on-screen character is dead by the final credits. Sarah Brown (Emma Cohen) is the only character who opposes this effect in any way, though her response is ambiguous as it involves a hopeless and absolute nihilism. In this series of movies, the typical genre ending of a shoot-out in the street or synonymous act becomes endlessly complicated. The exorcism of violence by violence must, according to the logic of these narratives, only perpetuate the contagion an inescapable circularity.
This movie has a sort of resurrection of the dead hero in the manner of the Italian brand of western, but here it occurs in the delusions of an insane fugitive. However, whereas in the Italian movies this return-from-the-grave is followed by a sort of liberation of a community, in this movie this is only a guilt-ridden and confused hallucination.
As in most of these Spanish movies, the technical execution lags far behind the narrative sophistication. The "gore-effects" will strike you as laughable if you are in the right mood. However, all-in-all, this movie is a successful and sincere b-movie, and as such I recommend it. With El Sabor de la venganza, this is Joaquin Marchent's best western.
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Tierra de fuego (1965)
Crude production, low budget, intriguing stories and themes
Somewhat along the lines of El Uomini dal passo pesante (1966) (and even Leone's Dollar's films if the role of Eastwood's creation of the Stranger character is considered), Tierra De fuego (1965) is an early euro-western that represents a collaboration between European and American filmmakers. In this case, the collaboration is between journeyman actor/producer Mark Stevens and director Jaime Jesus Blacazar. Stevens was a leading man in a number of 1940s film noir while Jaime and his brother Alfonso directed and wrote a number of the better euro-westerns including Professionisti per un massacro (1967) and Gentleman Jo... uccidi (1969). Like many of the early Spanish productions, this film is pretty crudely made. However, it is interesting when considered along other "Spanish" westerns as these films demonstrate a remarkable thematic coherency.
Westerns directed or written by Spaniards seem to have an interesting narrative in them regarding the state, oppression, and violence that is consist throughout. In this movie, a sheriff who had once been an outlaw stands by as a group of gunmen led by his former partner brutalizes the town of Fraserville scared of his past being revealed. This compromised status leaves him impotent and the townsfolk bewildered, leading to a increasingly fast spiral of violence. This situation, whether due to outright corruption or compromise of any sort, is repeated again and again throughout these movies. A good example is El Hombre que mató a Billy el Niño (1968) or El Sabor De la Vanganza (1963) . Adrift on their own, people are forced to fend for themselves as best they might. One act of violence leads to retaliation, then retaliation to retaliation. Jealousies tear at the community's fabric. The contagion is epidemic and replicates itself, turning one act's victim into the next's perpetrator. The bestiality of the outlaws in this movie, in which most brutal rules, also occurs in Condenados a vivir (1972) where it is developed to it's fullest extent. In Tierra De fuego, the sheriff chose to leave his partner in the past, in which he rejected the violence that he was responsible for. In Condenados a vivir, there is no figure that has made a similar choice, only a group of convicts, a vengeful guard, and the guard's daughter alone in the snowy wilderness. That movie represents the end of this cycle, the most extreme description of the dehumanizing effects of violence. In Tierra De fuego, the final exorcism is ambiguous and somewhat strange. The nihilistic finales of Condenados a vivir or El Hombre que mató a Billy el Niño are actually very similar. This is not surprising as the ethos in all of these westerns is the same. Many, though not all, Spanish westerns tend to be fatalistic, trapped in an inevitable sad logic.
It is unfortunate that this movie's execution is so crude, as the story is actually very compelling. That said, the attempts at creating a strong audience response are interesting. People are arranged in opposed masses or are isolated in an attempt to present the relations in the town visually. The scenes of the preacher's beating or the long rape/murder are very extreme, especially as the film was made in 1965. The latter scene brings to mind "Of Mice and Men" and actually achieves a bit more effect than most of the rest of the film. The relationship between the outlaw Abel and the Sheriff is very interesting and complex. Abel was caught immediately after they parted ways and he believes that the sheriff was responsible. He cannot comprehend any motives outside of those debased by cruelty. This inability provides the dynamic tension between the two. With more resources and experience this could have been a very good ingredient.
I actually recommend this movie to genre fans, though only in terms of the thematic interest. Most viewers would find nothing of interest here.
(The version I reviewed was an old, badly faded Dutch videotape)
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El sabor de la venganza (1963)
Good early euro-western
El Sabor de la venganza (1963) is perhaps the best of the Pre-Leone euro-westerns, one of the best "Spanish westerns," and Joaquin Marchent's best western. Genre fans looking for something similar to the Dollar's films often overlook and under-rate what is a very well made b-western that foreshadows the later Gothic family westerns like El Pistolero dell'Ave Maria (1969).
El Sabor de la venganza at first glance appears to have more in common with American westerns than later euro-westerns that, it at first seems, have been more completely translated by the filmmakers to their own historical and cultural perspectives. Ortolani's score is certainly based on American examples and is not nearly as inventive as that in other euro-westerns. Also, though the movie doesn't have the same sly ironies that the genre is well known for it's sincere enjoyment and indulgence in western conventions is very much in line with the self-consciousness of the genre. The long quasi-documentary rodeo sequence in the middle of the movie, complete with a Rio Bravo (1959)-style cowboy song sung over it, is a great example of this. This sequence, following a well put together montage about the brothers each living their separate lives, may annoy some viewers, but I think that it provides a good bridge between the two halves of the movie, streamlining and focusing attention on the pivotal moments in the plot.
In terms of "translations," the dynamics of the family and the vendetta that arises out of the father's death are very interesting. Each of the three Walker brothers - Jeff (Richard Harrison), Chet (Claudio Undari), and Brad (Miguel Palenzuela) - follow divergent paths when seeking out revenge for the father's murder. One becomes a federal lawman, another an outlaw, and the oldest inherits the family ranch. The relationship between the brothers, each motivated by the mother's pronouncement of vendetta, seems to have an accent very foreign to the American genre. This is a Spanish family, maybe derived from sometime in the past, and not the typical film representation of a (Anglo) pioneer family. The extreme tensions and conflicting obligations motivated by an early tragedy were a dominant theme in later euro-westerns. There is always an element of confused identities, either of protagonist or of the perpetrators. There is one effective scene in which Chet almost recreates the murder of his father with himself as the would-be murderer, pointing to a violence and vengeance that could reproduce itself indefinitely. This view of revenge as a contagion turns up in other westerns by Spanish writers and directors, such as Julio Buch's El Hombre que mató a Billy el Niño (1967). That movie ends with Billy's surrender of his guns, followed by his assassination. Unlike the historical figure, Garrett becomes that of a man trying to prevent the tragedy, produced by a world of political oppression and corruption, which pulled Billy into a spiral of violence from claiming more bewildered victims. This movie's finale can be understood in the same way, with Jeff as the Garrett to Chet-Billy. This movie brings to mind other vendetta westerns such as Robert Hossien's Une corde, un Colt (1969) or Pasqule Squitieri's Vendetta è un piatto che si serve freddo (1971).
The focus on the canons and dunes of Allmeria brings to mind very similar scenes from later movies, as do the brilliant white Spanish pueblos against the deep blue of the sky.
Finally, the combinations of close-ups and long shots is particularly effective, giving what is otherwise a good b-movie a sense of scale that it otherwise would lack.
(Note: I am reviewing the letter-boxed, subtitled version that played on SBS in Australia. I suspect that the poor quality that this movie has been released in the past explains the lack of interest in and appreciation of this movie.)
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Ballata per un pistolero (1967)
Minor WAI with interesting commentary on genre
Ballata per un pistolero (1967), which I saw under the title Pistoleros, at first appears to be a rather unremarkable if decently executed Western alla'italiana. As is the case with most of this genre, and perhaps any genre, this film is largely a rehearsal of narrative elements form earlier films that proved resonant with audiences. Here, story elements from Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy, especially For A Few Dollars More (1965), are the sources for most the entire film. However, while director/screenwriter/actor Alfio Catalbiano failed to create much emotional resonance with this movie, his movie provides an interesting and surprisingly self-consciousness commentary on the genre and Leone's films in particular which makes this movie of real interest for fans of the genre.
Catalbiano was not a very prolific director and this was his first effort, which must explain the self-conscious imitation of Leone that is evident through the movie. This awareness of the conventions and phases of the western was nothing new in the WAI in and of itself. The early examples all have a strangely surreal feel to them, they are familiar but something is off in the prominence of certain features or their arrangements. Leone, Tessari, and a few others successfully used this awareness in their ironic re-arrangements. Were the focus had previously been on the American western, in Catalbiano's case the focus seems to have turned to the WAI itself. This would explain the increasing amount of slapstick as well as the outright commentary on the world created in other films of the time. Along with films like Vado... l'ammazzo e torno (1967) this may mark a turning point from the sincerity (if ironic style) of the best WAI to the often unwatchable slapstick westerns that came to dominate the genre after Lo chiamavano Trinità (1970).
Most of the story is a based on For A few Dollars More, with an older "mentor" character Rocco (Anthony Ghidra) competing/cooperating with a younger man Blackie (Angelo Infanti). Costume and style are switched, with the younger man in black with a Colonel Mortimer "look" while the older man is closer to the "Man with no name." Catalbiano himself plays an Indio/Ramon Rojo-type character complete with rifle and amoral detachment. Numerous other elements, from the final showdown to the Allentown bank robbery, all have a suspicious similarity to sequences in FAFDM. The comic barroom brawl in the middle of the movie and the funny prospector "Explosion" all point to other sources, however, and are a little out of step with the rest of the plot. However, there is a character who bears a little resemblance to the Clint Eastwood of the Dollars films who is repeatedly beaten and out-shot in what had to have been a deliberate in-joke.
Catalbiano made good use of arches, depth, and lighting in a manner which betrays his reliance on Leone's style. The first sequences in the film also have the flowing camera movements associated with Leone and they help make what might have been an otherwise dull opening into something a little more interesting.
The most interesting aspect to the film, and one that should have been more fully developed by Catalbiano, was the attitude of the older man, Rocco, to the younger bounty hunter, Blackie. It evolves from disgust to curiosity to concern. Both are "traveling the same road" and this correspondence has the same strange fated, quasi-religious character of other WAI such as Requiescant (1967) where it was used to great satirical effect. The resolution of this element to the relationship is something of a rejection of the surreal comic cynicism of Leone's first two westerns. This is further emphasized by the continued focus on the 'collateral damage" of the violence in the film, as at the ranch or the strange street funeral service that Rocco watches. In fact, there was a great deal of concern with the bystanders in Leone's westerns, especially the later ones, but Catalbiano's focus is much more explicit and has to be understood as a reaction to perceptions of the genre. Blackie's first gunfight recalls Mortimer's in FAFDM, but the ending is very different, very cynical, and funny in light of the earlier film.
Overall, the Ballata per un pistolero is not very emotionally involving, but it has several sequences which are definitely pop-western "cool." Rocco's first gunfight, followed by his use of a piano as a flight of stairs, is unexpected and fun. The usual WAI elements are in place, complete with the hidden symmetries and Gothic family western distortions which are an important, if not often noticed, element of the genre. In particular, the relationships between father/son and brother/brother recurs again and again in these movies. Finally, the movie follows the same liminal plot as most WAI with the near-death and resurrection of the main character Rocco. As in many WAI, this involves a literal crucifixion of Rocco on a bizarre spinning target which the outlaws use for guns, knives and harpoons (In a mine?). For genre fans, this film is recommended. Other viewers would probably be not be interested.
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Johnny Yuma (1966)
One of most satisfying WAI
One of the more satisfying Western all'italiana, Johnny Yuma has the freshness of many WAI made during the heyday of the genre and is highly recommended for fans of the genre or offbeat, intelligent cinema.
Johnny Yuma is, in most respects, not terribly original, but this actually does not count against it. The success of a genre film depends on how well it meets the audience's expectations as well as provides surprising variations on these expected elements. Earlier, pleasing experiences are recreated but with subtle (or major) twist that provide continuing interest. The quality of the execution is also, obviously, important. A tired retread will be less successful than a sincere attempt to entertain or move the audience.
Given these criteria, Johnny Yuma succeeds. There are numerous reprises of elements from earlier films. The setting is the brutal, twisted semi-feudal twilight world of shared by many of the best "Gothic family" westerns made 1964-1968 such as Tempo di massacre (1966). The plot is a combination of the basic Fistful of Dollars (1964) plot and the Ringo films, a fact not surprising as screenwriter Fendiando di Leo was involved in both. Di Leo was one of the best screenwriters in the popular cinema coming out of Cinecitta in the 1960s-70s and his work helped provide much of the thematic continuities and coherency to the genre (Along with a couple of other personalities in a few distinct circles of actors, directors, and screenwriters). In the FOD plot, the protagonist arrives in town, stirs up a tense situation, then undergoes a near-death followed by a resurrection (in some films, like Quella sporca storia nel west (1968) it is quite literally a crucifixion). The Catholic undertone to the narrative and the symbolism is intriguing, especially given the implicit populist/explicit socialist leanings of the filmmakers and their films. The Ringo plot, developed more fully by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi in a series of films starring Guliano Gemma, a egoistic protagonist chooses the interest of a community over his own through the medium of a relationship with a member of that community (with a healthy dash ironic uncertainty).
The relationship between Carradine and Johnny is clearly based on that of Manco/Mortimer from a Fistful of Dollar (1965). The two scene of the exchange of the gun belts provides a clever dialog and understanding between the two. Numerous films, including Da uomo a uomo (1968) or even El Chuncho, quién sabe? (1967), use this relationship between an older and younger man (father/son, older/younger brother, Anglo adviser/adversary and peasant revolutionary) as a central dynamic to the plot.
Additionally, there is the focus on deception and misdirection, mazes and mirrors, that recur throughout the best early WAI. The canons and pueblos of Almeria become literal mazes through which protagonist and antagonist play shifting games of cat and mouse.
What distinguishes Johnny Yuma from other WAI is the quality of director Romolo Guerriri's use of visual/psychological space together arrangement with the script's intelligent mechanisms to forward the plot. Dialogue was never very important to the WAI and often absurdly unintelligible (thought there are exceptions, such as the cynical commentaries in Django (1966) or Faccia a faccia (1967).
Psychological depth of character is created almost entirely through iconic imagery, it's juxtapositions, and it's description of the overall narrative situation. See how the presence of the deadly Samantha is felt during the beating scene watching from the roof or from the background of the action. Or how Johnny strips Samantha and Pedro of their security and confidence in their power through his stealthy invasions of their ranch, hotel, even bedroom (this, again, is a theme from FOD). Finally, note how there is a focus on the search for information. Like many elements, this is borrowed from FOD which was ultimately based on the hard-boiled mystery novel Red Harvest. It is through incidental contacts, wanted posters, overheard conversations, glances out of windows, watches left in the dust, or mistaken identities and movements through the ripples created by the actions of Pedro and Samantha within this surreal and absurd reality that the narrative tacks forward to it's conclusion.
The movie was notable in it's time for what were perceived of as excesses in violence. Of course, these films were hardly more violent than many American westerns. What was different was the psychological intensity of the violence and the causes to which it was attributed, which is to say that it was not the violence but it's meaning that had changed. Johnny Yuma is distinct and interesting in it's use and portrayal of violence and this is another interesting aspect of the film.
What I personally find most interesting about most of this genre is the link it provides to the anonymous, nameless audiences in Italy and Spain to whom these recurrent narratives held some significance and interest. The artifact may have no intrinsic worth in and of itself some flint debitage from a prehistoric site, a shard of cruse pottery, or a moldering piece of leather and rusted metal but it is reference to some nameless presence, lives, that were significant simply because they existed. While Johnny Yuma has intrinsic worth, much of it's interest for me derives from this connection and mystery.
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Starblack (1966)
Goofy Exuberance
A hero wearing a black sheriff's star and in a mask that brings to mind the one worn by the killer in Blood and Black Lace fights for justice against the brutal banker Curry and his gang of killers.
This entertaining Italian western in very much in the mold of the Spanish Zorro movies being made in the late Fifties and early Sixties by Joaquin Marchent, among others. Other early Spaghetti Westerns, like The Last Gun (1964), have a similar plot as these movies were one of the early inspirations for the genre. The western town in Fistful of Dollars was originally built for one of Marchent's Zorro movies. Starblack has the same plot of masked hero v. oppressor and the same goofy exuberance. It is essentially just a series of escalating episodes that consist of Starblack escaping a trap laid for him by Curry (played by Franco Lantieri, who really hams it up). This, of cource, leads to a more elaborate trap and more unlikely escape in typical comic strip or serial style. Later Spaghetti Westerns like the Sabata and Sartana films or God Forgive . . . I Kill Them (1967) have a very similar plot construction which suggests that they belong in the same lineage. Zorro films would continue to be made in Spain and Italy through the Mid-Seventies.
Director Giovanni Grimaldi wrote and directed a number of Franco and Ciccio films, as well as some Toto films, which partially explain the comic tone of Starblack (Sergio Corbucci and Bruno also had similar roots in comedy). He also had a hand in scripting a number of peplum and early horror movies, including Danse Macabre (1964). His only other SW was the good In A Colt's Shadow (All'ombra di una colt) directed earlier the same year. Both movies have the same naïve, 1950s American B-western look to them, though In A Colt's Shadow is by far the more interesting visually.
Robert Woods was one of the stars of the genre, though after the success of My Name Is Pecos, he would usually play darker roles including the memorable performances in cult classics like Blackjack (1968 ) and El Puro (1969) . Having seen these films before Starblack it was strange seeing him play a grinning, lanky, and guitar-playing cowboy. He sang the theme song, which is almost as memorable as Lee Van Cleef's solo for Captain Apache (1971).
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Uno di più all'inferno (1968)
Entertaining, funny small film
This is a very entertaining SW from Giovanni Fago and the prolific western and horror screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi. Fago had collaborated with Gastaldi before on Vengeance Is Mine (1967) and the next year would direct the Tomas Milian vehicle O Cagnaciero!, which points back to the influence on the SW of the Brazilian film Black God White Devil (1964).
A buddy film, the light slapstick of the first half of the film plays well as the rather effeminate gunfighter Johnny King (George Hilton) runs through a number of dangerous situations with a sarcastic grin, fighting off land speculators, sleeping with the sheriff's flame, participating in a barroom fight in drag, in a knock-down drag-out fight in a jail cell, escaping from jail and then concocting an absurd but successful plan to rob a bank. During all this he meets Meredith (played by Paolo Gozlino), a rough but incompetent bandit who meets with surprising success when matched with the clever King.
The comedy darkens, though, when King returns to town after the bank heist to find his former guardian Pastor Steve killed by the land speculators. Then ensues the plot for revenge, which involves absurd methods of murder and torture and a final gunfight reminiscent of the finale to Taste For Killing. King gives up ruffles for black (he had trained in seminary, he claimed at one point) and begins quoting passages from the Bible.
Gerard Hertar is his usual sinister best as the sharp shooting Ernest Ward. He would play a similar role in the riotous Adios Sabata (1970). In the world of the SW, wealthy landowners indulge in the Sadean pleasures of target practice at live targets, almost always human. Besides Adios Sabata and Full House For The Devil, you find similar scenes in Django and The Fighting Fist Of Shanghai Joe.
The film follows the usual SW plot of an arrogant character that takes on more than he can handle, is humbled (beaten, shot, burnt, hung, crucified) before he either changes certain elements of his character or learns the secret (the iron plate in Fistful Of Dollars) necessary to ultimately succeed. Ernesto Gastaldi isolated this basic storyline in most of his westerns and used to again in this film.
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