It's a long time since I watched this one. An OK time-waster, I was just expecting something more from the cast and the screenwriter who had done some quality horror like HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON if I remember correctly. I liked the music and theme song (love him or hate him but Marcello Giombini wrote incredibly catchy tunes) and also some characters like the aforementioned crippled outlaw leader. Otherwise it was one of Gianni Garko's lesser westerns, down there with BAD MAN'S RIVER I'd say. (What's the problem with Spanish directors and westerns?) The comedy elements were mostly THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY type backstabbing jokiness, not very funny though.
Like you said, an OK pastime.
The genre was over its peak in those days, and it shows. Nor the director, nor the screenwriter seem to know exactly whether it should be a straightforword spaghetti, or a comedy type one. As a result it's not really funny, nor really exciting, but most amigos will want to ride along nonetheless. The italian title is a fake, but an inventive one: Lo irritarono ... e Santana fece piazza pulita. In english: They irritated him ... and Santana made clean slate. So not Sartana, but Santana. This was misread by international distributors, so the whole world did what the germans were doing for quite some time: putting a famous name in the title of a movie that didn't feature the character.
Completely forgot that Garko was in Bad Man's River, only remembered Lee & La Lollo.
Any freudians here?
Spanish directors: until recently, I had the same idea, but then I saw EL PRECIO DE UN HOMBRE, a Spanish dominated western (so more paella than spaghetti), but not bad at all, certainly not bad at all ...
