I doubt that there are any scenes which were shot in Almeria. All these ultra cheap SWs were made completely in Italy. Same goes for the 2nd Stranger film, as far as I know, and as far as I can judge the locations.
The few outdoor scenes were all shot in a gravel pit, the poorest landscape ever used in a western. Except for these scenes the cheapness of the film is not a problem, the story doesnāt demand for more than a few locations and a handful of extras.
Nearly everything of Scherpās review could also be said about The Stranger Returns.
You should bundle your reviews in a book, scherpschutter. Good stuff.
On the film: I think itās pretty weak and lacks the kinetic energy present in most other spaghetti westerns. It is indeed very minimalistic and I donāt think thatās a good thing here. In my opinion itās merely an unoriginal snoozefest with Frank Wolff forming the only point of interest.
Theyāre due a rewatch, but I really like the first two Stranger films. They do it for me. I particularly rate Frank and the haunting music from the first, and the opening of the second where Pussy is scared of a rabbit is genius.
Never seen āin Japanā but have it (taped of the tele) somewhere. I even like Get Mean, but it is getting very silly by then!
Great reviews again from scherp and Phil!! Funny - you never see 'em both together ā¦
This is one of my absolute favorites of the genre. I love the minimalist aspects of the production (completely shot in Italy)āand the dream-like/nightmarish atmosphere.
I am often the odd man out on this, but I think that A STRANGER IN TOWN is the best of Tony Anthonyās films (with BLINDMAN perhaps tying it, or at the very least being a close second).
The follow-up film, THE STRANGER RETURNS, has much better production values (thanks to the success of the first film in the USA)ā¦but, it isnāt anywhere near as tightly wrapped a package as the first.
I like THE STRANGER RETURNS very muchābut, it meanders just a little too much.
Are you absolutely sure it was entirely shot in Italy?
Giusti says in his DIZIONARIO that some scenes were shot in Almeria, but Stanton thinks this is rather unlikely
I love both the films but I liked Stranger returns alot more. While A stranger in town was definitely above average, when I watched stranger returns I got the impression that I was watching greatness. Phil H and Scherp, great reviews both of you!
Positive, amigo. I am not sure about the second Stranger movie, though. Some of it might have been shot in Spain. But, none of UN DOLLARO TRA I DENTI wasāand precisely for the reasons stanton states in his post (i.e., not enough of a budget to allow for shooting outside of Italy).
Iāve checked what Brucknwer writes, and he says Italy for both Stranger films.
There were only 7 months between the releases of both, and if you take into consideration that Un dollaro tra i denti did only low at the italian box office, it seems unlikely that the sequel got a higher budget.
For those interested issues 27 and 29 of Tom Bettās excellent fanzine Westerns AllāItaliana contains a large interview with Tony Anthony and friends where there is a lot of talk about the production of the Stranger-movies: http://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Westernsā¦_All%27Italiana!
[quote=āstanton, post:34, topic:84ā]Iāve checked what Brucknwer writes, and he says Italy for both Stranger films.
There were only 7 months between the releases of both, and if you take into consideration that Un dollaro tra i denti did only low at the italian box office, it seems unlikely that the sequel got a higher budget.[/quote]
My understanding is it did badly at the italian box office but much better in the U.S. Which is where it was aimed at largely I believe.
Yes, thatās what I read everywhere: both Hughes and Giusti say the film did very well in the US, and an Italian site calls it āa box-office failure at home, but a great success everywhere else in the world.ā
It might seem unlikely, but it did.
Bill Connolly of SPAGHETTI CINEMA told me that Tony Anthony said the budget doubled from the first film to the second allowing them to have more variety in the sets and, most importantly, more girls!
Anthony said the reason for the doubling of the budget was because the first Stranger film did so well in the States.
Keep in mind most of the money for these 2 films came from American sources. As I understand it, Anthony and his crew were already shooting the second feature when the budget was doubled due to the success of A STRANGER IN TOWN in America. So, I donāt think the Italian box office figures were a deciding factor, one way or the other.
I remember checking the release dates on the IMDB one time and getting a big laugh at the data there. They have the first two Stranger films being releasedāin the USA-- pretty much at the same time in 1968!
I know for a fact that the first one came out in early 1967 (Tom Betts can back me up on this, I bet!) because I remember it showing at theaters in Oklahoma City (plus all of the promotional material I have collected for this film has the date of release as 01/1967).
The second Stranger film was released, in the USA, in the latter quarter of 1968 (though it was, as you say stanton, released only 7 months after the first one in Italy).
Since the first Stranger film was shot and released within one monthāgive or take a day or twoāI donāt see any problem with that small 7 month gap. These films were made fast (and furiously) in those days.
āedited for mass quantities of spelling errors!ā