Great interviews and well worth reading if any of you havenāt yet.
One of the best things that comes through (and Iāve seen this in a number of interviews with people involved in making films during the spaghetti western era) is how much fun they all had doing it. I think that sense of fun and āseat of the pants filmmakingā is one of the ingredients that shines through these films and is one of the big reasons they are so enjoyable to watch to this day. I wish I could have been there. It always sounds like everyone had such a blast.
I saw this last night and pretty much agree.film is easily watchable, and has some good action scenes. some reviews and members have said that tony anthonyās āstrangerā character is a more sneaky, despicable version of the "man with no name"but i donāt agree with this theory.film does borrow from other SWās but so do many.decent if not particularly memorable SW. will be watching the sequel"the stranger returns"tonight.
If Iām not mistaken all they did was tape the film off TCM (the TCM logo comes up once or twice in each film. AD tries to hide it by cropping the bottom but you can still see the top of the logo).
I like Tony Anthony but this movie is a hopelessly average affair with some creative scenes thrown in (Anthony shooting from under the floor boards and Anthony using a mine cart for cover while rolling it across the town to get closer to his enemy).
The sequel is much better and the third is the best of the series.
The fourth is a silly mess but more entertaining than this one.
Itās better than the sequel. Last scene with coin was amazing! Even I wouldnāt invent something like that. āIām a fair manā 
The thing that I like so much about this is the strictly minimalist approach: You get the feeling that not one extra dime was spent when it didnāt have to be. There are like five interior sets and three exterior locations including the good old sandpit by the Rome airport. Itās like if Sol Lewitt had designed a western this is what it would have looked like ā the starkest outlines with almost no filler material. Even the musical score is like four or five guys in a studio with guitars & a whistle rather than a full blown Bruno Niccolai orchestra. I also agree that itās a stronger film in some ways than the MUCH higher budgeted and rounded out sequel. Probably because itās as dumbed down as possible to just the barest components necessary. There is nothing extra: No unnecessary scenes or characters or cinematic flourishes or even spoken lines, just exactly as much as was needed to create the suggestion of a FISTFUL OF DOLLARS type scenario. Iāll wager most of the cast & crew worked either for free, waived their fees or were simply never paid all so there would be enough to finish the damn movie.
I wonder how the bandit gang was able to kill the soldiers and put on their uniforms without blood stains.
And those blood stains are a bugger to wash out as well - as shown by Giordana in The Dirty Outlaws. He also puts on a dead manās uniform complete with bullet hole under his left arm and with the associated blood caked around it. After being dragged extensively thru the mud and getting completely soaked, we see him all cleaned up for the finale ā¦ scept for that bloodās still there!
Blood, or a lack of it, or indeed of continuity, is one of those ideosyncratic things in SWs, I found it disconcerting once that there is not enough of it to fit in with the violence (Iām thinking Claudio Camasoās white shirt at the end of $10,000 for a Massacre could be doing with a bit more), but Iām not so bothered any more.
It was interesting for me to hear what was recently discussed about those blood-exploding thingies not being around in the 60s - weāre so used to seeing them now.
[Edit: And back on topic - I gave ASIT a healthy 4 (and a bit) outa 5. I really like this one (and the sequel) - but I particularly love the haunting liāl guitar refrain that runs thru this. Excellent āminimalistā sw.]
For my money and not meant as ANY kind of a put-down of the idiom, spaghetti westerns are more like cartoons than traditional Americanized approaches and continuity isnāt as important as the moments themselves. I believe that one of the things that makes STRANGER IN TOWN so effective in spite of itās ultra low budget and shoestring production design is that itās really one extended moment with zero exposition or explanation ā until the very end, that is. There is nothing in the entire film that isnāt necessary for the needs of the experience of viewing it, which is why the term āminimalistā is indeed very apt. By contrast I was watching LONG LIVE YOUR DEATH the other day and while Eli Wallach is brilliant as usual and Franco Nero as smooth as he gets, the film was so overburdened with details that it became annoying after a while, with a smarmy musical score and Lynne Redgrave be-bopping around like some sort of Easter Bunny but without the chocolates. Iām sure itās a fine movie (and will give it another chance when in a different mood) but it was so weighed down with extraneous information that after a while the visceral enjoyment of experiencing the show was overwhelmed by trying to keep track of the details. STRANGER IN TOWN has zero details, itās all just the process of one event leading to the next with the traditional accouterments of the form serving as navigation points that viewers will be familiar with from other examples.
I agree too, that mournful half out of tune guitar theme is very important to the movie, and makes Stelvio Ciprianiās score from RETURN OF THE STRANGER sound a bit overdone.
I thought I had commented about this film ages ago; but, apparently not.
This film is one of my all-time favorites and it is easily in my Spaghetti Western Top 20.
I find the film has a sort of dream-like quality to it.
I like, also, THE STRANGER RETURNS, but I find it a bit too polished, perhaps. It has a lot of great moments and a fabulous musical score (not to mention my favorite Spaghetti Western ābabeā, Silvana Bacci is in itā¦briefly). But, I still prefer watching the first āStrangerā film.
I wonāt comment on THE SILENT STRANGER, because I canāt really make my mind up if I like it or not.
Has anyone seen the Brazilian DVD release of STRANGER IN TOWN? Is it just a rip of the Alpha Digital release?
Not much to add to the above, except to concur that this vicious, shoestring budget Fistful of Dollars rip-off is one of my favourite Spaghettis (I like the sequel too, but the climactic shootout of that one is too preposterous for its own good).
BTW, why are we calling it A Stranger in Town (Yawn-inducing US title) rather than the much more distinctive For a Dollar in the Teeth?
Yeah, I actually prefer the FOR A DOLLAR IN THE TEETH title, too.
For one thing, it is simply a direct translation of the original Italian title; plus, like you have said Extranjero, it is much more distinctive.
My favorite poster for the film is this one from the UK:
What is it youāre trying to embed?
Wellā¦I was trying to fix it, if you would have just given me a chance! 
;D
You have, but apparently on another thread
I remember Phil and I both wrote a review of this film on the same day and that you were one of the first to give a comment
I suppose thereās a second thread for this film, probably under the Italian title (or the translation of it)
Great film, of course, excellent guitar
Hey Chris, just before you fixed it I saw there a poster from The Stranger Returns, but it was too small to read the words.
Could you maybe upload it to the films page in a higher resolution? It looked quite good.
Donāt know if it has been mentioned elsewhere but this one got a new DVD release in Japan a month ago. Italian and Japanese audio with Japanese subtitles. Donāt know about the quality (yet, but hopefully will soon) but there is no way it can be worse than the Alfa Digital bootleg. 
Hey, amigo!
Unfortunately, the image you saw was the only one I have. I will see if I canāt find a higher resolution version. If I do locate one, I will be more than happy to post it here.
The end action scene with the mine cart really makes it for me, probably my favourite Tony Anthony SW. Donāt really like the sequel.
Tony Anthony takes ālaconicā to a new level in this film.
Just finished watching it againā¦and it was a good reunion.
Just watched the copy of this i taped off TCM and was wondering if this had a decent release, but it doesnāt sound as if it does.