The fistfight is okay, and with this fateful blow in mind, it’s even exciting. Like I said, some of these blows look dangerously close
It’s simply not a good film. It’s nicely shot and there are a few good scenes, but overall it’s more Sauerkraut than Spaghetti, more Karl May than Leone, and some of these German movies were better; I also think Lex Barker (Shatterhand) was the better actor, especially for these type of heroes. Barker played Tarzan too, if I’m not mistaken.
Don’t mind traditional B western style films so had no problems with this one despite it being hokey in the extreme in places. Some of the dialogue is laugh out loud bad but what the heck. It’s pure Saturday matinee stuff and, taken as that, it’s perfectly adequate.
I tend to agree with Scherp’s summary however in that it is similar in style to the German Winnetou films but not actually as good. Beautifully shot for the most part though and not short of action. Pretty much non stop for the first 25 minutes.
[quote=“Phil H, post:64, topic:1544”]Yes, but don’t worry sartana1968, you’ll still be asleep after half an hour. ;D
Gets quite talky after that.[/quote]
yes??? don’t wory i prepared a bed ;D ;D
Thanks. I had read these info before, but forgotten about it.
By the way: I had already changed the text a little. I keep this quote from Costa. I like this confusion, it adds to the fun. The film isn’t that special, but some of the stories are quite nice.
Well never much of a fan from this previous Dollars Django euro westerns, and never Knew those Winnetou films existed until I found these site, and this film could be more near a Winnetou film than a spag.
But no very classic american western calvary and Indians stuff, the problems with copies is that they tend to be worst than the original, and well yes not a great “western spaghetti” no bounty hunter, no revenge plot no federales only a man on a mission by the president himself, how many good Samaritans were in real pure blooded western spaghetti, not many.
So a waste of time, actually not all bad, good production values (it seems they still had money back in 1963 or 1964 for this stuff), and the photography work is pretty good (didn’t watch a widescreen copy). The problem is the story a bit boring, and that is what makes the difference in these films. Reading Scherp’s review,I can understand Costa frustration towards Leone, the was doing films for years and then this young guy comes out of nowhere takes an idea from a Japanese film only French critics had seen and makes a real good SW, something he never did.
So why did I’ve seen this one, with still so many good and relevant spags to see, well because of Catherine Ribeiro, she’s a French folk singer very relevant in the sixties and seventies (often compared with Nico cause of her voice), I have a few records from her, solo and with the Alpes (the band she played with in late sixties), she’s of course from Portuguese origin (Ribeiro a regular name here, means small creek), her parents immigrated to France after WWII, in a time that immigration to France was not yet very common. Her folk music was very avant-guard for the time, a mix of folk with and prog with old rural music.
She made only a few films, one with Godard “Les Carabinieri”, so I was surprise t see her here, maybe cause of her looks, she could be a lookalike native american or Squaw.
Her music is far much better than her acting, so stick with her records
A re-watch. Enjoyed watching it more this second time around. It’s a fairly decent early western with a familiar story, good amount of action sequences and it’s well filmed IMO. It also helps that (Gordon Scott) was up for the task and energetic as ‘Buffalo Bill’, which it shows in the final climax in a good knife fight with an Injun. Better than some of the Winnetou films IMO.
Is anyone recording it on movies4men right now? I’m only able to tape it on VHS since my DVD recorder is broken. It’s a shame since the widescreen print is excellent.
Just gave this a watch and really enjoyed it. The dubbing is a bit corny with the Indians but the action makes up for it. There’s plenty of battles, gunfights and punch ups in this! I was a bit reluctant to watch it since I thought it would be very similar to Seven Hours of Gunfire. It turned out to be much better. If you like 1950s-style cavalry and Indian films, you should enjoy this. It’s a pity it doesn’t have a decent release. Hopefully it gets a Blu-ray.
I really liked it too, in fact much better than Mario Costa’s second Western, La belva. As mentioned in this thread, Buffalo Bill, l’eroe del Far West is a naïve, lovingly made movie, reminiscent of the Winnetou films and steeped in visual quotations from its American precedents. Among its cast and crew are some (at least for Spaghetti Western connoisseurs) familiar names, including film composer Carlo Rustichelli, actors Mirko Ellis, Andrea Scotti, Piero Lulli and Mario Brega, director of photography Massimo Dallamano, assistant director Gianfranco Baldanello, and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi (according to Kevin Grant [p. 66], Buffalo Bill was the first feature-length Western written by Gastaldi).
What everybody knows anyway
Baldanello later directed a slew of Westerns, Black Jack maybe the best among them, Dieci bianchi uccisi da un piccolo indiano maybe the worst. Dallamano shot Per un pugno di dollari and Per qualche dollaro in più for Leone and directed fan-favorite Bandidos in 1967. Rustichelli wrote the music for a score of Westerns; among his most remarkable works are his compositions for Giuseppe Colizzi’s Hill-Spencer trilogy, in particular his opening piece reminiscent of “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in Dio perdona … io no!, and his eclectic score between jazz and circus music for La collina degli stivali. Costa himself directed over thirty feature films, of which I have seen only three so far, his two Westerns and La Venere dei pirati (1960), starring Gianna Maria Canale, Scilla Gabel and Moira Orfei.
lol, that guy ,i read his book , its good for american titles , found lots of mistakes . i thought i was the only one who thought he was half ass, (wait can you say ass on here?) whats funny is i have seen people (critics) give him praises on the book. now that is that funny. ANYWAYS …
Based on Costa’s comment this might not have been shot until August/September 1964. He says they were ‘ready to shoot’ in March and then got held up. He doesn’t say they started then did he? (By the way I agree that he’s made a mistake and must mean 1964)
Dellamano can’t have filmed this and Fistful at the same time so my guess would be that it didn’t start in March and Dellamano went off to shoot Fistful and then shot this afterwards - hence it was finished about 2 months after Fisful (as Fisftful took 2 months to shoot). I reckon the 6 months could well be an exaggeration and this could have been filmed as early as June or July.
It’s pretty much a Winnatou movie and includes superfluous characters added to fulfil German and French co- production requirements. I assume it was filmed in Italy and Yugoslavia. Several IMDB reviews refer to Spanish extras but this doesn’t have any Spaniards in the cast and no Spanish co production money.
I saw the Italian print which credited only Martino snd Stesa as the writers. It’s currently free to view on Amazon Prime UK - in their print the sound goes out of synch with the visuals by about 1s-2s in the last reel!
One of the few Italian westerns to get a U (Universal) rating from the UK BBFC. They rated it in Feb 1965 before the Italian release. They removed the scene in which Hendricks slaps Ribeiro around in a cave for the U but it is present in the Prime print.
