Sartana Does Not Forgive / Sartana non perdona / Sonora (Alfonso Balcázar, 1968)

This was from SBS which is a channel in Australia which specialises in non-English content aimed at migrants from other countries so was most likely shown in Italian or Spanish. I used to watch this channel a lot when I lived in OZ back in the 80s. It was the best channel on TV. Full of foreign language films and the only place to see proper football. Usually Serie A

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After a second watching Sartana Does Not Forgive/Sonora felt more entertaning. The revenge story is just a little bit more complex than in the straight forward Wrath Of God which was my last new SW experience before this one.

As many have pointed out above it is a nice tight atmosphere and the leading characters played George Martin (born Francisco Martínez Celeiro), Jack Elam and Gilbert Roland (born Luis Antonio Damaso de Alonso) reduce the otherwise cheap look. The flash back scenes look very amateurish, not uncommon though in C-type SWs.

So the mood is suitable without any obvious comedy and no barroom brawls.
I rate it as another (weak) 6/10 to by a small margin qualify for my own SW Top list (in spite of that the bad image quality on my DVD-R might have influenced my opinion, but I tried to neglect that).

Whoa, I want to confess that Sartana Does Not Forgive is a good example for me that after a rather reserved first impression, this basically simple revenge SW gets successively better for me each time.
I now get slightly more entertained also than from Vengeance, El Rojo (and as before than from Wrath Of God and Vengeance Is My Forgiveness) , all 6/10, due to the actually (as I now remember the others) more complex plot, tighter mood and 3 good leading actors.
Maybe because of the low image quality I get a touch of film noir feeling, such as in Bogarth movies although with a slower tempo and sparse dialogue. The obvious borrowing from the Leone’s dollar trilogi just amuses me but overall the atmosphere is a bit more dark and serious.
The music by Francesco De Masi is mostly very good.

But still it is a 6/10 after 3 watchings, although higher ranking in my Top SW list. (x is for DVD-Rs in my collection which thus was heavily expanded earlier this year with scarce SWs in DVD-R format)

x72 Vengeance Is Mine/$100,000 for a Killing (Giovanni Fago) 1967
x73 Death Played the Flute /Requiem For A Bounty Killer/Requiem for a Bounty Hunter (Angelo Pannaccio) 1972
x74 Sartana Does Not Forgive/Sonora (Alfonso Balcázar) 1968
x75 Vengeance (Antonio Margheriti ) 1968
x76 Bandidos (Massimo Dallamano) 1967

A little gem is what it is! I do agree that it’s a film that grows on you with repeated viewings. What version did you watch? I believe there is a Spanish TV print with English subtitles, and then of course the German DVD with the terrible subtitles.

Yes that’s the one. In spite of living in Spain part of the year I nearly first didn’t observe the to some extent understandable language spoken, being more used to (not so understandable) Italian audio with English subtitles in some SWs :slight_smile: .

As many other lesser known interesting SWs this one also deserves an official release in at least normal DVD quality (in stead of many re-releases in the specific cases of some other SWs with similar entertainment value).

One possible weakness of this SW I forgot to mention is the lack of a beautiful woman as a prominent character, such as Rosalba Neri (who actually is present in the film only a minute or so), Nicoletta Machiavelli or Pilar Velasquez !

There is some chance that Wild East will release this sometime in the future, the very rare English audio version that is.

I watched it this evening, maybe for the 4th or 5th time, and have up-ranked it to 52th place on my SW Top list.
Regarding the mood and atmosphere it is comparable to Vengeance For Vengeance. No comedy.

Both could be worth a good quality DVD or Bluray release.

x50 Vengeance For Vengeance/Revenge for Revenge (Mario Colucci) music Angelo Lavagnino 1968
51 A Pistol For Ringo (Duccio Tessari) 1965
x52 Sartana Does Not Forgive/Sonora (Alfonso Balcázar) Francesco De Masi 1968
53 Mannaja/A Man Called Blade (Sergio Martino) 1977
54 Face To Face (Sergio Sollima) music Ennio Morricone 1967

Sonora has been updated to the new layout (3.0). Let us know if you can add anything: pictures, posters, trivia, facts, figures, links, etc…

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New poll, top of the page under the original post! :arrow_up:

Here is the trailer with English dub, under the South African title - Three Gun Showdown

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Lack of originality notwithstanding, the film just exudes a distinctly spag atmosphere, greatly benefitting from Balcazar’s assured direction, hefty characterization and the very strong trio of lead actors.

Though the flick constitutes no multifaceted character study, each of the male leads has a backstory of some kind, meaning each of them turns out more or less memorable which is a most welcome factor in a straightforward genre work of this sort.

Even if the storyline is hardly anything fancy and it is easy to figure out whither it is going to proceed, it is not too shabby either and feels sufficiently fleshed out, making for a pretty immersive and gratifying film-viewing experience, especially in light of project’s super-optimized pacing. This is a mellow sort of offering; though there are not too many surprises here, the movie still excels owing to it being extremely well consolidated.

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What disappointed you concerning the box set?

That’s a 15 years old post and does not refer to the Arrow box set. Probably some Pubic Domain bargain bin release?

Probably the cancelled Wild East Sartana box set.

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