Happy birthday, Max! 
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Robert Woods wrote the song himself, and had a brief contract as a recording artist on Philips Records, in the mid 60s … don’t think that worked out too well - but he did tell me that while he was in London recording some vocal tracks, he was hanging out with the American cast who were in town making ‘The Dirty Dozen’ … now I just hope he completes his autobiography, because there are a few landmark moments in SW history that happened during this period … like encouraging Charlie Bronson to go to Rome to work with Leone!
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Happy birthday, Max 
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Happy birthday … have a great 20th celebration 
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Day 9
Pray to God…and Dig Your Grave (1968)
Prega Dio… e scavati la fossa - The Spaghetti Western Database (spaghetti-western.net)
This is my first viewing of this one and there really is a lot to like, especially for those that enjoy their spaghettis mean and violent. Starring Robert Woods and directed by Edoardo Mulargia, this one precedes their classic El Puro.
Woods plays Fernando who returns to Mexico after the murder of his brother and sister to avenge their deaths at the hands of a ruthless landowner. He attempts to enlist the help of his old friend Cipriano (Jeff Cameron) to start a revolution, but he turns out to be nothing but an outlaw and proves ultimately to be little more a pain in the ass. While it does have elements of a Zapata, this movie at its core is nothing but a good old-fashioned revenge story.
It also contains a couple of instances of people being buried up to their necks, a classic spaghetti western element that never fails to give me the heebie-jeebies. 
Interestingly, Demofilo Fidani is listed as the producer on this one which explains why Simonetta Vitelli makes a brief appearance as a maid.
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DAY 9:
I tre che sconvolsero il West (1968) - Director: Enzo G. Castellari - 3/10
All the three actors put on great performances and seem to be enjoying themselves whilst playing their respective roles, but other than their jubilance, there appears to be very little in the way of novelty and depth here. This is something you have seen dozens of times before in more or less inspired variations, expect that the variant here features all the usual trademarks of Castellari’s style of directing such as fistfights, acrobatics and action-over-plot content. The issue dwells in that its comedy relies on affected histrionics, which endow the effort with a rather dull, antiquated, jejune appearance, making it feel like a much older production.
Hence, instead of the habitual slapsticks of the latter period of the genre, we simply get cheesy theatrics enacted in the context of its corny dialogues and “funny” skits; the English dubbing in conjuction with Rustichelli’s old-fashioned score only tend to exacerbate and compund the said flaw. While it is still probably preferable to splicing together innumerable slapstick sequences into a single narrative and calling it a day like they would do in the seventies, the final upshot does not prove all that superior and it sorta lapses into slapstick in the end anyhow. It’s hardly anything to write home about really and it gets kinda embarrassing towards the end.
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Jejune ! LOL
Yeah the comedy is poor-ish … but it looks great in it’s locations, costumes and sets etc … I’m wondering why you are concentrating on so many films that you seem to despise ? 
Concentrating? Not really, I am watching the films which I haven’t seen before in order to strike them out of my watchlist and a lot of it simply happens to be bottom of the barrel stuff because I’ve seen most of the good stuff I guess? I ain’t doing any re-watches this year.
I watched a couple of turkeys first to get them out of the way and to focus on “the good stuff”, but a lot of “the good stuff” turned out not so good.
And I don’t really “despise” films unless I rate them 1 or 2 out of ten. No reason to rate them higher if I do not think them to be entertaining.
As for I Came, I Saw, I Shot, I found it very tiresome and juvenile, a lot of its humor is puerile tosh and the story is middling and feels protracted. And locations, costumes and sets are only supplementary as long as there is already a strong backbone to support the composition. There are limits to which I am willing to condone the infantile attitude of some of these productions and the movie exceeded those limits.
I still don’t understand why you would put yourself through the torture of watching something that wasn’t working for you? … I am not defending this particular film, it is only so-so at best, and as someone interested in the genre, I still have a low threshold to pain - meaning, I’ll abandon a ‘Turkey’ within the first 10 minutes rather than suffer the inanity.
I generally have the habit of completing films even if I find them objectionable, not just spaghettis. I will usually turn to doing something else and let them play in the background if they are really tough to get through.
I’ll be taking a short break from the movies for the time being, so why not suffer a couple more. Besides there are some that do get better after a while and patience sometimes does pay off.
In the case of I Came, I Saw, I Shot, I liked its first half well enough, but it just gets so repetitive and banal later on that it was really disappointing, it just peters out in a completely unremarkable way. It feels very much like a one-trick pony, from one fistfight to another, from one cringy skit to another and so effing on. Not that bad, very meh though.
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Fair enough!
I’ve recently tried watching Vamos a matar Sartana and stopped due to the poor quality print, but not because of the film as such. Before that, I don’t remember the last time I stopped watching a movie because it was bad. I sometimes do break them into parts though so that the pain is not too much to bear, I did so with Predator 2.
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Day 9 - “The Man With the Golden Gun” (1966) Alfonso Balcazar
Wow! I didn’t expect such a good western out of this one! Of course it is not among the greatest of the genre but it has all the qualities necessary to make a fun and memorable spaghetti western. The highlight is of course Fernando Sancho and all of the spaghetti flavoured torture he delivers to our good guys and his own men. The ending might be a little too positive but it was still 1965, so it’s easily forgiven.
This is definitely my favorite of the month so far and my second favorite Balcazar, right after “Sonora”. I can’t believe I managed to miss this one all this time.
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Day 7 Between God, the Devil and the Winchester
Day 8 Run, Man, Run
Day 9 The Strangers Gundown
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DAY 9
My Draw at Sundown (actually, way past sundown tonight) produced lucky no.7: Death Rides a Horse (Petroni, 1967), starring the almighty LVC as a bad man trying to atone for the past, and John Phillip Law as an inanimate block of wood with a petulant scowl carved into it. Unfair? Of course, I’m just joking!
Still, you’re all now picturing JPL as an inanimate block of wood. And now, you’re all wondering: What if he was an inanimate block of wood, though? And now you’re all shaking your heads and dismissing the very idea. How silly! But you all paused on the thought that he just might be an inanimate block of wood for a second or two too long, didn’t you? And now, finally, you’re all entertaining the very real possibility that he may well be an actual inanimate block of wood.
You rotters. 
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#8 Valerii: Day of Anger
-Another classic. 8/10
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Day 9
Cemitério Vermelho
Today I’ve decided to rewatch this Portuguese spaghetti western take. It’s a short movie directed by Francisco Laçerda (gore fans save this name), set in Azores islands. It makes homage to the genre, adding lot of gore on it. Imagine The Good, the bad and the ugly if directed by Giulio Questi. That will give you a good ideia. It’s a must. Hopefully this guy gets noticed, I’d like to see in succeed in a larger movie.
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…It truly must be the case
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Spagvember Fest Day 9
Una Colt, in Pugno al Diavolo
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Colt,_in_pugno_al_diavolo,_Una
Rewatch. This is quite the fun little SW, a nice middle of the road Action Western. I agree with @LankyGringo that some aspects of the film are a little over the top, but that’s what makes it so fun and the filmmakers weren’t worrying about total accuracy I think, just looking to make a film fans would enjoy.
The biggest surprise for me was the Confederate Army as the good guys, I’m so used to them being played up as villains, but I imagine they did save towns from bandits and outlaws too.
I was really impressed with George Wang as El Condor, he definitely should’ve gotten to play more lead bad guy parts. A big surprise for me is that El Condor was actually a likable villain as he didn’t treat his woman like dirt and he was a loving father to his son. He was only ever nasty when he had too much to drink.
The Hard Box DVD release isn’t bad in quality at all, though I do have to admit the version I saw on YouTube last time was a little crisper in picture and audio.
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Spagvemberfest 2022
Day 9
The Stranger & the Gunfighter (Margheriti / 1974)
The Kung Fu not so great in this genre hybrid but everything else works pretty well actually and turns out funnier and more enjoyable than you might expect. Plus, I like Lo Lieh enough from his other Hong Kong work to make allowances for him here.
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