$100,000 for Ringo (1965) (orig. Centomila dollari per Ringo) - Director: Alberto de Martino - 4/10.
Even if the movie looks and unfolds more or less in the way you would expect from a proper production, entertaining on the superficial level by virtue of its deft action sequences, consistent pacing, Harrison’s handy performance, Nicolai’s lush score and generally polished design, its story does not make a whole lot of sense. The project was clearly meant to cash in on the success of Tessari’s Ringo series, to which film’s title and narration’s oblique reworking of some of the themes attest; the work touches upon the motif of postwar lawlessness roiling the country apart from portraying racial divisions and clashes between co-existing groups. The composition never jells because the meaning of Harrison’s character here remains continually obscure: everybody in the territory keeps mistaking him for somebody who reportedly got killed in the Civil War, yet he maintains that he is somebody else altogether. Notwithstanding, he openly challenges the deceased person’s adversaries and performs the actions which the deadman would most likely do were he alive after all, helping the local tribe of Indians whilst simultanously trying to swindle a gun smuggler trading with a Mexican officer. It is never clarified whether he genuinely acts selflessly or if he merely uses the Indians to get his own way, solely paying lip service to lofty moral values. All these question marks and inadvertent ambiguities ultimately add up to one befuddling storyline to say the least, considerably denting pic’s internal logic and psychology. All the aforementioned is addtionally soured by the superlatively corny ending pontificating about interracial harmony with Harrison resolving to play father for the deadman’s kid. This is hardly a disaster, though it proves surprisingly underwhelming considering its big success at the box office back in the day.