Day 20: Adios Gringo
Rewatch. Beginning to feel this is one of the better spaghetti westerns that well mixed an American and Spaghetti style. Handsomely mounted within a classical framework but with bursts of sudden violence and style.
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I love that packaging design! Wrapped chipboard(?), like modern hardback book. Is it a DVD? Part of a box set, or series from the same publisher, in similar casing?
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Spagvemberfest 2025
Day 19
Clumsy Hands (R.R. Marchent / 1970)
One of PLL’s best performances I think in a tragic love story of revenge and bitter futility. A Spanish/Italian co-production apparently but this one is entirely Spanish as far as I can see. Hadn’t seen it in years and was an enjoyable revisit.
9 Likes
Spagvemberfest 2025
Day 20
The Challenge of McKenna (Klimovsky / 1970)
It’s taken me a few days but I’ve finally caught up and am back on track for the month. Hdn’t seen this one in a while so thought I’d give it in a spin and it didn’t disappoint. Still a thoroughly enjoyable if not exceptional low budget, gravel pit anchored Italian western. I just wish I had a better copy of it on disc. I daresay there is a nice print of it available online somewhere but all three versions I have at home are poor quality VHS rips. Ah well.
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What a pleasant surprise that my timing for diving back into spaghetti has coincided with Spagvemberfest. At the invitation of Admin, am cross-tracking this journey here. Unless otherwise noted, these have all been first-time watches for me…
Watch 01: And God Said to Cain…
Visually striking path of vengeance; with all the fat cut away (for better or for worse).
Favorite Scene: bell tower drop
Biggest Nitpick: the mouth sounds of the wacky trader, in both of the dubs I watched
Full thoughts: And God Said to Cain / E Dio disse a Caino … (Antonio Margheriti, 1970) - #180 by Plem
Watch 02: A Stranger in Paso Bravo
A much more humanized, rounded (if ultimately less distinct) telling of the same tale later seen in Cain. The two are super interesting to watch as a pair.
Favorite Scene: when the trader shows up for his …and my axe moment before the finale
Biggest Nitpick: feels a lot longer than it is, maybe with one too many side characters
Full thoughts: A Stranger in Paso Bravo / Uno straniero a Paso Bravo (Salvatore Rosso, 1968) - #64 by Plem
Watch 03: Kill Them All and Come Back Alone
An almost comic book-ishly designed motley crew of a cast, with a very fun level of camp.
Favorite Scene: that first raid, punctuated by the character introductions
Biggest Nitpick: doesn’t feel like it fully delivers on the promise of its setup, leaving some of the main cast under-defined/under-utilized
Full thoughts: Kill Them All and Come Back Alone / Ammazzali tutti e torna solo (Enzo G. Castellari, 1968) - #134 by Plem
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Hi there,
the Johnny Hamlet release is a Mediabook Blu Ray/DVD combo from Explosive Media, a German/Austrian/Swiss company. Think of a slightly smaller presentation of a regular book. I imported it a couple years ago. It’s very good quality in both packaging and restoration/presentation. It’s still available I believe if you’re interested. It’s English friendly both in language and subtitle options.
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I watch A Pistol for Ringo every Thanksgiving, my new tradition of kicking off the holiday season.
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Stuff I’ve watched during Spagvemberfest 2025 so far:
Ringo, It’s Massacre Time - 4/10
God Does Not Pay on Saturday - 7/10
My Name Is Pecos - 8/10
Django the Last Killer - 7/10
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The soundtrack is amazing. This entry in the series as well as the first are definitely my favorite films featuring Sartana.
Great commentary, thanks for sharing! Some of the great films like the Dollars Trilogy really become part of our DNA I feel, if we find them in formative years. I got a DVD of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly around 2006 as a Christmas gift from a very cool parent, and it forever changed my taste in movies.
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#15 1968 - Vengeance
Rewatch. A robbery goes wrong and gangmates sadistically turn on each other. Jokko realizes that some are more innocent than others, and sets off on a path of VENGEANCE.
As @Grinder mentioned it has elements of the gothic, which is my other genre love. Mendoza (the former gang leader) dashes around with his white cloak and cane, a sort of scabby-faced inverse Mr. Hyde–who happens to live in a cave reminiscent of the Phantom of the Opera (I think of the brilliant 1962 Hammer version by Terence Fisher that has the best subterranean layer, IMO.)
There is blood and torture a bit beyond the norm, and a gimmick showdown at a bar table that’s so corny and fun, just what you want from a B-movie. It’s been a few years, so thank you @Gingerbread80 for the recommendation.
For various reasons I also ended up rewatching two of my favorite American westerns this week that each have elements of the spaghetti vibe. I’m sure everyone here has seen Django Unchained, but Rango is totally worthwhile and has a lot to offer if you like 1) the hero’s journey 2) Once Upon a Time in the West and 3) Chinatown.
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I’m glad you gave Vengeance a watch 
! I hope it delivered as with the dark and brutal. I decided to rewatch it again late last night too. I needed to see Harrison’s performance as the rageful Jocko Barrett. It was too fun watching him come to the town bar and dispense with the conventional niceties that other SW anti-heroes follow as strangers in a suspicious town. No genteel everyone sizes everyone else up chitchat over whiskey and poker. Just a nice kick to the throat with a broken glass bottle.
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Day 20: A Man Called Gringo (1965) Directed by Roy Rowland. Starring Gotz George, Alexandra Stewart, Helmut Schmid, Daniel Martin, Seighardt Rupp, and Pietro Tordi. A paella with bratwurst (Spanish/West German production) SW that was early enough to still have an American look and feel. The movie should have been called A Man Called Mace since Gringo is not the protagonist like the title suggests. A stranger named Mace Carson (George) arrives in a small, corrupt town run by an ill-tempered lawyer named Ken Denton (Schmid) on behalf of a paraplegic cattleman, Sam Martin(Tordi). Mace is made sheriff after he beats up drunken cowboys who work for Denton and Martin at a bar. He also becomes the love interest of Lucy Walton (Stewart), who owns land with her brother Dave. Land that is coveted by Denton/Martin. Their father had been murdered by Gringo (Martin), Reno (Rupp) and other former criminals turned cowboys working for Team Denton/Martin. There’s some back story about cattleman Sam Martin having a long lost son. It all becomes confusing because the movie is very short at barely 70 minutes in length. Plus it seems like the screenplay was originally written to have Gringo as the protagonist. However, the character’s criminal past and his villainous behavior on behalf of Denton and Martin caused the writers to shift hero status to the character, Mace Carson. The one take away from the movie is that Spanish actor Daniel Martin and German actor Seighardt Rupp were both in A Fistful of Dollars the year before. Rupp plays Esteban Rojo and Martin plays Marisol’s peon husband. Rating: 1/5.
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SPAGVEMBER FEST 2025
Day 20
I Lunghi Giorni della Vendetta (1967)
Rewatch.
This is an engaging, fun, and compelling SW that has the distinction of running 122 minutes. Not too many of the non Sergio Leone entries went these running times, but the direction, screenplay, cinematography, and acting make the length work fantastically,
Giuliano Gemma does an excellent job in one of his rare non smart-ass parts, playing Ted Barnett with surprising depth and compassion. Sent to a military run prison camp for a murder he didn’t commit, of his own father no less, Barnett is determined to get out and get revenge against the two men who put him there. Gemma does joke a little in his one attempt to expose the baddies that works. It’s weird that Renato Izzo and not Pino Locchi dubbed Gemma though.
Spanish actors Francisco Rabal and Conrado San Martin do excellent jobs as the main villains of the film. San Martin plays Mr. Cobb, a land grabber with designs to become a despot in the Southern States. The Barnett land apparently would compete his plan and had the elder Barnett killed and the son framed for the act. Learning the son has escaped, Cobb gets desperate and his plans start to crack. Rabal plays Sheriff Joe Douglas, Cobb’s partner in crime who killed Ted Barnett’s father and planted the evidence to frame him. Douglas has no regrets of dishonoring his badge and office and will do anything to keep it a secret.
Nieves Navarro, the Spanish beauty of the genre, plays a very different kind of character in Dolly Douglas. Once deeply in love with Ted Barnett, but for reasons of her own married Sheriff Douglas after Ted was framed, Dolly seems to have this interesting dichotomy in knowing the truth about what happened, but uncertain of what to do.
My only complaint with Navarro’s character is that she’s too delicate and passive, letting herself get slapped around. A real Navarro character would’ve had a small pistol or knife hidden under her dress and dangled it near those guys throats or privates if they tried putting their hands on her.
A well made longer SW that’s finally being seen properly in all its glory.
4.5/5
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Zapata Time!
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Corbucci: Companeros
-One of my favorites. Maybe a bit sloppy at times but mostly just perfect combination of action, some comedy with great cast and inspiring music. I especially love the whole ending where Corbucci really shows his action directing skills. I’ve alway felt that Corbucci was the godfather of the whole Rambo-style 80’s action films, you know those “one guy with the machine gun vs an army” action films. 9/10 -
Tessari: Long Live Your Death
-Eh, so what went wrong here? We have basically very similar film to Companeros but I find it just mostly irritating film. Franco Nero plays his usual selfish and arrogant character but this time he’s also very irritating as is Lynn Redgrave. Wallach does ok but rather routine bandit role. Comedy is just too silly and there isn’t much anything new to offer to Zapata film conventions. 4/10
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This sounds great. Have added it to my queue!
Thanks for the info on mediabooks earlier, btw. I hadn’t seen any before this thread, but I’ve read up on them, and see that they’ve become common, especially in some regions.
1 Like
Previous Watches: 01–03
Watch 04: Dead Men Don’t Count
Enjoyably charismatic energy between Steffan and Damon.
Favorite Scene: dinner with the gal’s family
Biggest Nitpick: tonal whiplash following that family’s death
Full thoughts: Dead Men Don’t Count / ¿Quién grita venganza? (Rafael Romero Marchent, 1968) - #82 by Plem
Watch 05: A Train for Durango
Humor and quirkiness that’s right up my alley.
Favorite Scene: I want to say the big, visual gags as the gang tries to open the safen; but really it’s that final stand-off between Steffan and Damon that takes the win.
Biggest Nitpick: …none(?) I think it really nails the humor, pacing, and everything spot-on.
Full thoughts: A Train for Durango / Un treno per Durango (Mario Caiano, 1968) - #108 by Plem
Watch 06: Django the Bastard
A serviceable watch with a few memorable visuals, elevated by a riveting villain portayal.
Favorite Scene: …either when them corpses came riding back to town, strung up on crosses strapped to their horses, or when the brother’s got Django strung up by his neck, in the church.
Biggest Nitpick: Steffan’s too pretty here for this role. Not a casting problem, but hair/makeup/character design could have done more to support the presence the script seems to want him to have.
Full thoughts: The Stranger’s Gundown / Django il bastardo (Sergio Garrone, 1969) - #304 by Plem
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Spagvemberfest 2025
Day 21
Roy Colt & Winchester Jack (Bava / 1970)
Have this one included in a Region 1 Bava box set and haven’t watched it in a long time so thought it was due a revisit. Not the worst comedy western I’ve seen and Marilu Tolo adds value but it is of course not great. I am fond of Brett Halsey so I’m willing to make allowances but there was obviously a reason I hadn’t watched this in such a while.
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Day 21: Face to Face
Another one I somehow haven’t seen yet scratched off. Another very good one.
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Day 21: Navajo Joe (1966) Directed by Sergio Corbucci. Starring Burt Reynolds, Aldo Sambrell, Nicoletta Machiavelli, Pierre Cressory (aka. Peter Cross), Cris Huerta, and Fernando Rey. A Navajo bounty hunter named Joe (Reynolds) goes after a racist, half-breed scalp hunter named Duncan (Sambrell) and his gang after his woman is murdered and scalped. In the process, Joe must contend with the fall out from the ending of Duncan’s dysfunctional business relationship with the racist white townsfolk of nearby Esperanza.
Though Burt Reynolds disavowed himself from Navajo Joe and it was panned by film critics of the day after it’s release, I think it has stood the test of time as one of Corbucci’s best movies. It not only exposed the ugly historical fact that the American west was won in no small part to genocide against Native Americans. Through the half-Indian/half-white character Duncan (played powerfully by Aldo Sambrell) we see the no less ugly lifetime psychological effects of white racism on someone born in both racial worlds and hated in both. The only sense of value Duncan has is by scalping Indians (people who had done nothing wrong to him) and selling the scalps to whites. People who Duncan hated as much as Indians. I almost feel sorry for him accept for the fact that he chose to identify with his white oppressors and is a vile racist who murders innocent Native people, like Joe’s lady friend.
I don’t think Navajo Joe would be the same without the Ennio Morricone soundtrack. Especially the theme song that thunderously drum beats throughout the movie. Rating: 4.5/5.
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