Fun little SW that mixes lightheartedness and seriousness in a nice blend. A well dressed gunslinger in all white finds himself in the middle of a Mexican Revolution, aiding an eccentric fair minded leader and his daughter to overthrow a despot.
Gianni Garko is a delight as always a suave Sartana like character in Spirito Santo with similar gadgetry and tricks. Cris Huerta is a load of fun as his sidekick Carranza who gets a little cartoonish at spots.
x33 Vengeance For Vengeance/Revenge For Revenge (Mario Colucci) music Angelo Lavagnino 1968 34 Ramon The Mexican (Maurizio Pradeaux) music Felice Di Stefano 1966 (especially for the music)
35 Death Sentence (Mario Lanfranchi) 1968
59 Django The Bastard/The Stranger’s Gundown (Sergio Garrone) 1969 60 Yankee (Tinto Brass) 1966 (mostly for its unusual entertaining story) 61 Navajo Joe (Sergio Corbucci) music Ennio Morricone 1966
Django the Bastard and Navajo Joe indeed are possible future “upgrades” for me
21 My Name Is Pecos (Maurizio Lucidi) music Coriolano Gori 1966
x22 Blood River/Ten White Men and One Little Indian (Gianfranco Baldanello) music Piero Umiliani 1974 x23 Awkward Hands (Rafael Romero Marchent) music Antón García Abril 1970
x24 Challenge Of The Mackennas/Badlands Drifter/Amen/A Dollar and a Grave (León Klimovsky) music Francesco De Masi 1970
x25 Pistoleros/Ballad Of A Gunman (Alfio Caltabiano) music Marcello Giombini 1967
26 The Return Of Ringo (Duccio Tessari) music Ennio Morricone 1965
It is difficult to motivate the exact order of course when you love them all so much in spite of sometimes need for better DVD/Bluray realeases
This is a pretty dang good mid tier SW that mixes the search for gold and the taking down of the town despot. There’s also a really good twist and a surprising ending as well. Giuliano Carnimeo, known more as a tongue in cheek styled director in the genre, is surprisingly effective in this played straight entry, and still works in some of his unique cinematography and angle shots.
George Hilton and Walter Barnes make for a fabulous duo in Lord and Bull. Hilton is the calm, cool and steely eyed member of the team, and Barnes offers up some comic touches while also being a solid badass character.
Horst Frank is his usual slimy villainy best in the part of Jason Forester. That he wears white is an interesting touch as this guy has no redeeming qualities at all. The scene where Hilton and Barnes parade him around town tied up while Frank laughs maniacally is a really effective one.
A solid mid level genre entry very well worth fans viewing time.
I’ve already seen this Leone beauty, but started watching it again last night with a couple of bottles of wine…
I’m so completely taken with this film now, that I kept re-playing certain scenes, if only to savour how beautiful and complete it looks now.
There are two things that have always bothered me, though…after seeing Clint looking the worse for wear after being beaten up in ‘Fistful’, it seems strange that here we have Manco and Mortimer receiving the same rough treatment, (having the crap beaten out of them) with barely a bruise to show for it…
Also…when Manco arrives in ‘El Paso’, the boy (Antonio Ruiz) points to the bank, “that is the bank”, but we don’t actually have a shot showing the bank…why, I wonder?
Anyway…I only got half-way through the film, before succumbing to the wine, cheese and crackers!
In principle nothing special but Gianni Garko and William Bogart are a good couple and Maria Silva ist eye candy even her character ist difficult here😉 Some scenes are very harsh and German Dub is far over the top…Not from this world😂
German Blu Ray with OK quality a bit better than old DVD.
Rewatch. A Union veteran of the Civil War appears on the horizon, dragging a coffin behind him, and intervenes in a border dispute between racist ex-confederates, Mexican revolutionaries, and Mexican federales, in order to find gold, avenge his love, and (when practicable) defend and liberate the citizens of the contested border town.
It is a convoluted plot but just feels right when watching the movie. Great score. Italian dub with subs is the way to go! 5/5
A Zapata western that I frankly find rather boring. Things just fall flat. I enjoy the Morricone score, and I can appreciate Bud Spencer doing his own voice and being Bud Spencer: the most amusing gag for me is Bud’s character sitting on his watch and not wanting to show it to the team captain. But ultimately the heist–the climax of a long movie–is rather dull. It some ways in prefigures the change of heart for the protagonist in “Companeros” and echoes 1969’s “The Wild Bunch” but far less effectively than either. 2/5
Another later entry in the spaghetti series. With four credits for the script/story, it feels like a mish-mash of plots. It has a group of revolutionaries who make their biggest show at the very end. It has an aging outlaw father whose daughter must not known his true identity or else be shamed (and he’s going blind to boot.) Fernando Sancho leads them and has a peg leg. There are double-crosses, bank heists, and a little torture. John Ireland doesn’t really fit the genre. Everything is handled competently here, but nothing actually shines or is inspired. 3/5
The second TRINITY movie for decades was the most successfull movie in German cinema. My first sight was on TV as a child…since then I have watched it probably two dozen times or so. This time again from my 16mm copy. Still fun and never aging .
Day 22: Trinity and Sartana: Those Dirty S.O.B.’s (1972) Directed by Mario Siciliano. Starring Alberto Dell’Acqua, Harry Baird, Beatrice Pellegrino, Stelio Candelli, and Ezio Marano (aka. Alan Abbott). Sartana (Dell’Acqua) and Trinity (a sailor from Trinidad) take on a corrupt, scamster mayor named Burton (Candelli) and a vapid Mexican bandito named El Tigre (Marano/Abbott) for a shipment of gold to be stolen at the Mexican border. And along the way, Trinity finds romance from the grape vineyard owner’s daughter (Pellegrino) and the duo befriend a traveling salesman tagalong, who’s kind of a jerk (he insults the weight of a woman who is in love with him).
Trinity and Sartana is far from a good movie. For some reason it’s become a guilty pleasure of mine over the years. Rating: 1.5/5.
I still haven’t seen Face to Face either. An embarrassing hole in my SW movie watching street cred. I’m definitely going to watch it now, thanks to your reminder
In an impromptu honoring of Franco Nero’s birthday, I popped in the Plaion 4K of the genre and Corbucci Classic. Still is a very enjoyable gritty and cold SW, but the hero does find a type of redemption that isn’t done much in the genre, but is pulled off excellently.
Franco Nero became a genre and cult film icon with this role, and even early on as a lead, showed that charisma and skill that would define his career.
He’s flanked by a great cast including the great Eduardo Fajardo as the deplorable Major Jackson who refuses to accept the South’s surrender and is determined to “purify” the South of Mexicans and other ethnic groups.
Jose Bodalo is great the rebel Revolutionary Gen. Hugo Rodriguez and Loredana Nusciak provides much needed romantic tenderness as the lovely Maria.
Has an occasional slow spot now and then, but still holds up really well.
Baldanello: Son of Zorro
-I usually think Zorro films are more swashbuckler genre than western but this is good enough to include in spagvember list. There is fair amont western style action anyway and lots of familiar sw faces including Sancho and Berger and some refined comedy about farting horse. Not a great film but watchable 4/10
Tessari: Return of Ringo
-Classic film. Good directing, great cast and superb Morricone score. My biggest complaint is that towards the end it starts to get weary as we have the big fight scene at the village and another big fight at the mansion. Gemma overdoes his face twitching too. Sancho has one of his best roles and Nieves Navarro just looks so good. 8/10
After making jibes at how bad British made westerns are (and I still think they mostly are) it seems only fair to include this one which I think may well be the best one we ever made and which still holds up pretty well. I’ve seen elsewhere that the revenge theme gets diluted by the comedic portrayal of the Clemens Brothers and I do understand that argument but I still think the balance works OK and Strother Martin is one of the best things in the film. Also, my soft spot for Raquel Welch runs very deep so anything she is in gets extra points from me. Still the most astonishing physical specimen of womanhood that has walked the planet. (My wife excluded obviously)
