Brad Harris is ok as the sidekick in the Komissar X series, but here he can’t really pull off a good lead. He does something that fits with this mediocre film, while someone else probably could have elevated it.
Even though the poster is nicer to look at than the film, it is not a complete waste of time. It’s just one of those dime a dozen spaghettis that offer very little exciting.
I saw this drunk and it was in Italian, so a totally balanced opinion this is not. But then, I’ve watched it twice. I’d say 5/10 based on the catchy music and the fact it didn’t bore me.
The Vassili Karis character is so full of himself in the way he frames Brad Harris kept me watching this one. Brad Harris is wooden as a tree. Just average stuff for me, but have seen alot worse than this.
Ok film, but nothing special. Karis steals the show and has more screen time than Brad harris who doesn’t do much than just sits in the cave hiding but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
btw, I noticed there was El Puro’s wanted poster in the sheriff’s office.
Wanted Sabata (1970), written and directed by Roberto Mauri
It might be said that by the time Wanted Sabata was made, the Spaghetti Western had declined market-wise while also, given the passing of time that usually precedes a decline, reaching such a level of confidence as to become a genre in its own right, all but entirely detached from the American films that had constituted its inspiration back in the pre-Leone early sixties. This modest Roberto Mauri offering (but then what Mauri offered was usually modest if not necessarily contemptible) is one of those seventies entries filmed entirely in Italy and depicting a film world lying somewhere between the American west and a generic rural setting that, but for the presence of English names and Italian actors with Mexican sombreros, could (almost but not quite) stand in for any European background one could think of. Add to this some modern-looking jeans, blatantly seventies hairstyles and an inexplicable fetish black costume worn by the sheriff and the self-containment is complete.
Such is the setting for the story, written by Mauri himself. Sabata this time is an honest gunslinger (played by Brad Harris) who has been framed for murder by the evil Sparrow (Vassili Karis), who passes for a regular citizen. Duly arrested and sentenced to hang by the beer-drinking judge, Sabata awaits the day of his execution in his cell when an unseen personage passes him a gun through the window and indicates a hiding-place for him in an old, disused mine. After Sabata holds the deputy at gunpoint and makes his getaway, someone kills the deputy, thus augmenting the escapee’s bounty. Sabata remains in hiding in the mine, where he is only attended to by a mysterious mute girl. Soon, the jurors that declared him guilty are being murdered one by one…
Unexceptional but watchable fare, made better by the (to me) attractive look of the latter-day, pure-bred Italian oater: lots of green grass, colourful wardrobe, geographically universal shacks and an ineffably characteristic lighting style. Karis (who I enjoyed in the same director’s Holy Ghost movies) overacts as the heavy but at least has a degree of animation only wishful thinking could project onto Brad Harris’s impenetrable Sabata. Despite Mauri’s zoom-happy insistence on sending the message home, the technical credits are fine, and this also applies to Vasili Kozucharov’s score, even if, at one point, the music slips into a melody that incongruously recalls Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.
I’ve noticed it too but I only know “El Puro” for its fame. I’ve got a divx file of it somewhere, should be watching it soon.
The flick is not bad but it could be better if Brad Harris would have some acting talent. Vassili Karis in the other hand shows another decent performance, the main role is his.
As Meceita’s review has rightly pointed out the ending - unsurprisingly reworked later for Django… Adios! - is especially disappointing.
I wish to make a clarification on the name of the character played by Vassili Karis in Return of Sabata: in the original version the acrobat is called Fionda (Slingshot) and not Bionda (woman of fair hair).