FILM REVIEW OF "A TRAIN FOR DURANGO" (Italian-Spanish 1968)

Despite its many shoot-outs and high body count, "Bullets Don't Argue" director Mario Caiano's "Train from Durango" (**1/2 OUT OF ****)  is an early Spaghetti western comedy with lots of men dying. The Mario Caiano, José Gutiérrez ("The Hellbenders") Maesso, and Duccio ("The Ballad of Death Valley") Tessari screenplay resembles some of Sergio Leone's "For A Few Dollars More." In the Leone western, the outlaws hijacked a safe from a bank, but they cannot open it up without destroying the money, so Lee Van Cleef's Colonel Mortimer applied his skills as a craftsman to open the safe for a percentage of the loot. The heroic duo in "A Train for Durango" are out to accomplish a similar feat for a gang of revolutionaries. Caiano's film represents an example of those Italian westerns like Sergio Corbucci's "The Mercenary" that occurred during the Pancho Villa-led revolution in Mexico against the dictator President Diaz, so the appearance of an early model car driven by one of the protagonists is perfectly legitimate. The suspense evolves over whether or not this duo can survive their encounters with the gang. "A Train for Durango" contains several surprises at the outset, during the action, and at the end. Although the villainous outlaws are cretinous, they are also quite murderous and kill without a qualm. This supplements the suspense about whether or not our heroes will survive.

Two hard-luck drifters—an American and a Mexican—sell their horses and their six-shooters to catch a train to Durango. Not only do they not know the train carrying a huge safe filled with government loot, but also that a gang of bandits is aboard the train. The American, Gringo (Anthony Steffen of "The Stranger's Gundown"), strikes up a friendship with a beautiful woman, Helen (sexy Dominique Boschero of "Ulysses against the Son of Hercules"), doesn't seem to mind that Gringo hasn't taken a bath in ages. She informs him that since she's come to Mexico that she has grown accustomed to the stench of unwashed bodies. She offers him a cigar, and he winds up taking the case of cigars.

Meanwhile, Gringo's Mexican friend, Lucas (Enrico Maria Salerno of "The Warrior Express"), wanders throughout the train. Sneaking up on passengers, he gobbles mouthfuls of their food when they aren't paying attention or outright steals their chow. The bandits go searching for him when he arouses their suspicion. Meantime, when the train stops at a depot, Lobo (Roberto Camardiel of "The Big Gundown") and his army of bandits make their move. First, they kill all the passengers. They shoot Gringo, but the bullet embeds itself in the cigar case concealed under his shirt. Second, one of Lobo's henchmen, Heraclio (José Bódalo of "Ringo's Big Night") abducts Helen. Third, his gang of bandits transfers the government safe from the train to a wagon and hauls it away. Meanwhile, Lucas has eluded the bandit's and survived the massacre. Gringo and he find the keys to open the safe on the bodies of the murdered Americans. They decide to follow Lobo and his army of gunmen. They know that Lobo's bandits don't have the means to open the safe, and they propose a deal with one of Lobo's men to open the safe in return for splitting the booty.

The dreams that our heroes have prove ephemeral. A Lobo follower takes them captive and tries to obtain the key from them. First, he plants them up to their necks in the ground and places a pot over their heads which he bangs on to drive them crazy. Second, when the first option falls through, he has his men ride over them. The American produced but Spanish lensed "Guns of the Magnificent Seven" used this form of torture. Another American, Brown (a mustached Mark Damon of "The Fall of the House of Usher"), shows up earlier driving a car. Later, he appears at an opportune moment to wipe out the group of horsemen about to ride down on our hapless protagonist while they are buried up to their chins in the ground. Brown amounts to a kind of guardian angel for them. He intervenes later on during a night-time gun battle, careening into the scene and lobbing explosives at the villains Mexicans trying to kill our heroes.

Helen suggests that they use a small cannon to blow the safe open. When the cannon ball strikes the safe, it blasts it through the adobe hut that the safe was setting in front of and doesn't make a dent in the safe. Gringo and Lucas show up immediately after and try to infiltrate the gang. Lobo's second-in-command remembers that he shot Gringo and
our heroes have a close shave escaping from the bandits. Brown keeps showing up and helping Helen as well as our heroic duo get out of one scrape after another with their skin. Eventually, at the ending, Caiano and his scribes shed light on Brown's reason for repeatedly popping up at the worst possible moment to rescue out heroes.

Anthony Steffen and Enrico Maria Salerno make a charismatic heroic duo. They argue incessantly with each other and their arguments are amusing. Incidentally, future "Trinity" director Enzo Barboni served as the director of photography. Talented composer Carlo Rustichelli never leaves us in doubt when a scene is supposed to be amusing or murderous. "A Train for Durango" isn't the greatest Spaghetti western ever made, but it manages to be cynical, comedic, and entertaining.

FILM REVIEW OF ''TAILS, YOU LOSE" (1969-Italian)

“Zorro the Rebel” director Piero Pierotti’s “Tails, You Lose” qualifies as a sophisticated but bizarre Spaghetti western.  Pierotti combines social commentary with a murder mystery and does a splendid job with both themes.  Top-notch production values, exterior & interior sets, Carlo Savina’s superb orchestra score, strong performances, and Pierotti’s complex screenplay distinguish this out of the ordinary Italian oater.  Although it isn’t strictly a savage shoot’em up over real estate or livestock, this sun-baked sagebrusher features several interesting characters, and Pierotti’s dialogue is occasionally catchy.  The local undertaker observes after the hero is gunned down: “They all look the same when they’re dead, these no-good, two-bit, double-dealing cowards.”  Essentially, the hero conforms to the anti-heroic tradition of the Clint Eastwood bounty hunter, except that he is an outlaw.  Hollywood actor John Ericson establishes his felonious credentials during the pre-credit sequence.  He vanishes for almost a half-an-hour after sticking up the stagecoach. Alluring actress Spela Rozin gets to wear a variety of costumes beginning with the regalia of a dance hall girl to a babe in buckskins.  She undergoes a transformation.  The roles for women here are traditional in one respect.  Like the good ladies in John Ford’s “Stagecoach,” the good ladies in “Tails, You Lose” send the harlots packing, but they are a great deal more brutal than the “Stagecoach” ladies.

Not only does wanted desperado William Huston, alias the Black Talisman, (John Ericson of “Bad Day at Black Rock”) rob a stagecoach in Texas in 1892, but he also hijacks a sack of money and shoots the shotgun rider.  Lenser Fausto Zuccoli zooms out to reveal our hard-riding highwayman galloping away; the awesome backdrop of a prodigious mountain dwarfs him and looks spectacular.  The trouble erupts in the Arizona town of Plata in the 1890s when two gunslingers shoot each other over the affections of a dance hall warbler.  One guy seized her umbrella and another knocked him down.  They were prepared to shoot it out in the saloon but the town sheriff intervened and ordered them to take it to the streets.  Imaginatively, Pierotti confines Fausto Zuccoli’s cameras to the saloon interior while the sounds of the gunshots occur off screen.  Comparatively, he doesn't show the heroine as she is raped.  One of the duelers enters the saloon as if in triumph until we get a glimpse of his perspective and the point of view shot quivers.  The man, who we may have mistaken labeled the survivor, drops dead.  

Later, the sister of a local pastor, Miss Phillips, advocates the exile of all the saloon harpies.  “My brother—the minister--shall thunder from the pulpit: do we want Plata City to become another Sodom and Gomorrah?”  Later, this grim dame in gray and black proclaims ominously, “We cannot allow that witch from the saloon and her tarts to continue”  She pauses for dramatic emphasis, “To take our sons from us, our brothers, our husbands.”  The Christian ladies invite the sheriff to their meeting to discuss their grievances or as he says “put him on trial.”  “You know those ladies,” the lawman emphasizes, “they don’t spare you nothing.”  Burton the banker warns Shanda about the wrath of the women.  “They’re envious and they’re bored,” he explains.  “They have turned to religion for excitement.  Ever since you arrived with your girls, they say that they are losing the fervor of their husbands, and the number one bigot among those shrews is the pastor’s sister.”  The severe-looking, tight-lipped Miss Phillips leads a crowd of women to the saloon, and they trash the premises.  The saloon girls try to escape without luck.  The sadomasochistic wife of a philandering banker derives sexual gratification from watching a bare-backed prostitute, a Mexican girl (Edwige Fenech), whipped by another woman in brown.    Some of these girls are whipped, while others are tarred and feathered.  The banker’s wife, who turns out to be a sexual deviant, kills her husband and then frames the saloon girl Shanda (Spela Rozin) for his demise.  The sheriff spares Shanda and sends two of his deputies to escort her to Phoenix.  Along the way, another man of questionable character joins the two deputies. The three rape her.   

Although he held up the stage like a villain, Huston shows up and discovers Shanda after she has left for dead in the desert.  Spela Rozin presents a delectable looking specimen of feminity sprawled nearly nude except for a blanket.  Initially, Shanda mistakes Huston of one of the men.  Eventually, they grow to trust each other.  Huston makes an interesting comment about Shanda: “You know, if you’ve been wronged, you’ve got what it takes for revenge.  You’re quite a wild cat.”  The curious Huston launches his own investigation.  “Tails, You Lose” amounts to a different kind of Spaghetti western.  The lean, good-looking Ericson cuts a distinctive figure in his green denims. 

FILM REVIEW OF "NAVAJO JOE" (ITALIAN-1966)

 This cynical Sergio Corbucci horse opera about the eponymous Native American hero exacting vengeance on a murderous gang of cutthroat renegades for murdering his woman and massacring his village qualifies as a stalwart, traditional Spaghetti western with nonstop riding, shooting, and killing galore.  Killing constitutes a virtual reflex action in this savage, above-average shoot'em up.  “Gunsmoke” actor Burt Reynolds must have been in the best shape of his life to pull off some of his stunts.  He leaps and he lunges as if he were a born acrobat. For example, trussed upside down by the evil villains, he gets a little help from a sneaky city slicker and crunches up to untie his ankles. Remember how Richard Gere did sit-ups dangling by his ankles from the ceiling of his apartment in "American Gigolo?" Burt performs similar stunts and is as nimble as a ninja.  Masquerading as Leo Nichols, "Fistful of Dollars" composer Ennio Morricone conjures up another memorable, atmospheric orchestral soundtrack with traditional Indian chanting, screaming, and steel string guitar thumping.  Quentin Tarantino thought so much of it and he sampled Morricone’s score in his two sword-wielding “Kill Bill” bloodbaths.  “Hercules, Samson, and Ulysses” lenser Silvano Ippoliti confines all the rampaging violence very skillfully with his widescreen compositions so everything looks aesthetically cool.  Some of Ippoliti’s more imaginative images occur when he hides the identity of one of the villains during a saloon conference scene.

"Navajo Joe" is one of a fistful of westerns where the only good Indian isn't a dead one. Few American westerns would celebrate the Native American as Corbucci does in "Navajo Joe." Joe is pretty doggoned smart for a savage. Veteran Spaghetti western villain Aldo Sambrell is as treacherous as they come. So filled with hate is he that he kills without a qualm. No sooner has Mervyn 'Vee' Duncan  (Aldo Sambrell of "For A Few Dollars More") shot, killed, and scalped Joe's Indian wife than Joe hits the trail in pursuit of Duncan and his gang. Gradually, Joe begins to whittle down the opposition. Meanwhile, Duncan discovers that the authorities in the town of Pyote where he once sold scalps have posted a bounty of both himself and his half-brother.  Just before Duncan’s blonde-headed brother Jeffrey (Lucio Rosato of “4 Dollars of Revenge’’) drills the sheriff with his six-shooter, the lawman informs an incredulous Duncan that he is wanted for murder.  Duncan points out that he has been bringing the sheriff the scalps of Indians for years. “The scalps you brought then were those of troublemakers,” the lawman points out.  According to the sheriff, things have changed. “Now, you’re attacking peaceful tribes, killing even the women and the children.” A prominent doctor convinces Duncan to rob a train heading for the town of Esperanza. He warns Duncan not to try and blow up the safe because an explosion will destroy the half-million dollars in the safe. He knows the combination and they can split the loot.  This part of the “Navajo Joe” screenplay by “Fistful of Dollars” scribe Fernando Di Leo, “Hills Run Red” writer Piero Regnoli, and “Mafia” scribe Ugo Pirro sounds somewhat like “For a Few Dollars More” when Colonel Mortimer persuades El Indio to let him open the safe because too much dynamite might destroy the loot.  Before Duncan leaves town, his gang and he set it ablaze.   

Predictably, Joe intervenes and steals the train from Duncan after the villainous dastard has massacred all the passengers, including a woman and her baby, along with the U.S. Army escort. Joe takes the train to Esperanza and offers to liquidate the gang if they will pay him a dollar for each head.  Eventually, Duncan captures Joe and tries to learn the whereabouts of the money, but Joe does not talk. Duncan ranks as one of the most heartless outlaws. He shoots a preacher point blank in the belly with his six-gun after the minister thanks him for not wiping out their town!  This trim 93-minute oater features a lean, mean Burt Reynolds wielding a Winchester like a demon and decimating the ranks of the bad guys. The Spanish scenery looks as untamed as the ruthless desperadoes that plunder one town after another.  “Django” director Sergio Corbucci never allows the action to slow down.  Despite its many sterling qualities, “Navajo Joe” never achieved the status of other Corbucci westerns like “The Mercenary,” “The Grand Silence” and “Companeros.” The no-frills MGM DVD presents the action in widescreen with several languages in subtitles.

FILM REVIEW OF ''A PISTOL FOR RINGO'' (1965-Italian)

 Writer and director Duccio Tessari, who co-scripted Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dollars," helmed this entertaining, above-average spaghetti western, "A Pistol for Ringo," starring Roman-born actor Giuliano Gemma--billed here as Montgomery Wood—as the eponymous hero with perennial villain Fernando Sancho as his treacherous adversary. For the record, the profligate Sancho appeared in over 230 movies and basically played the same slimy Mexican outlaw in 35 westerns. Tessari penned a number of other Italian oaters including "Seven Guns for the MacGregors," "Return of Ringo" and "A Train for Durango." Tessari also worked on the Italian peplum—muscle man movies--before he embarked on these trigger happy westerns, most notably co-writing Sergio Leone's "The Colossus of Rhodes." In "A Pistol for Ringo" (***1/2 out of ****), Tessari imitates American westerns more than his native variety. Gemma is a clean-cut, good-looking, well-dressed gunfighter who is too fast on the draw for his own good. At least twice in this lively horse opera, he guns down opponents in self-defense. The way that Ringo handles a six-gun, however, it comes pretty close to murder. Moreover, Ringo is a wise-cracking gringo with a comeback line for everything. Indeed, the dialogue by Tessari and co-scenarist Alfonso Balcázar, who also knew his way around continental westerns with writing credits on "Nevada Clint," "Five Giants from Texas," and "$100-Thousand Dollars for Ringo," crackles with humor and imagination. Simply said, nothing about this hostage crisis western set in the arid Southwest that co-stars George Eastman, another Italian who made his share of spaghettis, is half-baked. Ennio Morricone composed the beautiful orchestral score and Morricone's magical music is far above what this violent western could have hoped for, especially the lyrical title tune about the wily protagonist.

The first time that we lay eyes on our hero, Ringo (Giuliano Gemma of "Day of Anger"), he is playing hop-scotch with a bunch of children in a village. Word has arrived that Ringo has been cleared of murder charges in the shooting death of another gunman, but the Benson brothers decide to make him pay for their brother's death. No sooner have they challenged Ringo—who is also known as 'Angel Face'—than he whips his six-shooter out of his waistband and blows all four of them away without wasting a shot. Indeed, like Clint Eastwood in "A Fistful of Dollars," Ringo doesn't wait for them to draw and only one of the Benson's clears leather with his revolver before he is shot dead. The sheriff (George Eastman of "Ben and Charlie") arrests Ringo and puts him in jail where our hero demands a glass of milk. Later, Ringo pours out liquor on the floor when he doesn't get his trademark glass of milk.

Meanwhile, Sancho (Fernando Sancho of "Mission Phantom") rides across the border alone only to be confronted by a couple of U.S. Cavalrymen who tell him to turn around and ride back across the Rio Grande. Sancho feigns ignorance and removes his sombrero in humility while the soldiers chew him out. Little to the troopers know that Sancho has taken his large hat off to hid his hand pulling his pistol out. He guns them down and his gang joins him in the border town where they shoot it up and rob the bank. During the hold-up, Sancho catches a bullet in the shoulder. The sheriff forms a posse to follow them and the villains hightail it out of town and ride to a sprawling ranch near the border. They take the owner, Major Clyde (Antonio Casas of "The Texican"), his pretty daughter Ruby (Lorella De Luca of "The Swindle"), and their servants and ranch hands hostage.

After the posse lays siege to them at the ranch, one character points out how impregnable the ranch is. "The walls are high and thick. You'd need a company of cavalry to attack it. Half of the soldiers would be killed in the charge." Nevertheless, the stalwart sheriff informs Sancho that his men and he are cornered in the ranch and there is no escape for them. The murderous Sancho responds, "Meanwhile, in case it takes you a while to make up your mind, we'll send out two dead men a day, one at dawn and one at sunset, first the ranch hands and last of all, the girl and her father." At the same time, the townspeople send for the U.S. Cavalry. They know Sancho by his reputation: "His favorite sport is shooting unarmed men, preferably in the back." Another posse man observes, "The only sure method to handling them is to slaughter them like cattle." The sheriff is bothered by Sancho's ultimatum. Particularly, the sheriff worries because Ruby is the love of his life and he doesn't want anything that might jeopardize her life. "If we could get a man inside the ranch," he opines, "we could help them to escape." Reluctantly, he approaches free-wheeling Ringo with a scheme that would see Ringo turned loose. Initially, Ringo is reluctant to help them. "Don't look for trouble," he points out, "It'll come by itself." Nevertheless, after the sheriff clears Ringo of the shooting death of the Benson brothers and the citizens grudgingly agree to 30 per cent as a reward for our hero, he agrees to help them. However, to establish his credentials as a villain, he has the sheriff and his posse pepper the air with bullets as he rides hell-bent-for-leather to the ranch. Once Ringo shows up, he operates on Sancho and removes the bullet. Ringo tells them about his predicament as well as their predicament and demands 40 per cent of the loot in exchange for getting them out of the ranch.

"A Pistol for Ringo" is head and hands above most generic spaghetti westerns. Director Duccio Tessari keeps things popping. Gemma is perfectly cast as the agile Ringo. The rugged Spanish scenery is gorgeous and the formulaic plot provides a couple of surprises.

FILM REVIEW OF "GOD FORGIVES, BUT I DON'T . . ." (ITALIAN-1967)

Before he became a film director, Giuseppe Colizzi served as Federico Fellini's production manager on "The Swindlers." The short-lived Colizzi helmed four of his six films with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. Nevertheless, Colizzi belongs to a select handful of distinguished Italian western directors, such as Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci, Tonino Valerii, and Gianfranco Parolini--who imbued their oaters with an unmistakable aura of flair and style, doubling not only as director but also as writer. The first entry in an overlooked and underrated spaghetti western trilogy, Colizzi's "God Forgives, But I Don't" boasts the numerical distinction of pairing Hill and Spencer together for the first time after a foot injury forced lead actor Peter Martell off the picture. "Ace High" and "Boot Hill" followed. Hill and Spencer went on to achieve greater fame in Enzo Barboni's two "Trinity" features. Before Hill capitalized on comedy westerns and later modern day adventures, he proved himself as gunslinging Cat Stevens, a pistolero who found it just as easy to cross the line between good and evil as fire up a cheroot. Bronzed like a tawny Greek god with a deep masculine voice dubbed in by another actor and displaying admirable restraint in the stoic tradition of Clint Eastwood, Hill proved equally adept at portraying sober dramatic leads as well as lightweight, comic leads. Hill and Spencer are evenly matched by seasoned spaghetti western villain Frank Wolff who resembles Harpo Max with mutton chops.

"God Forgives, But I Don't" (***1/2 out of ****) seizes your attention from the start. A crowd in Canyon City awaits the arrival of a train at the railway depot with a brass band. The train trundles into the station, breezes past the surprised on-lookers, and crashes into a barrier at the end of the siding. A dead man with a bullet hole in his forehead tumbles out of a passenger coach when the door is thrown open. Colizzi presents a swift montage of bullet-riddled corpses and faces to highlight the enormity of the massacre. During the excitement, a wounded passenger stumbles off the other side of the train and flees without attracting attention. Eventually, we learn that the murderous outlaw chieftain Bill San Antonio (Frank Wolff of "A Stranger in Town") and his gang of despicable desperadoes held up the train and stole $100-thousand in gold.

Colizzi shifts the action to a poker game. Cat Stevens (Terence Hill of "The Leopard") looks as cool as ice as he gambles with a quartet of hard cases. A dispute arises over the conduct of the game and a brawl breaks out. Cat whips his adversaries with his fists but in the process trashes the premises. Cat's trademark gesture is pushing a cheroot up and down with his fingers. Later, Cat's friend Hutch Bessy (Bud Spencer of "The 5-Man Army") finds him at a remote waterhole and tells him about the MK&T train robbery. Hutch found the sole survivor of the train massacre. Before the passenger perished, he told Hutch about Bill San Antonio's role in the robbery. Hutch describes Bill's clever plan. The outlaws rode 150 miles to the halfway point between El Paso and Canyon City and then rode in circles to make their presence known at that point. The gang turned south, followed the river, and then galloped back to El Paso. They watched as the gold loaded onto the train and then bought tickets, and waylaid the train 20 miles from the Mexican border. After he robbed the train, Bill San Antonio had everybody on board murdered and sent the train onto Canyon City.

Initially, Cat refuses to believe Bill could have planned and participated in the hold-up. Colizzi flashbacks to a scene in a shack where Bill and Cat squared off against each other in a showdown after Bill's henchman Bud (José Manuel Martín of "The Savage Guns") sets the building ablaze. Cat guns down Bill and Bill's men allow him to leave alive. Later, they come after him and try to kill him. Meanwhile, Bill is never heard or seen again until the MK&T robbery. The bank took an insurance policy out on the stolen money and Hutch plans to find the gold and collect the insurance. He wants Cat to team up with him so they can locate the loot. Not only did Bill San Antonio not die in the fire but he also robbed the train. Garrulous desperado that Bill is, he explains what happened and why. The banker and Bill were in cahoots. When things got too hot, the banker recommended that Bill disappear for a spell. Cat sneaks into Bill's hideout one night, blunders into a trap, and gets strung up by his heels. Nevertheless, he manages to defend himself against his opponents. Hutch intervenes and they steal the $100-thousand dollars in gold.

Neither Cat nor Hutch has an easy time holding onto the gold while surviving Bill and his gang. Numerous shoot-outs occur with a take-no-prisoners mentality. Colizzi models loquacious Bill San Antonio after Eli Wallach's Mexican bandit Calvera from "The Magnificent Seven." Bill feels responsible for his cronies and wants to take care of them. Blue-eyed Terrence Hill has the stew beaten out of him and nearly drowns in one scene. Hutch displays his Herculean strength both in fistfights and in shouldering a chest packed with gold. The same friendly rivalry that characterized Trinity and Bambino's relationship in the "Trinity" appears to have been foreshadowed by Colizzi. The final showdown between Bill and Cat takes the shoot-out at the beginning to the next level. Good dialogue, rugged laconic heroes, grimy trigger-happy hooligans, atmospheric settings, Alfio Contini's impressive widescreen photography, and the scenic sun-drenched plains of Spain make "God Forgives, I Don't" a solid, satisfying saga, head and shoulders above the average spaghetti western.

FILM REVIEW OF "THE STRANGER AND THE GUNFIGHTER" (Hong Kong/Italian-1974)

This lightweight international co-production between Hong Kong's Run Run Shaw and Italian producer Carlo Ponti amalgamates chop-socky martial arts combat with gritty Spaghetti western violence. An Asian kung fu master teams up with an American gunslinger to find his uncle's treasure. Variously known as either "Blood Money" or "The Stranger and the Gunfighter," this tame 'East Meets West' oater is predictable but amusing nonsense. The humor that lies at the bottom of the plot is that four women have tattoos on their backsides that reveal the whereabouts of a fortune in gold. "Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye" director Antonio Margheriti and scenarists Miguel De Echarri and Barth Jules Sussman have incorporated a sex comedy in this Kung Fu/Spaghetti western. The running joke is that our heroes must obtain permission from four women to eyeball their butts. Veteran western villain Lee Van Cleef twirls his six-gun, while the often outnumbered Lo Lieh performs gravity-defying kung fu. Incidentally, Lieh emerged as the first martial arts superstar before Bruce Lee. "Blood Money" came about during Van Cleef's career when he started wearing a hairpiece. Despite his age, the actor spends the last ten minutes baring his whiplashed chest. The production values are sumptuous.

Martial arts movies were increasingly going mainstream by the early 1970s, and "Blood Money" (**1/2 out of ****) exemplified one of a handful of Italian westerns with Kung Fu. Not only did producer Run Run Shaw co-produce this hybrid horse opera, but he also co-produced the Hammer vampire epic "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" during the same year in 1974. Mind you, "Blood Money" premiered in Spain in 1974, but illuminated American screens two years later in 1976. Initially, the Tony Anthony western "The Silent Stranger" should have qualified as the first 'East Meets West' Kung Fu/Spaghetti western. Produced in 1968, "The Silent Stranger" was not released by MGM until 1975, so it beat "Blood Money" to the draw. Earlier, James Bond director Terence Young had helmed a European western with Charles Bronson as an outlaw who reluctantly joins up with Japanese samurai warrior Toshirô Mifune to recover the Nippon ambassador's valuable ceremonial sword. Director Mario Caiano's "Shanghai Joe" (1972) followed "Red Sun" and concerned a Chinese immigrant Chin How (Chen Lee) who helps Mexican laborers from their sadistic boss. Sergio Corbucci even got into this genre in 1975 with "Shoot First... Ask Questions Later" (1975) as a samurai warrior helps a lawman find a treasure.

Dakota (Lee Van Cleef of "Barquero") arrives in Monterey by train. A conductor confronts our protagonist as he slips out from under the passenger coach. Before the conductor can do anything to him, Dakota escapes in a cloud of steam. Breaking into the local bank, Dakota picks the lock to the safe but he finds only photographs of women. Meantime, one of those women alerts Wang (Al Tung), a short fat Asian fellow that somebody is in the bank. Wang scrambles over to the bank. Dakota relies on explosives to blow the vault. As the dynamite explodes, Wang is blown off his feet. Dakota finds a fortune cookie and the photographs. He queries Wang about the contents, but Wang has died. The authorities arrive and arrest Dakota. Meanwhile, in Asia, kung fu teacher Ho Chiang (Lo Lieh of "Five Fingers of Death") is escorted by the warlord's troops to his headquarters. The warlord questions Ho's father about his deceased brother who left behind nothing valuable. The warlord confronts Ho. "I was tricked by your uncle. Unwisely, I entrusted him with a vast fortune and all he did to repay me before he died was to send me that wooden figures." The warlord indicates the statue of a noble Plains Indian chieftain. Since nobody can satisfy the warlord’s curiosity, he gives Ho's sister to the guards. Ho intervenes but to no avail. Nevertheless, Ho’s martial arts skills impress the warlord. "You're brave and intelligent and I believe you can be useful in recovering my fortune," he informs Ho. "Find my gold in one year or all of you will --," the warlord completes his sentence with a slashing motion at his throat.

Ho arrives in Monterey. He meets with Wang’s lawyer and learns his uncle left behind a $1000 and four photographs of women. According to the lawyer, Wang's death was ruled accidental. Nevertheless, the authorities sentenced Dakota to swing. The lawyer (Paul Costello of “Cannibal Apocalypse”) adds that Dakota's trial lasted several months. Not surprisingly, Ho encounters racism in a saloon and defends himself against two gunslinging bouncers. The sheriff (Barta Barri of “Horror Express”) arrests Ho for hitting him. Ho lands in a cell next to Dakota. Dakota assures Ho that he didn’t murder his uncle. Moreover, Dakota acquired no fortune. The sheriff releases Ho. Later, the Asian rescues Dakota as he stands poised on the gallows’ trapdoor with his noggin in a noose. Together, Dakota and Ho embark on an unusual search for Wang's four mistresses. Along the way, they incur the wrath of a hypocritical preacher, Yancey Hobbitt (Julian Ugarte of “Autopsy”), who wears a long, black duster with a ridiculous hat. Yancey quotes scripture and wields a devastating six-gun. Yancey abducts the Chinese mistress (Karen Yeh of “The Iron Dragon”) with the aid of a Mexican bandit (Ricardo Palacios of “Return of the Seven”) and his gang. They take her to an old mission. Dakota and Ho follow, but they have a minor falling out when Ho refuses to let Dakota accompany him. Calico captures Dakota when the American tries to sneak into the mission. He uses a bullwhip on Dakota to loosen his tongue about Ho. Ho helps Dakota escape, and Dakota appropriates a Gatling gun. He places the Gatling gun between two horses in harness and rides through the mission firing the weapon and exterminates half of Calico’s gang, while Ho releases the Chinese mistress. Yancey has tried to torture her to translate the tattoos by suspending her in a metal cage and stoking blaze beneath to loosen her tongue. Fittingly, Dakota kills Yancey when the dastard lunges for a gun in a dead man's hand.

Margheriti directs with customary aplomb. Everything unfolds fluidly. Clocking in a 107 minutes, "Blood Money" looks like a Spaghetti western, but the sex comedy often undercuts the usual high body count violence. "Goliath against the Giants" lenser Alejandro Ulloa gives everything a larger-than-life grandeur. "Secret Agent Fireball" composer Carlo Savina drums up a snappy, non-western orchestral score. Savina's music has nothing in common with the quintessential Ennio Morricone Spaghetti western music with whistles, bells, and whipcracks. Interestingly, the mission that Calico and his bandits occupy is the same fortress that Lee Van Cleef and Jim Brown assaulted in "El Condor." Indeed, the fortress was constructed for "El Condor" and has appeared in other major films, such as "Conan the Barbarian" and "A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die." The ending may surprise those who aren't expecting it. It is a hoot to see Lee Van Cleef in a Chinese bamboo hat and robe in the final scene in Hong Kong.

FILM REVIEW OF ''PAYMENT IN BLOOD'' (ITALIAN-1967)

“Payment in Blood” qualifies as a violent, above-average Spaghetti western shoot’em up with a high body count. Like director Sergio Leone’s bigger budgeted “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” the lower budgeted “Payment in Blood” (**1/2 out of ****) concerns the quest for buried treasure. The outlaw villains embark on a search for a fabled fortune, approximately $200-thousand, stashed at an undisclosed location by Confederate General Beauregard. Of course, anybody who knows anything about Civil War history knows Beauregard had no such loot. Typically, most westerns that appropriate this plot attribute the lost Confederate gold to President Jefferson Davis. Ironically, during the opening credits sequence, which contains a montage of Civil War photographs, Beauregard’s portrait is conspicuous by its absence, while pictures of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant proliferate. The protagonist, Stuart (Edd Byrnes), has a grudge to settle with the head villain (Guy Madison) and his gang of bloodthirsty gunmen.

Primarily known overseas as “Seven Winchesters for a Massacre,” “Payment in Blood” was writer & director Enzo G. Castellari’s third western. Castellari’s first western as a director was "Few Dollars for Django" for which he received no credit, and “Any Gun Can Play” was his second oater, with a bigger, better cast. “Payment in Blood” isn’t as good as either “Any Gun Can Play” or a later Castellari Civil War western “Kill Them All and Come Back Alone” with Chuck Connors. Long-time screenwriting collaborator Tito Carpi of "Few Dollars for Django" and "Bullets and the Flesh" scribe Marino Girolami penned the formulaic plot with Castellari for “Payment in Blood.” The difference between “Payment in Blood” and “Any Gun Can Play” is the latter is more elaborate than the former. “Payment in Blood” amounts to a rather contrived western that uses the venerable plot about an individual who goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of homicidal criminals and thwart them. The dialogue is neither as amusing as “Any Gun Can Play,” but “Payment in Blood” boasts a surprise ending. Although it seems like scores of men wind up with bullet holes during the numerous shoot-outs, “Payment in Blood” lacks the titular element that became such a fixture in later westerns like “The Wild Bunch.”

The action takes place in Texas in 1867 after the conclusion of the American Civil War. A renegade Confederate officer, Colonel Thomas Blake (Guy Madison of “Drums in the Deep South”), refuses to give up the cause. During the opening moments of “Payment in Blood,” writer & director Enzo G. Castellari introduces us to not only the pugnacious Blake but also the hellspawn riding with him. Included in this notorious gang are Chamaco Gonzales (Ennio Girolami of "The Hellbenders"), knife-throwing Rios (Aysanoa Runachagua of “El Cisco”), Fred Calhoun (Federico Boido of "Planet of the Vampires"), bullwhip wielding Zeb Russel , and Mesa Alvarez (Attilio Severini of “Massacre at Grand Canyon”) who likes to kill with his spurs. Blake and his marauders carry out indiscriminate raids. They steal horses, loot homes; kill men, women and children without a qualm. Nameless supporting players standing around wanted posters of Blake’s men impart most of this information when they aren’t complaining about Blake’s depredations. The reward on Blake’s head has risen to $5-thousand. Chamaco rides into a town one day and eavesdrops on a conversation between a crippled, former Confederate soldier and a cowboy. “What can you expect from a rotten war like ours? Brother against brother. When you teach a man it’s right to kill, how can you unteach him?” The other man observes about Blake’s killers: “They have learned to like being heroes. They’ve learned to like killing.” Chamaco confronts the crippled Southerner, Jeremy, because the latter had ridden with General Beauregard and may know the location of the lost treasure. Before he can learn anything from Jeremy, Chamaco has to kill him. A military tribunal sentences Chamaco to die in front of an army firing squad. Stuart surprises the military and rescues Chamaco just as the soldiers are about to execute him. You see, Stuart is driving a covered wagon past the firing squad when he delivers his ultimatum to the army. He shoots the tip off the officer’s sword and several Winchester rifles spring out from the wagon, suggesting that several riflemen are aiming those repeaters. As it turns out, nobody has their shoulders against these long guns, and Stuart has packed a crate of dynamite in the wagon bed so when one of the soldiers opens fire on the vehicle, the wagon vanishes in an explosion.

Chamaco takes Stuart to Blake’s camp after they sneak across the Rio Grande. The place is like a natural fortress and Blake has a Gatling gun covering the entrance. Chamaco and Stuart pass inspection by the various sentries. It seems that Stuart rode with Beauregard, too, and served as one of the general’s chiefs of staff. The scenes where Stuart meets each of Blake’s gang and matches them at their own expertise are entertaining. The filming and editing of Zeb snatching the revolver out of Stuart’s holster with a bullwhip is exciting. Interesting, Mesa doesn’t perform one of his trademark flips using his spurs as deadly weapons. Each of Blake’s men has something distinctive about them from their look, heritage, and choice of weapon. After he arrives in Blake’s camp, Stuart refuses to divulge the whereabouts of the loot to the cunning colonel. Instead, Blake and his men leave the sanctuary of Mexico, cross the Rio Grande again, but with inevitable bloodshed, and ride into Texas. Along the way, they run into their first surprise and her name is Manuela (Luisa Baratto of “"Bloody Pit of Horror"). She keeps them pinned down with gunfire in one scene before they get the better of her. Feisty women are not a convention of the Spaghetti western. Before Blake’s men do anything else, they orchestrate the massacre of all the men in Durango. Castellari does a good job of staging this massive gundown. What makes the gunfight memorable is that one of Blake's men bites the dust. Eventually, Stuart does reveal the location, but only after Blake has turned his men loose on him and beaten Stuart to the point of unconsciousness. Stuart mutters the words ‘White Eagle’ and they set fire to the room and leave Stuart to burn alive. Blake’s men find a strong box buried in an Indian cemetery. Blake’s men are poised to take the loot when their commander kills Zeb for insubordination. When they finally open the strong box, Blake and his men are disgusted to learn that the $200-thousand was in worthless Confederate bank notes. Meantime, the survivors of the Durango come after Blake for killing their husbands.

Edd Byrnes appears out of place with his clean-shaven features among a cast who sport some form of facial hair. The off-beat casting of heroic Guy Madison as the murderous, tight-lipped villain isn’t as delectable as Henry Fonda’s dastardly turn in “Once Upon a Time in the West,” but it represents a considerable change of pace for Madison. The first time that we see Madison as Colonel Blake, Blake rides out of a cloud of gunfire in a town that his men and he are shooting up. Blake’s favorite words are “kill them.” As savage as this western strives to be with its high body count, there are moments such as when Blake’s men tickle their prisoner’s feet with a feather that really stand out in this above-average oater. "Few Dollars for Django" lenser Aldo Pinelli creates several interesting shots of riders-on-the-skyline with his widescreen, color cinematography. Composer Francesco De Masi provides a charismatic orchestral score that perks up this western. Once you’ve heard De Masi’s flavorful score, you won’t forget it.

You need to get the Wild East DVD copy of this movie, because all other copies are going to be defective.

FILM REVIEW OF ''ADIOS, SABATA" (Italian-1971)

Gianfranco Parolini’s “Adios, Sabata” (**** out of ****) ranks as one of the top 10 Spaghetti westerns of all time. Melodramatic scripting, scenic photography, clever dialogue, marvelously choreographed gunfights, flavorful music, and harsh rugged scenery make this outlandish Yul Brynner horse opera worth watching. No, it has nothing to do with the Lee Van Cleef movies oaters “Sabata” (1969) and “Return of Sabata” (1971). The original title for this exhilarating Yul Brynner shoot’em up was “Indio Black.” Like most successful Spaghetti westerns, it adopted the name of a profitable screen hero. Scores of westerns were named after “Django,” “Sartana,” and “Trinity.” Indeed, where Lee Van Cleef’s Sabata is elegant and well-dressed, Indio adopts the garb of a cavalry scout. He wears a fringed buckskin outfit. Unlike Sabata, who relied primarily on a derringer, Indio wields a sawed-off, lever-action, repeating carbine with a sideways ammunition magazine. He reserves the last chamber in each magazine for a cheroot. After he dispatches his adversaries, he takes the time to enjoy his tobacco. Black brandishes a derringer, too, but rarely uses it to kill. In fact, “Indio Black” remains the only Spaghetti western that Brynner made, but it qualifies as a superior sagebrusher with provocative, offbeat characters, a larger-than-life, six-fisted plot with loads of narrative foreshadowing, and one of composer Bruno Nicolai’s liveliest orchestral scores. Parolini lacks the baroque visual artistry of Sergio Leone. However, he knew how to tell a good story and he could stage interesting set-pieces. Parolini co-authored the screenplay with Renato Izzo who had penned “Kill and Pray” and “A Man Called Amen.”

Oscar-winning actor Yul Brynner plays a sympathetic, sharp-shooting, American soldier-of-fortune in black. He supports the Mexican revolutionaries in their cause to expel the Austrians from their country during the post American Civil War period. Hollywood hasn’t made that many memorable westerns about Emperor Maximilian’s reign over Mexico. The best of the bunch is Robert Aldrich’s “Vera Cruz,” rivaled only by Don Siegel’s “Two Mules for Sister Sara.” As the villain, Austrian Colonel Skimmel dresses as elegantly as he shoots straight, and he behaves like an egotist. Indeed, he has commissioned a portrait of himself. Skimmel has no qualms about killing and makes a splendid villain. He detests informers, exploits their information, and then kills them. Half-way between Sabata and Skimmel is Ballantine. This soldier-of-fortune (Dean Reed of “God Made Them... I Kill Them") is an opportunist who throws his lot in with Sabata. Actually, he has no qualms about getting whatever there is for himself and nobody else. “Three Crosses of Death” lenser Sandro Mancori captures the arid Spanish landscape in all its eternal grandeur and the vistas are beautiful. Mancori and Parolini hail from the school of filmmaking that relied heavily on zoom shots. “Indio Black” has more than its share of zoom shots. “Indio Black” emerges as a hugely entertaining western epic with the usual ritualistic conventions, such as duels and gunfights, intrigue, plot reversals, and outright surprises.

The action opens at a Catholic mission as the priest Father Mike addresses a young Mexican village boy, Juanito (Luciano Casamonica of “Tepepa”) laments the descent of mankind into savagery. “There is too much violence in the world.” Juanito reminds him the Murdock brothers deserve punishment because they stole everything from them. Ever gentle Father Mike replies, “You must try to forgive. Not sink into revenge.” Colonel Skimmel, a monocled, bewhiskered, autocrat in a dress uniform. He likes to demonstrate his marksmanship with a rifle. Skimmel’s favorite practice is to turn loose prisoners below on the parade grounds and let them see if they can outrun him without being shot down. Colonel Skimmel never misses. Meanwhile, in Texas, the Murdock brothers show up at the County Hunter Agency and slap leather with Sabata. Sabata wipes them out without a scratch. Parolini does an excellent job staging this initial shoot-out. The three Murdocks ride into the dusty station. One drives a wagon with a coffin on it. “We’re all set for you to go out in style,” the oldest Murdock boasts.” A weather vane stands motionless in front of the station. Before they exchange gunfire, Sabata and the oldest Murdock display their lethal marksmanship. Their bullets turn the vane into a blur. Once the vane stops turning, they are told that they can blast away at each other. Even after Sabata has killed them, he fires more shots. A Murdock corpse clinging to a corral fence falls when Sabata’s bullets obliterate the railing. Sabata shoots the coffin lid so it falls shut on the dead Murdock.

After the gunfight, Señor Ocaño (Franco Fantasia of "The Lion of St. Mark") enlists Sabata to help them discover when the gold shipment leaves the fort at Guadalupe and what road it will travel. He is also to make arrangements with the men who will sell the revolution firearms. Ocaño informs his ally, Escudo (Pedro Sanchez of "Any Gun Can Play"), about Sabata, but Escudo hates that the revolution must stoop to a foreign soldier-of-fortune. Meanwhile, Colonel Skimmel has cooked up his own scheme about the getting the gold out of the fort at Guadalupe. He sends out a detachment with the gold wagon, and his own men gun down the detachment. Sabata intervenes and Escudo and he commandeer the gold wagon. Sabata rides to Kingsville, Texas, where he discovers Colonel Skimmel’s cohort Folgen (Gianni Rizzo of “Mission to Hell”) has wiped out the gunrunners. Sabata decides that they need to take the gold back to Ocaño. A small army of plainclothes Austrians ambush them, but Sabata turns the odds against them with his skillful shooting.

Later, they discover that the bags contain dirt not gold and that Skimmel has the gold back at the fort. Our heroes attack the fort, but they are captured and disarmed by Skimmel, except for Ballantine’s diary. Sabata has stashed two vials of nitro in the book and Ballantine throws the book at the firing squad due to execute them. They escape death and Sabata confronts Skimmel. Skimmel has him covered with two single-shot pistols and acknowledges that Sabata is the only man who has even beaten him at shooting. Apparently unarmed, Sabata waits for the right moment and hurls a deadly knife that skewers Skimmel through his portrait. Ballantine fakes his death to steal the gold wagon and our heroes pursue him toward the border bridge at Guadalupe. Sabata blows holes in the rear of the wagon and the gold pours out as Ballantine lashes the horses for the border. He crosses the bridge and hurriedly detonates the charges that demolish it. At this point, he discovers that the gold lies in trails on the other side of the bridge and he is out of luck.

Writer & director Parolini does an excellent job of setting up and paying off several situations. Colonel Skimmel’s model of a sailing vessel perched atop a dresser is wired to the highest drawer so when an unsuspecting fool opens the drawer, the movement triggers a deadly broadside from the canon protruding from the side of the ship. If you love Spaghetti westerns, you owe it to yourself to watch “Adios, Sabata.”

FILM REVIEW OF "FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE" (ITALIAN-1965)

Sergio Leone's superlative "For a Few Dollars More" with Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef ranks in the top five of all Spaghetti westerns. This exciting bounty hunter shoot'em up has Monco (Clint Eastwood) forming an uneasy alliance with Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef) to wipe out a ruthless gang of murderous desperadoes. Monco wants the bounty on El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte of "A Bullet for the General") and his gang, while Colonel Mortimer vows to kill Indio strictly out of revenge because the dastard raped his sister and she committed suicide. A multitude of distinctive Leone touches appear in this fabulous frontier saga; this represents the first time that Leone would stage a gunfight in the round. Meanwhile, Ennio Morricone's theme music is classic with its chiming bells, piercing whistles, and crisp whip cracks, but it is the tender and moving watch-piece theme that is really memorable here. Leone and cinematographer Massimo Dallamano lensed this 132 minute oater in the craggy mountainous regions of southern Spain that substitute marvelously for the American southwest. Every time that a six-gun toting character tramps the gritty earth with his jingling, spur-clad boots, you can hear the scratchy sound of dirt being displaced. The sets seem so much more authentic the way that they have been grafted to the spartan scenery.

The opening words on screen establish "For A Few Dollars More" as a bounty hunting western: "Where life has no value, death sometimes has its price. This is why the bounty hunters appeared." Clint Eastwood returns as the monosyllabic gunman dressed in a serape, with wrist-bands, and a Colt's .45 revolver with a coiled snake on the plow handle grip. He is referred to throughout "For A Few Dollars More" as Manco. More than Eastwood's stoic performance, it is Lee Van Cleef's formidable presence as a natty stranger clad in black who carries an arsenal of weapons on his horse that makes this western stand out. Originally, Leone had sought the services of Lee Marvin. Marvin would have been exemplary, but veteran western heavy Lee Van Cleef made the role of Colonel Mortimer into one of his most memorable roles. Later, Van Cleef would take the Colonel character a bit farther in Gianfranco Parolini's exciting saga "Sabata." As the pot-smoking villain, Gian Maria Volonte challenges both men at every turn of the plot. Volonte looks like the equivalent of a wolf with his lupine features and grizzled hair. There is a psychotic glint in his eyes that make you believe that he prefers to shoot first and ask questions later. "For A Few Dollars More" represents the first western in over 40 years where a character actually smokes a marihuana cigarette. Everybody here looks like a mutant, especially Klaus Kinski cast as a killer named 'Wild' with a hunchback. Leone characterizes each character with an Ennio Morricone musical motif.

"For A Few Dollars More" begins with Colonel Mortimer killing a repulsively ugly outlaw named Guy Calloway (José Terrón of ""God Forgives... I Don't!") after he tries to flee from the Colonel. Initially, Colonel Mortimer is riding on a train reading the Bible. He pulls the emergency cord to get off the train at Tucumcari. The railroad officials aren't very happy about this sudden stopover. Mortimer enters a saloon and shows the bartender a wanted poster of Guy Calloway. He wants to know where Calloway is and gets tough with the bartender. The bartender says nothing about Calloway's whereabouts, but he rolls his eyes to the ceiling in a glance the indicates that Calloway is upstairs. Mortimer slides the wanted poster under the door of Calloway's room and steps to the side as bullets splinter the door. When Mortimer enters the hotel room, he finds a lady soaking nude in a bath tub. He pokes his head out the window and spot Calloway heading for his horse. Mortimer wields a rifle, kills Guy's horse and then kills Guy with a bullet in the forehead as the villain shoots at him. Mortimer collects a thousand dollars for Calloway, and the scene shifts to White Rocks where Monco (Clint Eastwood)enters a saloon and runs into the sheriff. He asks the sheriff three questions and spots Red. He steps up to Red's table and intervenes in a card game so that he can play one himself with Red. 'Baby' Red Cavanaugh (José Marco of "Man of the Cursed Valley") plays the hand with Manco and gets a 3 Kings of Heart, a 10 of spades, and queen of hearts. Manco beats him with a queen of spades, a jack of diamonds, and three aces, one of spades, one of hearts, and one of diamonds. Manco winds up not only killing him but three of Red's gunslinging partners. When Manco collects the $2-thousand in bounty money, the sheriff tells him that it would take him three years to earn that much money.

Now that Leone has set up his two heroes, he shifts the scene again to introduce the villain as a band of killers break El Indio out of prison. Coincidentally, Indio shares his cell with a carpenter (Dante Maggio of "The Fighting Fists of Shangai Joe") who knows a thing or two about the safe at the Bank of El Paso. El Indio and his trigger-happy gunslingers kill all the uniformed prison guards and Indio shoots the warden in the face and blasts four more bullets into him. Indio allows one sentry to survive so that he can tell the story. Later, Indio tracks down the man who turned him into the authorities and used the bounty money to start a family. They bring the traitor, his wife and infant son to a run-down mission. Groggy (Luigi Pistilli of "Death Rides A Horse") shows up and shoots another gunman's spur rowel so that it starts spinning and then he shoots it to make it stop spinning. Indio's men murder the man's wife and 18 month old son and then Indio prods the man into a duel with the watch-piece used as a timer. Not surprisingly, Indio draws first and guns the man down. Thereafter, Nino gives Indio a marihuana joint to smoke.

Meanwhile, Mortimer searches for a bank that only a maniac would try to rob and learns that the Bank of El Paso is just such a bank. Indeed, Indio plans to rob a bank, but he has planned a very unconventional hold-up. Monco and Colonel Mortimer arrive in town at the same time. They agree to work together but neither truly trusts the other. Earlier, they spent an evening shooting at each other's hats that ended into a stand-off. Monco shot at Mortimer's hat and the hat skidded past Mortimer. Comparatively, Mortimer blows Monco's hat off his head and continues to shoot at it in the air. Afterward, they devise a plan that calls on Monco infiltrating the gang. Monco uses dynamite to blow a hole in the cell occupied by El Indio's right-hand man Sancho Perez (Panos Papadopoulos of "The Indian Tomb") who is serving time in prison. When Indio asked him why he wants to join his gang, Monco says that he wants to kill them all for the bounty on their heads. Indio appreciates Monco's audacity and admits him to his gang.

The bank hold-up itself differs from most westerns of the day. After they blast a hole in the rear of the bank, the bandits take the entire safe, something that would be imitated in "Sabata," and haul it off in a wagon. Mortimer worms his way into the gang because he claims that he can open it with nitro after the villains cannot blast it open without destroying the bank notes. Each shoot out is terrifically staged and the gunshots themselves are nothing like the American equivalent. The final shoot-out in the round with the chimes on the watch serving as the timing device is imaginative. "For a Few Dollars More" is better than both "A Fistful of Dollars" and "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." British spaghetti western expert Christopher Frayling has written an excellent book about this movie and its shattering impact on American westerns as well as Italian westerns.