Era Sam Wallash!... lo chiamavano... E Così Sia

This particular spaghetti western which I obtained as part of 20 DVD package came to me under the title of Savage Guns which I will use in place of the original Italian name. It plays more like a modern gangster film than a western.

The genesis of the storyline is that our hero Robert Woods was the only one who escaped a massacre in a saloon where the villain Dino Strano and his gang shot a bartender who had informed on them to the authorities. But instead of maybe waiting for him outside and just stabbing or shooting him, no these guys go into his saloon and shoot the place up and kill everyone there. Or so they think. The rest of the film is Woods looking to even things with Strano.

In fact Strano and/or his gang do this all the time. And they must have six guns that hold about 20 rounds each the way they kept firing. Reminded me of an episode of the Beverly Hillbillies where when the Clampetts by a movie studio they remark about how all the cowboys have those Hollywood guns that never seem to need reloading. Jed wished his hunting rifle operated that way.

It also reminded me of one of my favorite films Casino where the character of Tony Dogs shoots up a mob protected place for kicks as well as robbery and massacres everyone there. Joe Pesci takes vengeance on him quicker than Woods did with Strano.

For mindless gratuitous violence if that's your thing, you can't go wrong with Savage Guns.

This is one of the films that killed the "spaghetti" western. It not only loses something in the translation, it is a total chaotic mess of editing as well. Either chunks of it have been edited out and or re-edited for an English language version. In any case, it makes little or no sense, period. It makes the "Trinity" and the Eastwood "Man With No Name" films look like John Ford/John Wayne by comparison. Nothing in this film is original. Somewhere in there is a beginning, a middle, and (finally)an end. Except for the end, not everything is exactly in that order. Robert Wood seems personable enough. The rest of the cast, especially the women, should have made better career choices.

This showed up on a DVD a buddy of mine bought for me. They had it listed as "The Savage Guns" which was an entirely different movie. Obviously the folks who packaged the DVD never bothered to look at what they were burning on the disk.

Anyway, this movie is about as bad as they come. The sound track is a combination TV Batman/Early James Bond/Spaghetti western. Lots of galloping around to this music. It appears that the guy has to gallop between scenes to burn up some time and give the sound track folks something to do.

English is dubbed over the Italian and it really shows. I wish it had been just a little bit worse and then it would have had some of the campy feel of the Ed Wood films. AS it is, it is just plain awful.

This is the first film I've watched from the Italian Ed Wood, Demofilo Fidani aka Miles Deem. The above title was superfluously added later on since there exists another similarly titled 1961 movie starring Richard Basehart which was Hammer Films' Michael Carreras' one and only stab at the Western; the genuine Italian title was originally translated as HIS NAME WAS SAM WALBASH, BUT THEY CALLED HIM AMEN…although it was actually WALLACH in the Italian variant which, of course, implies a tribute of sorts to Hollywood actor Eli!

While certainly not unwatchably bad, instances of clumsiness and ineptitude abound so that I was often cracking up into howls of laughter: a horrid number by a would-be irresistible French chanteuse; a totally irrelevant bar-room brawl; actors doing somersaults when being shot; an aged villager doing an impromptu dance routine; ineffective use (indeed abuse) of slow-motion; and, easily the most preposterous, seeing Gordon Mitchell and Lincoln Tate play two gunfighters (sporting the actors' own names!) hired by the villain to kill off the title character and then never having them appear in the rest of the film at all!!

Lead actor Robert Woods is just that even down to ineffectively whispering the Amens over the bodies of his victims. Supporting actress Simonella Vitelli (actually, the director's own daughter!) as the villain's broad is quite a looker but, unfortunately, she doesn't get to do much in the film – despite having a change of heart towards the end. The main musical theme is actually pretty good but, again, the title song is, in itself, quite lousy.

This is a very quirky film. It is, at times, unintentionally funny, and at other times just plain bizarre, but hey I like that kind of stuff so it's alright with me. I actually find this film to be extremely entertaining. Of the four or five Demofilo Fidani movies I have seen, this one is the best.

The music score by Lallo Gori is excellent. It is probably the highest-quality part of the movie. The trumpets, guitar, and organ are used skillfully to create suspense and emotion with a style that is undeniably spaghetti western.

Though Fidani's movies are not known for good acting, Robert Woods actually does a pretty good job in this one as Sam Wallach, the slightly whacked protagonist who suffers from dooraphobia (Yes, he breaks out in a cold sweat and gets hysterical at the mere thought of a door opening and closing. I'm not making this up!) Simonetta Vitelli is also good as Fanny the barmaid. I can't think of any other Fidani film that actually has TWO halfway decent acting performances.

I noticed that another reviewer has commented that the movie seems out of order and makes no sense. Actually, there is a plot here and it's not all that hard to follow. The order of events seems correct to me. It is a simple revenge tale. It's a rather typical story, but a pretty decent one. It also has more action than the other Fidani westerns I have seen. Perhaps my copy is a more complete version than some of the others out there. I'm not sure. It's 85 min. long.

The movie's got some corny dialog, but that just makes for more laughs, which is a good thing. I suspect it's because the English translation is poorly done, but who knows?

Some strange highlights of the film include a surreal, slow-motion brawl with echoing sound and laughter, an odd conversation between the main villain and his gang where he orders them to split up to avoid capture but doesn't mind when they refuse to leave, a way over-the-top cheesy slow-motion flashback sequence, Sam's dooraphobia, of course, and a French female barroom singer whose accent seems more German than French. She sounds like she has a microphone, and sings in a style that sounds more like it's from the 1930's than the 1870's.

You either love this kind of stuff or you don't. Like I said before, I find it very entertaining. I'd rather watch this one than many of the so-called "great" films. It sure beats the hell out of trying to sit through "Gone With the Wind." Yuck!