Blaue Bohnen für ein Halleluja

Little Rita (Rita Pavone) is a female gunfighter who travels to the Far West , she has a glorious dream , to get the best world , that's why she is chasing bandits . Little Rita believes that all the badness in the world comes from the gold rush . Pavone takes the valuable gold from them and hides it in a cave and assisted by Sitting Buffalo she has decided to destroy it and to blow it up by dynamite . In her mission she is helped by the Indian Chief Sitting Buffalo (Gordon Mitchell) and by her colleague John Fitzgerald Francis (Lucio Dalla) . All of them undertake several adventures and risks . Along the way Little Rita takes on the speedest gunslingers as Ringo (the muscle man Kirk Morris) , Django (Natale) and others as Jesse James (Remo De Angelis , ordinary master of arms) and Zorro (Romano Puppo , habitual Pasta secondary) . Rita meets a reformed Pistolero called Black Star (Terence Hill)and she decides to share his way of life . Later on , Rita is taken prisoner by the Mexican nasty Sancho (Fernando Sancho) and his ominous henchmen who try to rob her precious gold . The draw-fast Black Star seems determined to help her , he then rescues her , but things go awry .

The film is a Rita Pavone recital , as she dances , sings , stooges , make acrobatics , tongue twister and put faces and grimaces . This ¨Little Rita¨ film blends the common scenarios , as invincible and tough antiheroes , difficult and fast showdowns with numerous deceases , impulsive and quick zooms as well as amazing musical numbers . Lots of gags and sketches , some of them funny but in the movie lacks a real freshness . Parody movie with a myriad of silly and amusing gags , laughs , comedy with tongue in-cheek and it has its good moments here and there . This is a disconcerting and fun farce with the famous singer and it displays too much fights , punches , shootouts and hilarious as well as spectacular musical numbers , such as : dancing at the Indian settlement , the Pecos town choreography and saloon dances . This ¨Rita in the West¨ belongs to a sub-genre , the Musical spaghetti western along with ¨Una Donna Per Ringo¨ by Rafael Romero Marchent with Sean Flynn , Pili and Mili and ¨Per un Pugno Di Canzoni¨(66) by Jose Luis Merino with Gustavo Rojo and Renzo Palmer . Picture is a Rita Pavone vehicle , as she plays as Little Rita who has a dream : she dreams to avoid the evil that emerges from human ambition and attempts to get a better world and as she schemes to blow up one day all the gold she can put her hands on and get rid of the root of all greed : money . That's why she confronts outlaws as ¨Ringo/Kirk Morris¨ but this role has nothing to do with Giuliano Gemma/Ringo , but he bears a remarkable resemblance to ¨Clint Eastwood/Man without name , including his Poncho ; besides , she contends Django who is dragging his coffin , adding his known machine gun and he subsequently attacks Rita in the customary cemetery full of crosses similarly to Sergio Corbucci's Django . This is an attractive flick which many consider her best musical comedy . As Rita is an nice singer , authentic comedian and real Farceur . If you like Pavone's crazy interpretation , you will most definitely enjoy this one .

Cinematography by Enzo Barboni or E. B. Clucher (author of ¨Trinity series¨ with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer) is well made . It contains a catching , original musical score by Robby Poitevin and Alessandroni and enjoyable songs sung by Rita Pavone and Lucio Dalla . The motion picture titled ¨Little Rita nel West" , "Crazy Westerners" , "Little Rita" (USA title) or "Locuras En El Oeste" was professionally directed by Ferdinando Baldi , under pseudonym , Freddy Baldwin . Ferdinando was a craftsman who directed all kind genres but especially Western such as "Carambola's Philosophy : In the Right Pocket" , "Blindman" , ¨Il Pistolero dell'Ave Maria" or "Forgotten Pistolero" , ¨"Django Sees Red" , ¨Rita in the West¨ and ¨Adios Texas¨ at his best . The pic will appeal to Rita Pavone , Terence Hill fans and Spaghetti Western buffs . Rating : Nice and acceptable. Well worth seeing .

Weird Mixture of Western-Parody and Musical. Rita Pavone looks strangely androgynous in this movie, I can't say if she's really a woman or not. O_O

the musical scenes are typical 60s style,and a bit annoying. The overall atmosphere is light-hearted, although the jokes are VERY dated.

I only know the german-dubbed version, so I'm sure the italian dialogue had to be extensively rewritten to make sense in german. This is generally a enjoyable,but still very strange western-parody with outlandish musical songs and equally weird dancing sequences.

Good for your weekend thrash video night. :-)

The quote "Frontier Humor" is from the movie. That sums up this amazing movie. "Little Rita of the West (A. K. A. "Crazy Westerners") is mind blowing. The fact that it is a "Spaghetti Western" - made in Italy a week after the Spaghetti Western was born - and its a rock n' Roll musical exists tickles me to no end!

The songs are catchy and memorable...even if you don't understand what they are saying. I'm shocked this movie didn't get on the Midnight movie circuit. It has everything Rocky Horror has.. but its not a parody or spoof of the Spaghetti Westerns..as they just started making them a year or two prior. "LIttle Rita of the West" is its own glorious creation.

There are some scenes where it drags. Mostly one or two in the middle ..and at the very end. There is one moment with Terrence Hills character that brings up a personal story for him..but gets totally dropped not 2 minutes later and never brought back up.. but at that point, you don't care as it doesn't effect the main and Rita's story at all.

Why people rate this below a 7 out of 10 baffles me.

One of those Col. Tom Parker-ish vehicles for the rising pop musician, but even at their worst, the Elvis movies would manage a moment of wit that made them bearable. Little Rita nel West is a decidedly inferior offering in the category. All but one of the musical numbers terrible, with star Rita Pavone English-dubbed for dialogue, Italian lip-synched for the songs. The Monkees did this sort of thing better. Little Rita is one big labored joke, a clunky spoof of spaghetti Westerns so lacking in subtlety that it's easy to tell that the movie was made for an audience no older than twelve. Little Rita's appearance in defiance of her chronological age seems to have been expressly engineered for that demographic. Then after an hour of cinematic imbecility she sings "Tu Sei Come", a longing, melancholy ballad perfectly shot day for night, and with one song nearly redeems this silly movie.

The 'Spaghetti Western' fan's Bible, 'The Good, The Bad and The Violent' by Thomas Weisser really gives this movie a hard time, even voting it one of the Top 10 Worst Spaghetti Westerns Of All Time(No.9 to be exact)...but that's all a little too harsh. Compared to the Franco and Ciccio efforts, or any movie by Demofilo Fidani, or indeed any of the cheap, shoddy Sartana cash-ins; this is quite a solid little movie.

And it's good for a laugh.

Weisser and his cohorts even admit that the sequences in the movie featuring Django are quite droll. As are the scenes with Johnny Ringo and Black Star(called Black 'Stand' in the subtitles of the version I watched). Indeed, the scenes which parody the Spaghetti Western cliches are extremely stylish and very well done.

The song and dance numbers, often cut from American prints, are quite bizarre and I feel that this movie would be better served on a double-bill with 'Head', the Monkees movie.

A word of warning though, if you see this movie on the Japanese DVD then you'd be as well turning the English Subtitles OFF if you want to follow the plot as they make no sense whatsoever...especially in the lyrics to the songs. Or keep them on and get an extra few laughs for your money.

All in all I enjoyed this fun movie and it's certainly an alternative to, say, the vile misogyny of something like Cut-Throats Nine.