SMK-3

The "Frau Wirtin" films were a series of period sex comedies, made in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is hard to believe, but the literary inspiration to these films really is a song. The films featured a surprisingly large number of established actors in less than establishing performances, and a less than surprisingly large number of less established actresses out of their clothes.

This one, the last in the series, seems to be (outside the German speaking countries) the most widely distributed of the lot. Not to put a too fine point upon it: it is clearly the worst film of the series, composed to a large extent out of clippings from the earlier films embedded in a very thin new plot about who is going to inherit the estate of Susanne, the "Frau Wirtin" of the title. There are several female candidates with a lifestyle just as promiscuous as Susanne's.

The technical quality of the English dubbing is truly atrocious, but then this film does not really deserve any better treatment.

An incredibly bad piece of trash. This is a German Sex-Western, compared to which the US productions of this subgenre (like Lee Frost's "The Scavengers" from 1971) shine as cinematic masterpieces with towering acting performances and glorious set pieces. We are talking bottom drawer stuff here, of a hundred-drawer cabinet, rivaling anything Edward Wood Jr., A.C. Stephen and Demofilo Fidani ever made.

The acting stinks abominably, the set pieces are a joke. It does not work as a Western, it doesn't work as a sex film, it doesn't work on any level.

One of the worst films ever made.

Several spaghetti westerns inspired a number of sequels focussing on a particular kind of shady hero. Beside the widely known "man with no name" there are (amongst others) Django, Sartana, Ringo, Spirito Sancto and this one, Sabata.

Sabata is partly inspired by 'For a few dollars more', since Lee van Cleef plays the bounty hunter Sabata as a character with similar features to his Colonel Mortimer. Especially noticeable is his collection of shooting gadgets. Western fans are used to the never-reload always-hit one-mile -range magic revolvers of classic westerns. In this film, Sabata wins a shoot-out by simply staying out of the range of his opponents revolver and shooting him with one of his long-range weapons.

Despite being a bounty hunter, Sabata has his peculiar code of honor, as opposed to the villain of the piece, the sleazy rich land owner Stengel, played superbly by Franco Ressel. As you might expect there is little doubt how it will all end but director Parolini keeps us guessing about Sabata's next moves.

A superior spaghetti western.