Hoy por mí... mañana por tí

WOW ! This was one good western, and it also has Bud Spencer (one of my fave actors) as one of the main roles! Heres the plot :

A man named Bill Kiaowa was sent to prison for 5 years for killing his wife....a crime which he didn't commit.When he's released from jail, he rounds up his old buddies to help him kill the man who killed his wife....

Yeah, your thinking, oh, just another boring western! It is just one of those simple westerns that were rip offs of " The good, the bad, and the Ugly" but give it a shot! Its worthwile!

Today it's me.... gets 6/10

TODAY IT'S ME...TOMORROW YOU!, aka TODAY WE KILL, TOMORROW WE DIE!, is a 1968 spaghetti western directed by Tonino Cervi and starring Brett Halsey as a Django lookalike who goes on the warpath to avenge the death of his wife. The film's origins are clear, with the straightforward revenge story concocted by Dario Argento no less. The first half sees posse members being assembled (a bit like THE DIRTY DOZEN) while the second sees them carrying out their mission of vengeance.

There's little in this movie you won't have seen elsewhere, but I was surprised at how well shot it is. The locations are atmospheric and the cinematography is excellent, with plenty of gritty shoot-outs for action fans. Characterisation is slim but the characters themselves are engaging, from Halsey's taciturn lead to the likes of William Berger, Bud Spencer and Wayde Preston as various members of the posse. The music is stirring and as a whole the production values can't be faulted.

The best actor of the lot is a real surprise: Japanese star Tatsuya Nakadai, star of the late Kurosawa movies RAN and KAGEMUSHA: THE SHADOW WARRIOR, playing the bad guy. Nakadai gives a multi-layered and extremely decent performance straight out of Japanese samurai cinema, and acts everybody else off screen. Simply said, he's brilliant and lifts the movie whenever he appears. The rating gains a star due to his presence alone.

My first positive review for a while, and it's for this little Western potboiler. A guy who has spent five years in prison for the murder of his wife which he was not responsible for organises a band of the meanest hombres around and goes to kill the real culprit of the crime. The murderer happens to be the leader of a bunch of merciless gangsters who hold up stagecoaches and dispose of anyone who gets in their way, so our hero and his desperadoes have their work cut out for them. But where there's a will..

Lacking the technical expertise of Clint Eatwood's finest, this is still a thoroughly engaging spectacle. So what if the dead bodies sometimes move, and the fists obviously never make contact with skin? Thanks to robust characterisations, lashings of wit, enthusiastic gun battles and an infinitely hissable villain this is well worth catching at the wee crack of dawn when you can't sleep. In fact, it's so entertaining I am postponing my own bedtime at 2.30 a.m to recommend it to everyone. Now that's commitment. YAWN. 6/10.... ZZZZZZZZZ *Head collapses on Z key*

A man named Bill Kiowa (Brett Halsey) is falsely convicted for killing his spouse and is condemned to prison for several years . When Bill's released he seeks vendetta against the Comancheros's leader who killed brutally his sweetheart . He's named Bill and as his wife was a Native American , for that reason is named Bill Kiowa . He reunites a misfit band formed by four tough men , a corpulent hunk named O'Bannon (at one of his first Westerns , Bud Spencer), a gambler (William Berger : Sartana, Sabata) , a gunslinger (Wayde Preston) , all of them to go after the Pistolero who framed him . Meanwhile , the bandits led by Elfego (Tatsuya Nakadi, starring in Kagemusa, and Ran) rob a Well Fargo stagecoach . Elfego is a psycho , a sadistic wielding a machete and killing cruelly his victims.

This Spaghetti packs goods moments with gunfire and fist-play and also the visual look is nice . Reminiscent of other films , except all those other movies are much better (Magnificent seven , The Good , the Bad and The Ugly , Fistful of dollars , among them) . Good camera work by Sergio Dóffici , though shot on inappropriate Italian outdoors from the Lacio and Elios Studios . I miss the classic barren landscapes from Almeria (Spain) where were filmed hundreds of Westerns . Cool musical score by Angelo Francisco Lavagnino , Peplum's usual . Weak performance by Brett Halsey as a man released after a jail term for a crime he didn't commit and raises a two-fisted bunch . Brett was a B American actor who starred numerous Spaghetti (Kill Johnny Ringo , Wrath of God , Roy Colt and Winchester Jack , Twenty thousand dollars for seven) and spy genre , working for Ricardo Fedra and Mario Bava and later returning USA as secondary TV actor . Halsey didn't believe in this movie and opted to use a the pseudonym Montgomery Ford so people wouldn't associate him with it ; the movie ended up being his most successful ever and to this day he's credited as Montgomery Ford in Italy . Excellent acting by Tatsuya Nakadai, a prestigious Japanese actor , he puts strange faces , grimace , penetrating eyes and killer laughter . The film was middlingly directed by Tonino Cervi in his first and only Western . He has an eclectic career as writer and director of drama (Portrait of bourgeois in black), comedy (The miser) and terror (Queens of evil) . His most important activity was as a producer , as he produced for Federico Fellini(Bocaccio 70) , Antonioni(Red desert) , Vancini (Long night of 43) and Bertolucci (Grim reaper) .

I'm sure this title has been broadcast on Italian TV many times over the years but, only after renting it on DVD along with many another Spaghetti Western, did I bother to check out whether it was any good – and I was surprised to see it receive a *** rating on the "Cult Filmz" website! As it turned out, I found myself agreeing with that assessment – which makes the film one of the better (if largely unsung) entries in this profuse, eclectic and erratic genre.

An interesting name in the credits is that of co-screenwriter Dario Argento; actually, early in his career the soon-to-be horrormeister worked on several such efforts in this capacity (including the ultimate genre masterpiece, Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST [1968]). Similarly, director/co-screenwriter Cervi started out as a producer on films by such Italian art-house heavyweights as Antonioni, Bertolucci, Bolognini, De Sica, Fellini, Lattuada, Monicelli and Visconti, etc. – though, later, he even dabbled in nunsploitation flicks!

Anyway, as I said, this is a pretty good Spaghetti Western – albeit saddled with a catchpenny (and meaningless) title – involving a typical revenge plot: leading man Brett Halsey (appearing, unnecessarily, under the amusing pseudonym Montgomery Ford!) emerges from prison after five years, having been framed for the murder of his Indian squaw bride (shown in sepia-toned flashback, this is pretty much a genre fixture); he rallies a compact but formidable band of gunmen/mercenaries (shades of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN [1960]) and sets out in pursuit of the real culprit, ex-pal Tatsuya Nakadai (the celebrated Japanese actor is given the Mexican name of Elfego, though he wields a deadly machete in the fashion of a samurai!).

Halsey appeared in a number of low-brow Spaghetti Westerns (one of them being ROY COLT AND WINCHESTER JACK [1970], incidentally an irregular – and disappointing – stint in the genre by Mario Bava, another seminal figure in Italian horror cinema) but this is most probably the best one he did. Accompanying the appropriately dour and black-clad lead, among others, are beefy Bud Spencer (a future icon of brawling comic fare – by the way, I have three more Spaghetti Westerns of his lined up for this week, one of which also credits Argento among its scriptwriters) and genre/Euro-Cult stalwart William Berger (his character is something of a fop and, furthermore, has a gambling addiction).

Nakadai's presence here, then, is a delightful surprise – which definitely works to the film's advantage (his demise, in a confrontation not unlike that in a Budd Boetticher Western, is a particular highlight); with this in mind, prolific composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino incorporates several weird Oriental sounds into the traditional Spaghetti Western motifs – and the result is effective indeed. Sergio D'Offizi's notable cinematography, however, isn't rendered justice by the English-dubbed print utilized for the VCI DVD – which is considerably scratched and muddy (at one point, Halsey remarks that "It'll be dark soon"…but the sky, as it appears, is already pitch-black!). Needless to say, the film contains the expected set-pieces of violent action – including an admirably sustained forest ambush at the climax.