Les 4 desperados

This one is really bleak and nihilistic, so watch out for that. Set during the American Civil War, we have Confederate soldier George Hilton having to go AWOL in order to save the honour of a woman who has just borne his child. George has several problems, however, one being that the army aren't too lenient on deserters, and his lady's father, Sandoval (a very loud Borgnine, just the way we like him!), really hates his guts and wants nothing to do with him. Plus, he gets caught and sentenced to death in pretty short order.

Killing his captor and heading south with a couple of mates, George finds that the town his fiance lives in is suffering from an outbreak of cholera, his missus has just died, and Sandoval has just dumped the kid on him and banished him. Further still, George finds that his kid is starving to death, but no one will feed him as they think the kid has cholera. The kid dies, and George turns to the dark side and starts murdering everyone who turned him away. Is this a Western or an Adam Sandler film?

George gets himself a gang of bandits while on the other side of things Sandoval keeps getting madder and madder and madder to the point where he denies he even had a daughter in the first place (although in secret he's shattered inside that she's gone - nicely performed by Borgnine). Both men are gearing up for a confrontation that they cannot avoid, as both of them have lost their souls...

We all like Ernest Borgnine, right? You can't go wrong with him here, as a stubborn but honourable man consumed by grief. George Hilton too does a nice turn as the loved up soldier turned blank-eyed killer and it's the fact that both characters have more depth that carries the film. Neither of them are particular evil men, but through circumstance they are both turned into monsters.

Good film. Loved the custard-pie fight at the end!

Wait...no...that didn't happen.

Saturday continues with another Spaghetti western with Ernest Borgnine and George Hilton.

The story takes place during the Civil War. Hilton got Borgnine's daughter pregnant, and she died delivering. Hilton comes back to marry her, finds, out she's dead, and takes the baby, who dies because no one would defy Don Pedro Sandoval (Borgnine) and give him milk.

After the baby dies, he flips and gathers some murderers to get revenge on all who were responsible, particularly Sandoval.

Great knife fight between the two of them at the end, and I assure you it wasn't a bullet that did him in.

Good action throughout.

Confederate soldier John Warner (George Hilton) receives news that his girlfriend is giving birth. Her wealthy Mexican father Don Pedro Sandoval (Ernest Borgnine) had forbidden their relationship. He decides to desert and go home. After some harrowing escapes, he finds that his love had died. Sandoval rejects the baby which also died. Warner vows revenge and turns into a bandit.

This is a spaghetti western of revenge and greed. There is no easy hero in this one. It is only shades of grey. I wish the lead is someone more familiar. Warner mostly worked in Italian or other foreign films. He has a coldness which works better for villains. That is still very interesting in this world.

Anybody who is into spaghettis should watch this film. The plot is about a woman that dies after giving birth to the son of her lover (George Hilton), a soldier away on duty. The father of the woman (Ernest Borgnine), hates Hilton and blames him for her death. The hatred the men have for eachother consumes them both and they spend the film stalking eachother, until they finally settle the account at the end, with one of the best and climatic endings I have ever seen in any movie.

For a start, the acting in this spag, is better than 90% of the spags I have seen. The atmosphere is dripping with a sense of fate and destiny...a sort of weird nihilism between the two men. The cinematography is gorgeous and the film moves from scene to scene very smoothly...making it easy to watch.

The ending is an unusual one for a spaghetti. Its simply brilliant.

Confederate soldier George Hilton abandons his post in order to go and marry the expectant mother of his child, the daughter of wealthy Spanish landowner Don Pedro Sandoval (Ernest Borgnine), before it's too late. Captured, he escapes and arrives in time to find the baby's mother having already died in child-birth.

Her angry father sends the wanted Hilton and the baby out into the darkness where he gathers together a group of misfits to wreak vengeance on all who refused to help his son, especially Sandoval.

One memorable scene has Hilton attacking a petty fearful man who previously denied the starving infant milk, drowning him in a bucket of it.

A good Spanish/Italian co-production, the first half of A Bullet For Sandoval is so strong in terms of character development and emotions that the rest of the movie suffers by comparison.

Still, it's definitely worth watching and one of the best European westerns, with good performances by Hilton and Borgnine and a great climax in a bullfighting arena.