washboard

A year or so ago, i bought a large plasma TV and soon discovered Westerns look fantastic on these screens. I rediscovered spaghetti westerns and didn't realise there were so many. I have scoured the earth to find rarities and have seen most of them over the past year. In my opinion this is one of the best. It is beautifully shot, well acted and very pacy, and of course the music is the icing on the cake. The ending is brilliant. It is unusual to find a film with such inspired comedy and action having such a moving and stirring finale.

After the Leone westerns this is the best. The thing that struck me was that whether a film is well known is due to a product of marketing rather than quality, as I had never heard of this film. I presume it was never widely distributed in the states as it was looked down on as another 'eurowestern' as the dollars films were.

I recently got hold of the Japanese DVD print via ebay. This is of really high quality and I was amazed that this film is not more widely known or appreciated. What a brilliant film. In many ways it is similar to Companeros and if you liked that wonderful film you will also love this. The story is somewhat far-fetched but is very enjoyable and fast paced in a 'boys own' way. The machine gun makes its familiar appearance. Franco Nero, as always, delivers a superb performance and Jack Palance gives a very good performance as a very unpleasant killer. The music is brilliant and the duel in the bullring is incomparable and is perfectly choreographed to the wonderful music. If you are interested in westerns you have to see this film.

I found this film quite disappointing. There are some good moments but the pace is pedantic. The storyline involves the usual hunt for hidden gold spaghetti western fare, but was, at times, non-sensical, unless I fell asleep in the middle, which may have happened. The dialogue and acting was quite poor in parts. William Berger's hair colour looked ridiculous and at time he almost looked like a peroxide blonde. The music was quite odd at times and often did not match the mood. The Japanese DVD release version was of surprisingly good quality. Not recommended unless you are a spaghetti western die-hard like me and must see them all.