Black Killer

(1971) Black Killer SPAGHETTI WESTERN DUBBED

Co-written and directed by Carlo Croccolo including a small role as deputy sheriff, that has James Webb (Klaus Kinski) coming and moving into a small town called Tombstone with a load of books. Aside from those books he has some guns hidden inside of them. It appears the criminals of the O'Hara brothers has been terrorizing the town and as a result of the reward poster for the capture and kill of one of them being so small, he goes and murders the deputy sheriff so that the reward would be higher. After that one sheriff is murdered and killed, it is during then Burt Collins (Fred Robsham) comes into town and gets blackmailed to replace that dead sheriff. His actual intention is to visit his brother and see how he is doing living with his native American wife. And of course, he is going to butt heads with the O' Hara brothers.

Although, they are a dime a dozen quickie westerns for a fast buck, I like some for it's uniqueness as this movie is a prime example of it, even though guns hidden in books was done before in other Westerns and so forth, this movie more than overdose it.

A dark, gritty and to the bone nihilistic western, that is really fun to watch. By all means one of the cheaper spaghetti's. But it's blessed with many cool scenes of violence, strange dialog and good old sleazzzzz. There's more than one moment of unnecessary nudity here. Don't take it to seriously though cause it's just a fun ride, and nothing more. The white horse Burt Collins rides is said to be the same horse that gets loaded in Cat Ballou. The actor Fred Robsahm is actually from Norway and he's currently residing in a small town called Lillesand. He does a lot of the stunt work in this movie (not just he's own). Kinski is cool as the weird lawyer that has a strange habit of transforming he's law books into deadly weapons. Great soundtrack and some nice cinematography gives the film good atmosphere and it's well worth the watch. Available on DVD from xploitedcinema

Much of the positive that is to be found in "Black Killer" can be found with Klaus Kinski and the character he plays. The cold-eyed Kinski instantly brings in some grit with his charisma, though I have to admit that the unintentionally funny English dubbing for him sounds NOTHING like how Kinski (who could speak English) sounded in real life. There is also some novelty that Kinski is playing a lawyer (!), though one who is handy with a gun. Other positive things in the movie include a good musical score, as well as some good shoot-outs. And there is a significant amount of nudity, which you usually don't see in a spaghetti western. On the other hand, there isn't much of a story here, and the little there is unfolds very slowly. There were a couple of slow stretched where I almost drifted off into sleep. This isn't a bad movie, but I would only recommend it to Kinski fans and/or spaghetti western fans.

This film features good performances by the Italian actresses Marina Malfatti and Tiziani Dini. Bizarrely, although Malfatti is correctly credited in several of the earlier reviews on IMDb, and is also correctly credited on Wkikpedia, the cast list for this title on IMDb has been changed (vandalised) within the last year or so to credit Malfatti's part to a little-known actress named Marina Rabissi. I attempted to correct this some months ago, but the change has not been made. Malfatti looks convincing as a Native American, but the weakest feature of this film is the 'brownface' make-up of some of the Italian actors playing the O'Hara brothers who are the villains of this movie.

This spaghetti western has a very good music score and a great performance by Klaus Kinski as a strange lawyer who kills with books that have guns inside of them. He's really a natural for the role. His look and mannerisms fit the character perfectly.

Not only does this western have Kinski, it also has a family of Mexican thugs named O'Hara! There's definitely nothing like a good old Italian western.

This is one of those movies that will have you scratching your head a lot if you try to make perfect sense of everything that happens. It's best not to think about it too hard. Just sit back and enjoy it for what it is. It's got style, action, violence, weirdness, and an interesting though somewhat vague storyline.

All in all, it's pretty good stuff for the spaghetti western fan.