Ehi! Gringo... Scendi dalla croce

'20,000 dólares por un cadaver' tells the story of the farmer Bruce (Miguel de la Riva) and his wife Helen (Dyanik Zurakowska). Please note: I have watched the Italian dubbed version, the names of the characters apparently vary in the Spanish original and the English dubbing. Anyhow, 'Bruce' shoots a man one rainy night, believing he's defending himself against a burglar. But the dead man turns out to be Burkett, the most wanted bandit around, and there was a price of 20,000 dollars on his head. Bruce thinks he is rich now, but immediately bandits take the bounty money from him. Helen is really worried when she realizes her husband wants to go after the dangerous bandits and get his money back, as he isn't really fast on the draw.

For a cheap B movie, this has a fairly good script. The hero, at first an innocent young man, develops a dark side, when he cannot suppress his greed and thus disappoints his wife. After this promising start, however, it becomes a run-of-the-mill western in the second half. Therefore I voted only 4/10.

I watched the original Spanish version undubbed. I couldn't find any extant subtitles, so I had to rely on my fair to middling Spanish. I never read a synopsis before seeing it and wrote my own afterwards to see how much I had gotten, and was surprised it was pretty much spot on, so I think I understood what I was seeing.

Best part: 100% Mexican spaghetti western. Surprisingly few of the Paella sub-genre, the Italian-Spanish co-productions are in Spanish. I like the Italian, but I'd like to see a few that take place in Mexico where they're actually speaking Spanish. And it's filmed in Mexico. That part is really great.

I liked the weapons. I'm a re-enactor and member of the Single Action Shooting Society, so I'm always noticing the weapons, techniques and seeing if it matches the time period. I liked these. Pretty much identical to all my replicas, that gave the gun play an added dimension.

Weakest factor? The freaking' SOUNDTRACK. It is awful- in a trite sort of way- beyond imaging. Cringeworthy. They reuse the same awful melody constantly, not only being tedious, but often totally out of emotional sync with the action.

The plot is really simple. Hey, I understood it. Kind of a nice take on the "everyone's a jackass except me" kind of spaghetti western. The special effects cinematography is really awful, like the sound track, though. Everything from dynamite moving a railroad tie about a quarter of an inch to a .45 revolver blowing up a locomotive head on.

I enjoyed it, in spite of the weaknesses, so I have to give it at least a six, though, technically speaking, it's no six. Like I said, I liked it. Maybe I'm just chuffed at the fact I understood the gist of it. If so I guess I shouldn't complain that the plot was pretty simple.

It is set in Tombstone with plenty of gunfighters who take law on their own hands , which cause diverse problems . The purchase of farms that occupy land through which the new railroad is going to run causes more confrontations and disputes . There lives a marriage of farmers , Dale (Miguel De La Riva or Michael Rivers) and Elen (Dyanik Zurakowska) Brais . During a stormy day and by night , Elen comes home and meets a man strongly injured and his husband really wounded too . Dale has shot a man believing he is defending himself against a robber , who subsequently dies . The burglar results to be Red Burke (Fernando Sanchez Polack) . Burke is a known outlaw , the most wanted man , alive or dead , reward : 20.000 dollars . Then , Dale reclaims the reward to sheriff (Guillermo Mendez) . Meanwhile , the railway construction and the farm owners cause diverse problems and then the railway owners hire enforcement agents . The honorable farmer Dale learns to shoot to defend himself and to his pregnant wife against a bandit called Ralston (José Truchado) , Burke's former henchman . Soon after , Ralston and his gang rob the Dale's reward and , later on , they take the payroll of the railway workers and also assault a stagecoach . Shortly after , Ralston and his band attempt to destroy the railway by exploding dynamite .

¨20.00 dollars Por Un Cadáver¨ also titled ¨Twenty Thousand Dollars for Every Corpse¨ or ¨Ehi! Gringo... Scendi Dalla Croce¨ is just a pretty bad Paella Western due to low budget and its director is a sort of Spanish Ed Wood , similarly to Demofilo Fidani , deemed to be the Spaghetti Western Ed Wood . It is a Spanish made western that came to the big screen when the top time of the genre was falling down . In fact , the late sixties and early 'seventies' is not the best time to find out good spaghetti/Chorizo westerns . It's a Spanish realization , this is not the usual Spanish/Italian co-production of the 60s and 70s in which were clearly dominated by the Italian contingent and the traditional leanings of the Spanish producers of the time have their stamp on the entire proceedings . But this one is badly made with some exciting moments , it drags at times , balancing in ups and downs ; turning out to be entertaining enough , but below average . This is one out of five Westerns Zabalza made along with ¨Las Malditas Pistolas De Dallas¨, ¨Los Rebeldes De Arizona¨ , ¨Plomo Sobre Dallas¨, and ¨Al Oeste De Rio Grande¨ , most of them starred by similar actors , such as : Michael Rivers , Dyanik Zurakowska , Carlos Quiney , Claudia Gravy , Luis Induni , Guillermo Méndez , José Marco and José Truchado . The movie contains typical particularities Spaghetti , as it is full of fury , sadism , bloodbaths , and close-ups of grime-encrusted faces . It does not follow utterly the typical paths of the European western wave around seventies , it lacks both the sarcasm and the Eastwood type of antihero . Here appear customary main and secondary actors from Spaghetti/Tortilla or Paella Western that give mediocre interpretations . Michael Rivers gives a subdued performance , but lousy acting , as a two-fisted but upright farmer turned a railway agent . Here playing a stubborn countryman become into a terrible avenger when his his farm is burned out and his reward is wrongly taken by gunslingers . As he seeks vengeance and justice , an usual plot in Spaghetti western . Furthermore , here shows up a mediocre secondary cast , plenty with Spanish secondaries , all of them Paella's ordinaries such as José Truchado , Fernando Sánchez Polack , Jose Marco , Guillermo Mendez and Ramón Lillo . Worn-out and faded cinematography by Leopoldo Villaseñor in Eastmancolor and Techniscope . Shot on location in Patones , Aldea Del Fresno , Seseña , Villamanta and Colmenar Viejo , Madrid . Anti-climatic , inappropriate musical score by Ana Satrove , Zabalza's wife .

The motion picture was lousily directed by José Maria Zabalza , this director born in city of Irun sometimes signs his films under the alternate pseudonym ¨Joseph Trader¨ or ¨Harry Freeman¨ with some movies never shown to any audience . He dedicated his life to the cinema but whose filmography is almost unedited and unseen . José María Zabalza , director who is remembered for his foray into the series "Waldemar Daninsky" with "Paul Naschy's La Furia Del Hombre Lobo" 1972 . Zabalza made a good film titled "Entierro De Un Funcionario en Primavera," starring Tony Leblanc , here Zabalza proved to be a talented director , making a comedy full of black humor that Luis García Berlanga described as the precursor film of Spanish black comedy , and considered to be an ironic satire about the funerals . He directed all kinds of genres as Mobster movie : ¨El Regreso De Al Capone¨ , ¨Homicidios En Chicago¨ ; Bullfighting : ¨Un Torero Para La Historia¨ ; Drama : ¨Camerino Sin Biombo¨ and Comedies : ¨Un Divorcio Al La Andaluza¨, ¨De La Troya Al Palmar¨. After personal problems to get worse , increasing shortfalls , as he neglected the technical aspects and , in fact , he attempted to film in just 24 hours his last picture ,¨El Retorno De Los vampiros¨ , until his early death at 57.