Arriva Durango paga o muori

This spaghetti western is one which seems to be surprisingly obscure. I've no real idea why this should be but it's certainly not an inferior product anyway. Admittedly, it really brings nothing new to the table but it delivers the usual ingredients in a perfectly decent enough manner. It revolves around three characters of a type that populate countless Italian westerns - a loner with amazing weapons skills, an unscrupulous banker and a dangerous yet lovable Mexican bandit. While its setting of a small town under the rule of immoral criminals, who are only set free with the help of a slightly less amoral character, is a scenario that has been told umpteen times. But sometimes more of the same is okay and, well, this is more of the same there's no doubt about that.

The title character is a debt collector called Durango played by Brad Harris. It does have to be said that he seems extremely ill suited to play a character such as this in a western. This muscle-bound actor replete with impressive six-pack seems out of place here, and would be better suited to action movies and peplums. He also lacks much in the way of charisma and so this tree trunk of a man is miscast in my view. The other characters are a bit better, although the chap who played the evil banker seemed a little too Latin to really convince as a character called Ferguson! Still, these are minor gripes in the grand scheme of things and you'd be correct to wonder just why in hell I am even complaining about them. I'm wondering that too and I've just written them. No, the most important thing is that this film takes us from A to B on a well-worn spaghetti western path and it does it successfully, if unadventurously. It's certainly a film that deserves to be more widely seen though and is ultimately another successfully entertaining bit of Italian Americana.

Durango (Brad Harris) works as a debt collector. Somebody didn't pay after he lost a game of poker? Call Durango, and he'll get you the money - minus the 10 percent he always keeps as his reward. One day, however, he retrieves 100,000 dollars from a stolen money transport, and the manager Ferguson (Gino Lavagetto) thinks 10 percent of 100,000 is far too much. He accuses Durango to have stolen the money from him, and with 10,000 dollars in his pockets, Durango finds it hard to convince the sheriff he's innocent. In prison, Durango meets the Mexican bandit El Tuerto (Jose Torres) who helps him to escape. While he hides at a beautiful blond lady (Gisela Hahn), Durango makes plans for his revenge on Ferguson, but El Tuerto meanwhile joins company with other bandits and makes his own plans...

Average 'western all'italiana' without major flaws, yet without something new, either. Jose Torres' maniacal performance is outstanding in a movie where everyone else seems a bit wooden. One scene when Durango hands El Tuerto, who is calling him names, over to the sheriff is definitely 'inspired' by 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'.