Uma Longa Fila de Cruzes

Bounty hunter Anthony Steffen teams up with shifty, bible-toting rival William Berger, who dresses like a preacher and carries a shotgun with seven barrels, in order to take on a ruthless gang of human smugglers working the Mexican border.

An entertaining, though somewhat standard-issue Italian western, this is well-made and fairly atmospheric, with a neat final gun-down. Steffen and especially Berger are pretty cool too, as is big Mario Brega (of Leone's Dollars trilogy among other films) finally getting to play one of the good guys!

One interesting aspect of the film is the depiction of illegal immigration, the "coyotes", and their primarily well-to-do white enablers as a public nuisances that help in keeping poor Mexicans down. This is a point of view you'll never see in the scared, hypocritical film world of today.

Experience taught me that, in case of spaghetti-westerns, it's always useful and interesting to Google-translate the original Italian titles. For some reason, the international titles in English are either irrelevant (most titles refer to in one way or another to the character of "Django" because that was the biggest commercial success) or nearly not exciting enough. Please disregard the English titles "A Noose for Django" and "No Room to Die" as the original title literally translates as "A Long Line of Crosses", which is – in my humble opinion as a western fanatic at least – a much more exhilarating and meaningful title. That being said, "A Long Line of Crosses" isn't the prototypic kind of spaghetti western that I would recommend in case you're fairly new to the genre. The film contains a number of fantastic elements, including a massively high body count and a terrific use of filming location and camera angles, but writer/director Sergio Garrone's script is too often confusing, incoherent and (unnecessarily) complex. Admittedly I often couldn't quite figure out why certain things happened, why some of the characters kept on double-crossing each other, or why the enemies didn't kill each other much earlier. The poor English dubbing obviously didn't help, neither. I'm relatively sure that the main plot focuses on the rich and supremely evil Mr. Fargo (depicted by the director's brother) who runs the highly immoral but profitable business of illegally smuggling poor Mexicans across the Texan border. Once he cashed the little amounts of money these people own, he sadistically dumps them into a ravine. The large list of notorious outlaws that he works with lures two different bounty hunters to town. Johnny Brandon and Everett "Preacherman" Murdock have two completely different personalities, but their pistols are equally fast and deadly. They close a pact to hunt down all the wanted criminals together, but Brandon is a defender of human rights whereas Preacherman is simply interested in the rewards. I honestly wouldn't ponder too much about the plot and merely enjoy the grotesque violence and delightful spaghetti western trademarks. "A Long Line of Crosses" bathes in that typical raw and filthy atmosphere, with lots of nasty-looking gunmen sweating and stinking in the burning sun, and the number of thugs falling dead from the cliffs or to the ground is practically countless. Anthony Steffen and particularly William Berger give away adequate performances, but – as usual – I personally liked the bad guy the most. Garrone is definitely the least brilliant Sergio of his generation of Italian western directors (defeated easily by Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Sollima) but I still appreciate his movies very much.

Illegal immigrant smuggling isn't a plot line that turns up too often in Spaghetti Westerns, but it turns up here. A bad guy named Fargo is sending cheap labour over the border into Texas and treats the workers like they are worth less than cattle, as we witness when a carriage full of migrant workers is thrown over a cliff when a Yankee patrol spots them. Fargo, who has black and white flashbacks to being mistreated as a child by some white guys, is also at odds with a kind Mexican lady who wants to take care of her people.

Fargo's number might be up due to the appearance of a couple of bounty hunters; The good natured but deadly Anthony Steffen, who starts off by gunning down the bandit Sartana. The other bounty hunter is the not-so-good natured William Berger, a milk drinking preacher with a seven barrelled rifle who hunts down and kills a few wanted villians but is willing to meet up with Sartana to take down Fargo's gang, where there's a fair price on most of their heads.

There's a slight sub-plot involving the Mexican smuggling racket being exposed (where Mariangela Giordano gets a few shots in) but everything really boils down to Steffen and Berger taking on scores of Fargo's men in various situations, with a few double crosses thrown in for good measure (William Berger gets ripped off at one point and runs around screaming "C'mere! You can't steal from me - it's a sin!"). The plot might be the usual, but director Garrone throws in loads of weird camera angles and trippy visuals. It's a good companion piece to his Django The Bastard, and makes me wonder why he would go on to bore us to death with the horror films Lover of the Monster and The Hand that Feeds the Dead.

I'll watch anything with William Berger in it mind you. He's always got a cheeky look on his face, even when gunning down scores of bad guys.

Two bounty hunters (Anthony Steffen, William Berger) team up to take on a criminal network led by a powerful landowner (Riccardo Garrone) who smuggles Mexicans across the border to treat them as slaves. The large landowners of an American region bordering Mexico , representatives of the fiercest capitalism, need workers since their compatriots do not want to do certain jobs and then just as it happens today, they resort to illegal immigration and labor exploitation. A certain novelty -although not profound, since we are talking about Pasta Western- involves presenting so early the wetbacks clandestinely crossing the Mexican border to go to the United States to collect salaries of 50 pesos. The large landowners of the South no longer have black slaves to do certain jobs, so they hire Mexicans at miserable prices. It is not so bad that the scoundrels who organize the transfer kill them unceremoniously at the slightest risk of being detained by the Army. The nasty band who illegally introduce them into the United States, will not hesitate at the slightest problem to get rid of them and keep all the money.

A spaghetti western that has all the right ingredients, it's sinister, dark, violent and features two of the genre's most prolific stars. Film directed by Sergio Garrone in 1969 that has a somewhat original story, but that also never overcomes the limitations of the genre. Una lunga fila di croci(1969) has the peculiarity that it contains certain social content: Here there are no black slaves to work and to take advantage of the misery of the inhabitants of their countries, Southern neighbors hiring Mexicans who try to escape pagan poverty at a low price, and while the ambitious owners exploit them at work. Unknowingly, they pay for the trip to a gang of swindlers to smuggle them into the United States. But the band gets rid of them and keeps all the money. Given the army's inability to control the border, it has been decided to put a reward on the heads of the gang members, which will attract two bounty hunters by unknowingly traveling to a gang. Given the impossibility of the army to control the border, as it is very wide, it has been decided to put a price on the heads of most of the members of that gang, which will attract two bounty hunters. That's why our two tough bounty hunters: Anthony Steffen and William Berger show up . They will join forces to kill all the bandits and distribute the reward. I found Anthony Steffen more convincing than usual, perhaps because his character looks a lot and speaks very little, but as he always acts stoic and silent. And as a companion, called the preacher and carrying a kind of machine gun, is the usually effective William Berger stands out as the black-clad, Bible-reading, six-barreled shotgun-wielding bounty hunter. While the bad guy, an intelligent and Machiavellian individual who undoubtedly takes advantage of people's poverty, is played by a correct Riccardo Garrone, brother of the director in his third collaboration. Along with them is Mario Brega in an insubstantial role and the female presence, in a quite attractive role, of a beautiful Nicoletta Machiavelli, as well as the charming Maria Angela Giordano as a harassed Mexican.

We are looking at a spaghetti that is quite careful from a formal point of view since it has, in my opinion, acceptable direction by Sergio Garrone, which can be seen in the concern and care for the composition of the different scenes such as that of the duel final, a nice photograph by Franco Villa and a more than worthy setting. The soundtrack composed by Kojucharov-Mancuso, a tandem that collaborated on several spaghetti, is quite atmospheric. In addition to the script, also by Garrone, I think it is a little more worked than usual in spaghetti, although it is a shame that in the last third of the film there are several twists that seemed a little simple and not very believable to me. Sergio Garrone provides a professional but flawed direction, it's all gratuitous violence, implausible situations and run-of-the-mill performances, but being passable. Rating: 5.5/10.

I love this movie. It is a masterpiece of the genre. It has it's flaws no doubt. The acting is good in places and wooden in others. Overall though it is a very cool film. If you like the Italina westerns, then don't hesitate to check this one out. The cinematography is top-notch, the music and sound effects are great! I especially love the way it starts! Bom bom BOM!!!!!!

Anthony Steffen is not the best actor in the genre but he does a satisfactory job here. William Berger is great as always! It contains more of the Django style multi-barrel guns and surreal sequences and moving camera shots with cool angles and experimental shots. The movie does contain some violence towards animals (there is a cockfight sequence).