4 Tiros Sem Perdão

I like my curries hot and my Spaghetti Westerns ridiculous, and this film is ridiculous in the extreme, which is why it's also so much fun.

Three men from different places in the West are given letters stating that they have inherited a gold mine from their previously unknown father. One of them is a lightning fast gunfighter with a four-barelled gun amongst other gadgets, the other uses magnetism to fight folks, and the last is a half Japanese karate expert. All three are half brothers and all three are about to go head to head with one of the strangest bad guy's you'll see in a Spaghetti Western.

Sure, he's a rich landowner with loads of underlings who owns everything in the local town and just loves bumping people off and taking their land, but he's also obsessed with Julius Ceaser to the point where he lives in a huge villa done up with ancient Roman pillars and a bathhouse, has a historian dictate the biography of Ceaser to him, and sits outside in a gilded chair while someone belly dances for him. Actor Enrico Maria Salerno usually plays downtrodden, broken characters but here he looks like he's having the time of his life.

For the most part the plot is your usual good guys versus bad guys, but when it's interlaced with at least two musical numbers, belly dancing, a catfight (much to the delight of the main characters), and a showdown in a room full of steam, you can't really complain, can you?

There's loads of shoot-outs too and not a few minutes pass before something strange or outlandish happens. I love the stranger Westerns and keep finding them without even much effort, so I'm just going to keep on searching.

Now, there are many euro-westerns that would fit into the "weird" category, but woh this one is weirder than most!

The story starts with Whity Selby (Thomas Hunter) being confronted by a solicitor whilst leaving a saloon (inside which he has just thwarted an attack by killing all three opponents with one blast of his three barrelled pistol - one of many gimmicky weapons in his arsenal).

The solicitor advises Selby that his father, who had died ten years ago and he had never met, had left him his goldmine as part of a will. The document is accompanied by a picture of a young girl. Selby travels to Laredo to reclaim his father's legacy, and to identify the identity of the girl.

On arriving at the goldmine, Selby encounters two men on a similar mission - Etienne Devereaux (Nadir Moretti), a man of french origin with magical powers of magnetism (honestly!) and Lester Kato (James Shigeta), a kung-fu kicking oriental. As the three men fight it out for what they consider rightfully theirs, they are accosted by an old local man, and it soon becomes clear from the ensuing discussions and matching wills/photos that the three are unlikely brothers. Their father enjoyed the company of women, and many of them!

The men are informed that their father fought bitterly to retain his land, but had been forced out of Laredo by powerful landowner "Julius Caesar" Fuller (Enrico Maria Salerno) - a man obsessed by the history of the great roman leader, likening him to the power that he himself possesses. Fuller is quite possibly the strangest character of all the euro-westerns that I have seen - he lives in a replica palace, has a penchant for young girls, surrounded by scantily clad ladies from around the world as his lolls about in his toga. He is guarded by a gang of pistoleros all clad in black (reminiscent of the equally bizarre Django Kill which, incidentally, I believe this film predates).

All in all "Death Walks in Laredo" makes for quire compulsive viewing! Not just because of its unique and bizarre take on the genre, but also for its interesting story with its subtle twists and turns. Thomas Hunter is pretty convincing in the main character role, but not as enjoyable as Salerno, who hams his Caesar role in a style reminiscent of Jack Nicholson.

There are also some moments of great humour - with some priceless dialogue as the old man explains why it has taken ten years for the wills to reach the brothers. The confrontation between the two ladies is also very pleasing on my male eyes!

Can I recommend this? Well, of course! But there is probably as much a chance of you hating it as loving it. Personally, I had a love in.

"3 Pistole Contro Cesare" ("Death Walks in Laredo") tells the story of three brothers, Selby (Thomas Hunter), Kato (James Shigeta) and Deveraux (Nadir Moretti) who inherit a gold mine. The land is, however, claimed by a man called Julius Cesar Fuller (Enrico Maria Salerno), and his right hand man Bronson (Umberto D'Orsi) ensures with 30 gun-men that no trespassers disturb Cesar during his many baths and literature readings. The three brothers meet their long lost sister and then have a disagreement whether they should just go away and live happily elsewhere or challenge the would-be emperor?

During the first 12 minutes of this movie, the hero Selby shoots 12 guys, which sets an impressive body count. He has got a special gun with 4 barrels, so he can shoot more guys simultaneously, yet only if they line up properly. 'Cesar' Fuller had his ranch turned into a Roman bath with plenty of 'slaves', listening to the life story of Julius Caesar for inspiration. You have never seen a villain like this in any other western - promised. Nobody involved seems to take it seriously for a minute, neither will you, but it is a lot of fun!

During the hey-days of Italian westerns, the production company Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica showed remarkably little interest, producing hardly any movies of this genre. "Un Fiume Di Dollari" ("The Hills Run Red") by Carlo Lizzani, also starring Thomas Hunter, and "Navajo Joe" by Sergio Corbucci with Burt Reynolds deserve mentioning. "3 Pistole Contro Cesare" includes none of the usual stars of the genre and was, best to my knowledge, the only Italian western shot in Algeria, so you don't get the familiar Spanish supporting cast, either. This really is different from the usual run of the mill, loves going over the top with his bizarre villain, and it is definitely worth watching if you enjoy off-beat productions.

The bad guy is named Julius Caesar Fuller, wears togas, stocks his palace bath with concubines, and commands dozens of henchmen clad in black. A lost episode of the Batman TV show? No, a bizarre spaghetti western. One of our three heroes is American, carries an array of trick guns, and never misses a shot. The second is Japanese and practices kung fu. The third is French and has magical magnetic powers. The three discover soon that they are half-brothers. If you're a spaghetti western completist, it's good for a hoot. Otherwise, you probably shouldn't bother.

I;m not a fan of spaghetti westerns...the italians have no more idea about making westerns than they do real italian food which means the only thing they are good at is cooking books...the plot is okay, bad guy steals from the good which yields the revenge motive...the cast of thousands reminds us of all things roman...beware the ides, cesare...this film is complete junk...the gun was a six shooter not an unending array of bullets...nausea plus