Les 4 desperados

Bullet for Sandoval, A (1969)

*** (out of 4)

Interesting Spaghetti Western takes place during the Civil War when a soldier (George Hilton) gets word that his pregnant girlfriend is dying. By the time he reaches the house she has died and her jealous father (Ernest Borgnine) makes him leave with their newborn son. Without the resources to take care of the child, it dies and soon the soldier sets out for revenge. This film has a great revenge story going for it but by the time it ended I was pretty mad at the movie because it could have been so much better. The film has several subplots and none of them are as interesting as the revenge story so these subplots get in the way and in the end they really pull the film back some. The film's main story is still good enough to make this worth watching as it features some great action sequences as well as two good performances by the leads. Hilton is very good in his mainly silent role and Borgnine delivers a maniac style performance. The ending is very strange and bizarre but it works well with the film even though the revenge takes a few different turns.

This one is really bleak and nihilistic, so watch out for that. Set during the American Civil War, we have Confederate soldier George Hilton having to go AWOL in order to save the honour of a woman who has just borne his child. George has several problems, however, one being that the army aren't too lenient on deserters, and his lady's father, Sandoval (a very loud Borgnine, just the way we like him!), really hates his guts and wants nothing to do with him. Plus, he gets caught and sentenced to death in pretty short order.

Killing his captor and heading south with a couple of mates, George finds that the town his fiance lives in is suffering from an outbreak of cholera, his missus has just died, and Sandoval has just dumped the kid on him and banished him. Further still, George finds that his kid is starving to death, but no one will feed him as they think the kid has cholera. The kid dies, and George turns to the dark side and starts murdering everyone who turned him away. Is this a Western or an Adam Sandler film?

George gets himself a gang of bandits while on the other side of things Sandoval keeps getting madder and madder and madder to the point where he denies he even had a daughter in the first place (although in secret he's shattered inside that she's gone - nicely performed by Borgnine). Both men are gearing up for a confrontation that they cannot avoid, as both of them have lost their souls...

We all like Ernest Borgnine, right? You can't go wrong with him here, as a stubborn but honourable man consumed by grief. George Hilton too does a nice turn as the loved up soldier turned blank-eyed killer and it's the fact that both characters have more depth that carries the film. Neither of them are particular evil men, but through circumstance they are both turned into monsters.

Good film. Loved the custard-pie fight at the end!

Wait...no...that didn't happen.

Saturday continues with another Spaghetti western with Ernest Borgnine and George Hilton.

The story takes place during the Civil War. Hilton got Borgnine's daughter pregnant, and she died delivering. Hilton comes back to marry her, finds, out she's dead, and takes the baby, who dies because no one would defy Don Pedro Sandoval (Borgnine) and give him milk.

After the baby dies, he flips and gathers some murderers to get revenge on all who were responsible, particularly Sandoval.

Great knife fight between the two of them at the end, and I assure you it wasn't a bullet that did him in.

Good action throughout.

This movie is in my top 20 list of the best spaghetti westerns. Ernest Borgnine was great for his only contribution towards the genre as Don Sandoval who blames the death of his daughter(Rosa) at the hands of John Warner (George Hilton) who wanted to marry Rosa but was not allowed due to the jealousy of Don Sandoval. Rosa dies giving birth to there child a boy who dies due to Sandoval's rage and jealousy and as well as the towns people's lack of help due the child being from a town having cholera. This last act makes warner turn outlaw punishing everyone who did not help. It is a great little story of revenge and hate that makes one of Hilton's best spaghetti roles ever. The ending is one of my favorites. A real comparison to the ending of "The Wild Bunch". The music was good and the acting and character profiles of the Warner gang was fabulous.

Confederate soldier George Hilton abandons his post in order to go and marry the expectant mother of his child, the daughter of wealthy Spanish landowner Don Pedro Sandoval (Ernest Borgnine), before it's too late. Captured, he escapes and arrives in time to find the baby's mother having already died in child-birth.

Her angry father sends the wanted Hilton and the baby out into the darkness where he gathers together a group of misfits to wreak vengeance on all who refused to help his son, especially Sandoval.

One memorable scene has Hilton attacking a petty fearful man who previously denied the starving infant milk, drowning him in a bucket of it.

A good Spanish/Italian co-production, the first half of A Bullet For Sandoval is so strong in terms of character development and emotions that the rest of the movie suffers by comparison.

Still, it's definitely worth watching and one of the best European westerns, with good performances by Hilton and Borgnine and a great climax in a bullfighting arena.