Adios Sabata

The film talks about Sabata or Indio Black (Yul Brynner) , a gunfighter dressed in dark buckskin with fringes . He along with a motley group of revolutionary bandits have purports to steal a wagon loaded of gold from a devious Austrian Colonel called Skimmel (Gerard Herter) serving to Emperor Maximiliano during the Mexican Civil War against Benito Juarez . The misfit group is formed by different characters each one with particular ability , as the deaf-mute (Sal Borgese) is an expert thrower of balls , the dancer Gitano or Gypsy (Joseph Persaud) who does a Flamenco dance of death ; besides a fat , ironic Mexican (Pedro Sanchez or Ignacio Spalla acting in similar roles to Spaghetti idol Fernando Sancho) and a cocky , ruddy young man (the singer Dean Reed , early deceased) .

The picture contains Western action , gun-play , comedy , tongue-in-cheek and a little bit of violence . The film gets the comic remarks from Western parody united the features of typical Spaghetti as violent confrontation , ambitious antiheroes , bloody and spectacular showdown with several deaths , quick zooms and extreme baddies . This was not originally a Sabata film , the original Italian title translates as "Indio Black, you know what? You're a big son of a..." . Indio Black being the character played by Yul Brynner , but the title and Brynner's character name were changed for the American release to cash in on Sabata (1969) , the original film . Yul Brynner as a tough gunfighter with technical weaponry (like a Western James Bond) is enjoyable , similarly the previous Sabata : Lee Van Cleef , who was playing the role as 'Chris' in the following to first entry ¨The Seven magnificent¨ whose starring was the famous bald . At the same time Brynner filmed ¨Catlow¨ by Sam Wanamaker also in a lookalike role and similar plot , but it also narrates the robbing a Mexican gold shipment . Gerard Herter as a nasty and cruel Austrian officer with monocle named Colonel Skimmel is magnificent , but he repeats the role who starred in ¨The big gundown¨ (by Sergio Sollima with Lee Van Cleef) also with Nieves Navarro , here playing a very secondary role as a gorgeous saloon dancer . Bruno Nicolai musical score is lively and atmospheric , he's an usual collaborator to Ennio Morricone . The picture was well produced by Albert Grimaldi (¨Trilogy of dollars¨ producer) . The film was professionally directed by Frank Kramer (pseudonym of Gianfranco Parolini) who made the original and best ¨Sabata¨, continuing with ¨The return of Sabata¨ ; besides directing another Spaghetti hero : ¨Sartana¨ with Gianni Garco and Klaus Kinski, and his last Western again with Lee Van Cleef : ¨Diamante Lobo¨ . The flick will appeal to Yul Brynner fans and Spaghetti Western enthusiasts.

Yul Brynner and Dean (The Red Elvis) Reed team up with a group of Mexican revolutionaries in order to steal a shipment of gold belonging to the invading Austrian army and use it to buy guns for the resistance. However, the vicious Austrian occupiers have a few tricks up their sleeves and so does Brynner.

Yul's only real spaghetti western, his performance, flamboyant outfit, and neat gun-play elevates this very much typical, though well-made production to a higher level than it otherwise would have been. It's still too bland though.

The score by frequent Ennio Morricone collaborator Bruno Nicolai is pretty good.

From the producers and director of the earlier Sabata, this similarly themed film only became a sequel in the dubbing booth.

This is not really a Sabata film, but often Italian westerns pretended to be sequels just to get unwitting customers to come to see the films*. For example, Franco Nero's "Django" was very successful so practically every Italian film producer brought out a Django film but with a different leading man--and a completely different plot! Here, cashing in on the Sabata craze (small as it was), a non-Sabata film starring Yul Brynner is suddenly a Sabata film thanks to dubbing! In fact, originally, Brynner's character was called 'Indigo Black'. I checked and there were seven Sabata films--only two which are REAL Sabata films with Lee Van Cleef. The rest, like "Adios Sabata" are just rip-offs. So is this a BAD rip-off or a decent and watchable rip-off? Read on to see...

The plot of this film is close to that of a real Sabata film in that although he looks mean and shoots people by the score, this incarnation finds him doing this in order to help the Mexican Civil War of 1867. Now that doesn't mean he won't take a percentage for himself as well! A percentage of what you may ask....GOLD. It seems an evil (but very stylish) Austrian colonel is shipping gold--gold which could be used by the revolutionaries to buy weapons. However, Sabata isn't alone in this quest--he's taking along a fat guy, two VERY strange acrobats and a pretty-boy named Ballentine--who you KNOW is up to no good.

As far as Italian westerns go, this theme is VERY common--though most of the time the hero is helping the anti-Diaz forces of the Mexican Civil War of the 1910s. This one is set much earlier and has to do with getting rid of the imposed leader, Maximillian. Regardless, this one is reasonably entertaining, full of insanely good shots and has a touch of humor. Worth seeing but not a particularly novel film...except when it comes to one of the acrobats. His skill is handling a very large ball bearing kind of like a hacky sack--which he then hurls with his foot at people with deadly accuracy! Ha...worth seeing just to see this guy in action. ball bearing guy

*The same spirit of intellectual dishonesty was also rampant in Asian films after the death of Bruce Lee. Many supposedly new and recently discovered Lee films flooded the market--starring folks such as Bruce Li or consisting of home movies of Lee or outtakes from his films interspersed with a double wearing sunglasses! These films were ALL horrible--whereas a few of the Italian knockoffs were actually watchable. Plus, at least the Italian films had cool music.

Sort of sequel to the earlier Sabata with Lee Van Cleef, this was filmed as Indio Black and is known as that in several countries. The title was changed when the distributor paid for the right to use the name Sabata from the original films producer. The result is Sabata becomes a dead ringer for Chris, Yul Brynner's character from the Magnificent Seven films (a character Van Cleef was playing in a movie shot at the same time as this).

Aren't the back stage maneuvering of Spaghetti Westerns fun? Some times the stories are more fun than the movies.Fortunately this movie is more fun than the story.

The plot has Sabata (Yul Brenner) helping Mexican revolutionaries attempting to over throw the Emperor Maximilian. Sabata is to steal some gold and then use it to buy guns to attack an evil General. However things don't go as planned and when they go to steal the gold someone else is already there. Add to the whole mix spies, greed and some odd left turns and you get one entertaining, but not very coherent movie.

Don't get me wrong I like this movie a great deal, I just wish it made some sense. Characters appear out of left field when it suits the plot, people don't do anything logical (I mean if you just stole a wagon full of gold you'd make sure that the gold was really there wouldn't you?), after a certain point its never clear if they are keeping the gold or giving it to the revolution. Its enough to drive you crazy if you let it. I didn't since a good many of the spaghetti westerns I've seen make even less sense then this one.

If you like Westerns this is one to see. Its perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon. I'm still not sure if I think of Brenner's character as Sabata, but it doesn't matter since no matter what he's called he's a kick ass hero with a smart ass mouth. What more could you want?

The manic westerns of Gianfranco Parolini are like surreal comic books with outrageous editing and angles, bizarre weaponry, confusing language, episodic plots where every scene has a punchline, and ridiculous costumes. His films have a sense of tongue in cheek fun that comes through clearly thirty years later. It appears that the circus was his model, unpretentious entertainment pure and simple. There is absolutely no serious intention in his movies. That is why he remains the guilty pleasure of a number of fans of spaghetti westerns and eurotrash films in general. Along with Sabata (1970), Adios, Sabata is one of his "best".

The score by Bruno Nicolai is excellent, though reminiscent of Morricone's scores for the first 2 Leone movies.

The movie was originally intended be about a character called Indio Black, but with the success of Sabata the names were changed.

The five best things about this film: 1)Yul Brynner's black outfit with leather trim, an open vest, and bell bottoms 2)Lines like (spoken by Brynner), "Now let's get moving. Every Austrian in the territory will be looking for us." 3)The devious Colonel Skimmel 4)Every Austrian wears a black suit, tie, and bowler hat, making them somewhat conspicuous 5)The cast of revolutionary characters each with a unique ability or weapon

Top spaghetti western list http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849907

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For fanatics only (bottom of the barrel) http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849890