Cjamango

This movie is beautiful. It was shot beautifully and the acting is above average. Sean Todd (Ivan Rassimov) is both beautiful and rugged. He plays the ant-hero with a twist..he IS a hero. He takes care of a little orphaned boy and saves a girl from certain rape. He only goes after gold that was originally stolen from him. Everything he does is heroic!

Helen Chanel has got to be one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.

Cjamango sits firmly in my top 25 Spaghetti Westerns thus far. (I still have about 450 to track down and view!! If you like Euro or Spaghetti Westerns, then this is a must have for your collection!

Tellingly for the quality of the film, the German print I watched was retitled DJANGO - CROSSES IN BLOODY SAND. Yes you guessed right, this is one of those "countless Django knock offs" that many know about and bring up every time DJANGO is discussed, but few brave dare to sit through. Obviously shot on a shoe-string budget, it's a rudimentary affair with this Mulargia guy going for simple hackneyed efficiency (ie. getting a film in the can in two weeks), he's not making high art. Cjamango the titular gunslinger wins the hard earned gold of a greasy Mexican bandit in cards but before he has time to savour his win, he gets robbed by a bunch of crooks. The rest of the movie sees Cjamango trying to get revenge and his gold back. There's also a love interest, an annoying child that follows him around (a social commentary on the plight of celebrities perhaps?) and the occasional shootout that spices things up, but it's all too workmanlike to register. Of note is Ivan Rassimov in the titular role. He would go on to play the baddie in several Italian thrillers (the infamous gialli) but with his mesmeric stare, he's just as good as the gunslinger.

Immediately after winning a sack of gold in a card game, Cjamango (Ivan Rassimov) has it stolen by a gang who literally kills everyone else in the room. Traveling to a small town to retrieve his treasure, he helps out a young orphan and crosses paths with mystery man Mickey Hargitay.

Not content with merely ripping off Sergio Corbucci's popular Django character, the producers took the unusual step of creating their own Django-like character, that ends up being more in the spirit of the original film than many of the knock-offs that actually used Django in the title. Ironically, German distributors actually re-titled the film as another bogus Django sequel.

As far as the movie goes, it's alright. There's a lot of familiar European faces and some good action scenes. Fans of Ivan Rassimov (who's been in quite a few good cult films), Django, or the spaghetti western genre as a whole, will probably appreciate this more than the casual viewer.

Sean Todd (aka Ivan Rassimov) stars in this little known spaghetti western as Cjamango, one of the countless Django-like gunfighters who roamed the Italian west. He's seeking a gold treasure that he won in a poker game which was immediately hijacked by El Tigre and Don Pedro (Pierro Lulli and Lorenzo Livion). Helping him along his way is the mysterious stranger Clint (Mickey Hargitay), an orphan (Giusva), and the beautiful Pearl (Helene Chanel). This one has a higher body count than usual, and among them are some of the good guys. Chanel rather resembles Rada Rassimov (Ivan's sister) who played Maria in THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, but contrary to rumor, they are not one and the same. Livion is the guy underneath the pillow in a scene he shares with Lee Van Cleef in that movie, so the film abounds with spaghetti veterans. The music is great, trumpets and guitars, and the final scene is nicely choreographed. One of the best middle-grade Eurowesterns, and a nice widescreen transfer by Wild East.

This is what many say, and they are right. What to make money, then kill you and relive for revenge: Django. We fought two gangs in a village and see a great shooter, and everyone wants: A Fistful of Dollars. I like the music, the actor (Ivan Rassimov) is great in this role. If you have something to plagiarize, plagiarize any better. Here we see from the name of the protagonist to the situation of two warring gangs are tucked in history, to harness the pull of both Django and A Fistful of Dollars. Surely shot with very little budget, whether it reaches the level that many situations that occur in the movie are not displayed, only counted in the mouth of someone in order to avoid further costs, the lack of a stronger script converts the tape into a Ida and goings of the protagonist, many shootings of the two bands come to no story, and that no one really knows how many men have each side, since it seems that in every firefight killed almost everyone, but in the next to see the same number of principle.Here it is seen as a positive criticism, with the negative. That if the child squeaking too ... if you like spaghetti westerns, this is a film that follows the parameters of the genre, and at least entertain you. If you are more demanding, or try, Buckie ... 9/10(9,1)