While this comic Spaghetti Western was nowhere near as bad as its low reputation amidst the director\u2019s canon would seem to suggest, it can\u2019t possibly hold a candle to Sergio Leone\u2019s classic THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966) \u2013 and it would be puerile for anyone to attempt comparisons of this sort! <\/p>\n
It\u2019s the last of Bava\u2019s three such genre efforts but, actually, the first I\u2019ve watched; I used to think that he was constrained within the number of relatively low-brow peplums he made, but even those showed greater commitment \u2013 and vigor during the action sequences. Here we get plenty of brawling and shooting, to be sure, but the handling throughout is decidedly sloppy\u2026as if Bava, rather than be inspired by these traditionally \u2018big\u2019 moments, wanted to get such genre requirements out of the way! <\/p>\n
That said, despite utilizing a wide variety of locations in its plot about two rival outlaw gangs\u2019 quest for gold, these don\u2019t seem to have stimulated the director\u2019s trademark compositional skills; even worse, the comedy element comes across as heavy-handed most of the time, resulting in a flat and drawn-out film (even if it runs for a mere 85 minutes)! <\/p>\n
Brett Halsey (from Bava\u2019s FOUR TIMES THAT NIGHT [1969]) and Charles Southwood don\u2019t exactly generate fireworks in the title roles and, in fact, the best in the cast are Marilu’ Tolo as Winchester\u2019s spirited (and shrewd) Indian girl and Teodoro Corra’ as The Reverend, the atypically buffoonish baddie \u2013 a Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9 who still can\u2019t get over the cold of his native land. Isa Miranda (who would work again with Bava when he treaded more familiar ground in BAY OF BLOOD [1971]) appears as the brothel Madame in what is perhaps the most slapsticky and forced set-piece in the entire film.<\/p>\n
Hardly memorable in itself, there are still a few mild highlights in this reasonably agreeable, innocuous yet patchy genre offering: the spastic gunman at the beginning, the obviously fake snake which menaces Winchester (reminiscent of the one in Fritz Lang\u2019s THE Indian TOMB [1959]), the exploding villain, and the final shot with the heroes\u2019 feet up in the air as they engage in yet another fisticuff. Piero Umiliani\u2019s lively score certainly contributes to the film\u2019s characteristically light touch.<\/p>\n
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While this comic Spaghetti Western was nowhere near as bad as its low reputation amidst the director\u2019s canon would seem to suggest, it can\u2019t possibly hold a candle to Sergio Leone\u2019s classic THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966) \u2013 and it would be puerile for anyone to attempt comparisons of this sort! It\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movie-news","wpcat-1-id"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/images.jpeg",96,202,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/images-96x145.jpeg",96,145,true],"medium":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/images.jpeg",96,202,false],"medium_large":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/images.jpeg",96,202,false],"large":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/images.jpeg",96,202,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/images.jpeg",96,202,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/images.jpeg",96,202,false],"gridflex-1422w-autoh-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/images.jpeg",96,202,false],"gridflex-1074w-autoh-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/images.jpeg",96,202,false],"gridflex-360w-300h-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/images.jpeg",96,202,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin1","author_link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"While this comic Spaghetti Western was nowhere near as bad as its low reputation amidst the director\u2019s canon would seem to suggest, it can\u2019t possibly hold a candle to Sergio Leone\u2019s classic THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966) \u2013 and it would be puerile for anyone to attempt comparisons of this sort! It\u2019s...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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