Leofwine_draca The plot of Tonino Valerii's men-on-a-mission spagwest bears heavy resemblance to THE DIRTY DOZEN while certain sequences are undoubtedly inspired by the climax of Peckinpah's WILD BUNCH. Despite the familiarity of this subject matter, the film turns out to be an engaging little western that tells its story in a spare, lean narrative. It has a gritty, downbeat flavour, is very well shot and makes fine use of some grand sets and isolated locations. Valerii displays a real affinity with the subject matter and brings Ernesto Gastaldi's script to life in a memorable way.Most of the characters are sidelined in favour of the big hitters, but small wonder when this film features James Coburn and Telly Savalas as protagonist and antagonist respectively. Coburn is stoic, sardonic and a fitting hero, while Savalas plays it subdued throughout. There's also a major role for spagwest stalwart Bud Spencer. Throw in some wonderfully filmed explosions (that put anything Michael Bay's done since to shame) and an epic-feel climax and you have a film that's never less than entertaining.

ianlouisiana I watched this film yesterday evening on ITV4 when I could have tuned into "The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook".Well,nobody's perfect. I can only imagine that ITV in its wisdom cut huge swathes of the storyline in order to fit it into their Saturday dead - time slot. Set during the War between the States the story opens on the eve of a mass hanging in a fort occupied by Union soldiers.For no reason that was apparent Mr J.Coburn and Mr B.Spence are brought to the fort in a waggon and the C.O. immediately seizes on Mr Coburn as the ideal man to lead a suicide raid on an enemy - held fort."I'll need 12 men" says Mr Coburn between drags on his cigarillo and delicate sips of his red wine that he has already pronounced as "good",denoting that he is a man of some culture. You see,Mr Coburn had been the officer in charge of the fort but had surrendered to the Rebs and been considered "yeller" although the fact that the Reb colonel had threatened to murder his wife and child might have concentrated his mind somewhat.Despite being handed his prize the odious colonel (Mr T.Savalas) went ahead and slaughtered Mr Coburn's family just for the fun of it. He doesn't get twelve men but plucks seven from the shadow of the gallows (including one wearing his late wife's crucifix,a point that is never explained or referred to again)and,with the promise of untold riches ringing in their ears,they set off,pausing only to have lunch at an isolated farm occupied by a family of psychos who they discover have trapped unwary Confederate soldiers and stolen whatever unwary Confederate Soldiers carry on their persons.then killed them.We don't actually see the bodies - a touch of sensitivity rather negated by the wholesale murder that occurs later in the film. They execute the Addams Family(There were four of them but I only counted three shots so possibly they lined them up one behind the other) and hop on a convenient passing Iron Horse. An awful lot of time is wasted as Mr Spence ingratiates himself with the reb grunts but eventually Mr Coburn and his scurvy crew get inside the fort and kill near enough every damn living thing except Mr Savalas who,with the dignity of an injured bull on its knees submits to the killing stroke of the sword wielded by Mr Coburn. That's the Code of the West - I guess. The music is intrusive,the guitar sounds a little flat to me,and the actual recording of the soundtrack is blurred. The dubbing is poor,the colour variable and Mr Savals's jacket as he faces his executioner is very untidy below the waist.He must have put it on in a hurry. Perhaps if anyone has seen a full - length version of "A reason to live,a reason to die",they can tip me the wink about Mr Coburn's wife's crucifix.It would be nice to know.

lastliberal Another western taking place during the Civil War.Colonel Penbroke (James Coburn) is trying to redeem himself after losing a fort to the rebs, and, like The Dirty Dozen, gathers condemned men to take a fort. He only has six or eight, not a dozen, but they manage to get to the fort anyway. Getting in is another matter.This is where it changes from a western to a commando flick, a la WWII. The condemned all die thinking they would be rich off the gold supposedly buried in the fort, and Coburn gets his chance to once again face Maj. Ward (Telly Savalas).Lots of dead Rebs and only Pembroke and Eli (Bud Spencer) survive, but his honor is restored.

classicsoncall You know, I must have missed something here because this story just didn't make much sense. During the Civil War, Union Colonel Pembroke (James Coburn) surrenders his position at Fort Holman to Rebel forces, and once court martialed, makes an offer to Major Charles Ballard to take the fort back with a handful of men. When asked why he surrendered in the first place, he stated that it wasn't important, so we never do find out. Huh?With five outlaws saved from the gallows, and a soldier thrown in for good measure by the Major, Pembroke makes his way back to Fort Holman, dangling a five hundred thousand dollar promise of hidden gold to his rag tag band. Curiously, it seemed to me that once the bullets started to fly, Pembroke lost more men than he started out with, but then again, I wasn't counting. In what looked like the complete reverse of the situation at the end of "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid", it appeared that Pembroke's bunch had the entire Rebel garrison at Holman surrounded, managing to destroy everything in sight while picking off a swarm of soldiers who never seemed to be seeking cover from all the gunfire. Holman's commander, General Ward (Telly Savalas) must have figured that being this close to the end of the flick, he might as well take Pembroke's sword to end it all. The set up seemed to suggest that Ward and Pembroke were mortal enemies, but if they were, I'm not going back to find out why.The print of the film I viewed probably didn't help matters any, it was a cheap DVD I picked up for a buck, and was quite dark and muddy throughout. I will give credit though to Pembroke's military ally Eli Sampson (Bud Spencer), he got an awful lot of mileage out of the old, hey the War is over gimmick. As for the half million in hidden gold - nope, it never turned up.