dr_97701 Over the top, cheesy performances by the actors who are walking, talking caricatures of Western villains and heroes. Watching this movie was like watching a cartoon. So bad it's good, but very very good. The town slaughter was literally unbelievable, but so ultimately predictable it was perfect and sped the plot forward. The standoff at the river was simple good vs evil, with goodness and evil on both sides. Saw this on TV last night and couldn't turn it off. My wife wondered what I saw in it. I couldn't believe how brilliant the colors were and how clear the picture was after all these years. It was good to see Mariette Hartley in such a naughty role talking DIRECTLY into the camera about what qualities constitute the essence of a REAL WOMAN. Wow, wow, wow.

mgtbltp Finally saw this tonight, its been called the "most Italianate of American Westerns" by some critics (more so than Eastwoods contemporary Hang em High) and I'll have to admit it really starts off like gangbusters, after the unusual opening credits sequence (its shot to resemble an oil painting looking as if the film is being projected upon a canvas). Director was Gordon Douglas who did "Rio Conchos", "Chuka", "Them", "Robin & The Seven Hoods", and "In Like Flint" to name a few. Its initial first half has a way more SW feel to it than "Hang Em' High".Unfortunately what I watched was a fullscreen pan & scan a bit blurry with the colors seeming a bit too strong, recorded off a broadcast so it wasn't quite the best way to watch it.It was shot on location in Colorado.We see two groups, a small army of mercenary outlaws and a trio riding in opposite directions with a river valley in the b.g. One side of the river leads to the Mexican border.Lee Van Cleef is Travis the Barquero the ferryman, and we see him plying his trade as he pulls a wagon of settlers across, his only weapons are a bowie knife and some sort of long range rifle of a Sharps or Spencer type. He has one prop from his SW days and that's his "Angel Eyes" tobacco pipe.We first see (Jack Remy) Oates in bed with a plump sweaty Hispanic whore Layeta, wearing his black hat with a fancy gold hat-band in a saloon/whore house the "Double Eagle" in the town of Buckskin (very frontier looking with a lot of log cabin buildings), he's looking his sleaziest best. Some sample dialog.Whore (fawning) "am I not beautiful senior"? Jack (looking disgusted) "I need a drink". Whore "Say it senior." Jack "you're beautiful...oh are you beautiful". Whore "why do you wear your sombrero"? Jack " why do you wear your stockings" Whore "because they are pretty" Jack "my hat's pretty"a bit later the whore is splashing perfume on herself while singing...Whore "do I smell senior'? Jack "yea you sure do".The massacre of the town starts and Jack is shooting from the windowA Mexican male breaks into Jacks room and asks "whats going on"Jack "we're shooting people". and Jack blows him away. Jack to whore "you live in a lousy neighborhood, you ought to move".Jack is in his command post for the raid on the town by his small army of misfits. Their goal is the bank and a shipment of Winchester Rifles that an army patrol is escorting. Oates' second in command is a Frenchman Marquette (Kerwin Matthews). Jack dresses, Layeta asks "Senior wouldn't it be nice to take Layeta with you" Jack "no" Layeta "will I see you again"? Jack "I don't think so" and he shoots her.The action sequences are pretty good throughout the whole massacre. There are some very good character actors Forrest Tucker (Mountain Phil ) puts in an over the top memorable performance as a mountain man. All I remember of Tucker is his TV (F Troop) performance but he's a hoot in this flick too.Marie Gomez plays Nola (Chiquita from The Professionals) she is Travis's woman. Mariette Hartley plays the unfaithful wife of a "squatter" who offers herself to Travis (a type of person she loathes but is attracted too) if he'll save her husband, he does, and she does, and Nola doesn't mind.The film looses steam unfortunately once the confrontation becomes a Mexican standoff at the river, it even quotes FAFDM with a bit where Jack smokes reefer and has a flashback but it just doesn't work. The flash back recalls how he got his hat, not exactly a major plot point, and it feels as if it was stuck in there just to be going with the flow of the late 60's early 70's idea of cool. The film had potential but ends up loosing its way and feels more like a TV program at the end. The barge battle was a bit hurried but you have to admit different.The final duel between Travis & Jack is flat has no dramatic build up at all, almost as if they ran out of time. Score is nothing special.Van Cleef should have had a bit more screen time he's just not featured enough in my opinion, but he is acting in a very different role, not a cool efficient killer, not and ex outlaw, not a drunk, more of a pioneering business man. And this, come to think of it in hindsight may have been his biggest career screwup, he was typecast for years by Hollywood as an outlaw, then he got that role of a lifetime as Mortimer, he could of, or at least his agent could have really tried to do (as Eastwood did and parlayed the MWNN character into an American film career) if they had held out. If he had played another strong Mortimer type in a successful American film here who knows how far he may have gone. This would have been a great Leone or Corbucci or Sollima film if they had the guts to bring an Italian director over and give him a budget, Peckinpah would have been excellent also, too bad, it was a unique story, and they would have made more out of it. This needs a widescreen DVD transfer release, please.

halhorn Beautiful Colorado scenery and a fine attention to detail in this western set in the late 1860s.Several American attempts at a spaghetti western surfaced in the late 1960s: this one is a much more compelling film than Eastwood's "Hang 'Em High", in that all of the lead characters are well-drawn and mysterious. Van Cleef, in his finest lead, plays the title character, a man more interested in protecting his barge than in the well-being of the "squatters" who populate the town. Oates is a bit hammy as Remy, but an effective psychotic villain nonetheless.Tucker practically steals the film in a role that would have gone to Edgar Buchanan two decades earlier, that of Mountain Phil, a man loyal enough to put his life on the line for his best friend, and who holds the "squatters" in even more contempt than the barquero does.Should be on DVD by now. An overlooked gem that anticipated "Tom Horn", "Unforgiven", and other stripped-down westerns that would follow over the next 25 years.

Stefan Kahrs Around 1970 the Western genre had a new lease of life from the success of the Spaghetti Western. This is one of many attempts to marry the classic Western with this new style, and it does it quite convincingly. In the title role we have Lee van Cleef as the most impressive ferryman in film history - making his colleague at the Styx worry about the security of his job. Lee is up against Warren Oates and his bandits who need his ferry to transport their booty. Consequently, we are treated with the rare sight of a naval battle in a Western.The villains of this piece are rather traditional Western villains (John Davis Chandler plays a delightful little dirtbag) while the heros (van Cleef and Tucker), all enigmatic and a bit on the shady side, seem to have been borrowed from Cinecitta. The excellent music by Dominic Frontiere is also presented in Italian style.