Savage Pampas

Savage Pampas is a Euro-western co-production between Spain, Argentina and USA. It is actually a remake of Argentine director Hugo Fregonese's 1946 historical epic Pampa Barbara. It was produced by Samuel Bronston in hope of reviving his producing career after the collapse of his production company following the epic failure of the historical epic, The Fall Of The Roman Empire.

The movie starts off with deserter gaucho soldiers bringing women and treasures to a rebel named Padron who lives with a Native American Indian tribe. A loyal pair of soldiers confront Padron but he convinces them to desert also by offering them the women of their choice. 

Later, Captain Martin (Robert Taylor) and some of his troops track down Padron and his brother out on the plains. They return to the fort with rebel Padron after killing the brother. Martin ties the prisoner spread-eagle on the ground with wet leather straps that will tighten and kill him as the sun dries them out. Inside the fort, the Captain unhappily learns that he has to transport a group of "professional" women to the fort to keep the men happy and to prevent them deserting.

Outside, Padron talks with one of the soldiers who asks him about his hoard of women. The soldier decides to desert and helps Padron escape. 

At the train station in town, the troops load up the women into two stagecoaches. One of the women is a political prisoner; the sister of an escaped revolutionary. She is forced into prostitution by the government because she will not tell them where her brother is. Also at the train station, the soldiers acquire an anarchist, revolutionary, journalist prisoner named Carreras (Ty Hardin) that is to be taken along to the fort.

During the long journey back, the soldiers become more than attached to the women. They tell the captain that they refuse to take the women back to the fort. They have all paired up and don't want to share their women with anyone else. While the troops stay in the village, Padron & his Native American Indians attack. The movie climaxes in a battle to the death.

Alternate Titles: Pampa Salvaje

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Django Shoots First

This is a Django film in name only. In fact, the main character has a completely different name; they just like to call him Django for no reason.

At the start of the film, our hero "Django" (played by Glenn Saxson) meets up with a bounty hunter who happens to be taking the body of Django's dead father to town for a $5000 bounty. Django kills the bounty killer and then decides to take his father's corpse into town for the money himself.

Once in town, the rich banker, Kluster, cautiously gives Django the bounty money but tells him that he must leave town immediately. However, as he tries to leave, thugs attack Django. There is some fist-fighting and gun play but, of course, our hero wins. Afterward, he quickly makes friends with a local character (played by Spaghetti Western regular Fernando Sancho) who tells Django that he actually owns half the town because his father was partners with Kluster; that is why the banker wanted him to leave town so quickly.

The next day Django goes to Kluster and tells him that he wants his share of the money. After he leaves, the banker tells his henchman to take care of Django once and for all. The gang of villains follow Django into the hills and ambush him. However, he hides in the rocks until night. After dark, he finishes off most of the gang and escapes back to the saloon. Unfortunately when he kills one of the baddies he leaves his knife behind.

The banker Kluster and his cohort devise an evil plan. They kill the bank clerk with Django's knife and "steal" the money from the safe. Kluster tells the sheriff that he was robbed and that it was Django, producing the knife as proof. The sheriff and a posse approach the saloon and call out for Django to come out and give himself up. However, the posse start shooting him, so he takes cover inside and escapes through a basement hatch.

Typical to the Spaghetti Western genre, we now have a large quantity of money that many different parties want to get their hands on. We also have the theme of double-crossing (the banker double crossed Django's father). And finally our hero trying to prove his innocence.

Alternate titles:  Django Spara Per Primo; He Who Shoots First

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Dynamite Jim

Dynamite Jim starts off with a fun opening credits photo montage of characters from the film. It tends to center on the sexy female cast members of Rosalba Neri & Maria Pia Conte.

The film starts with Civil War union soldiers purchasing a shipment of gold from a Mexican banker. This banker is, of course, unethical and hires outlaw Slate (Aldo Sambrell) to follow the shipment and steal it back.

We are then introduced to our hero Jim (Luis Dávila) who is playing poker and entertaining married women in a saloon. To get away from the women's husbands, Jim escapes on the pinto pony that belongs to the man hired by the Union Army to get the gold shipment to its destination. As Jim arrives in another town, he is targeted by a second group of crooks headed by Pablo (Fernando Sancho) who mistakenly recognize him as the gold courier by the horse he is riding. After escaping an attempt on his life that results in Jim running around town in only his underwear, he meets up with the beautiful Union Army agent Margaret played by Neri. She also believes him to be the official courier and shows him where the gold is hidden and says what the plans are for its transportation.

Pablo's gang plan to steal it during their circus act while they are dressed as clowns. When they don't get their hands on it, Pablo attempts to torture Jim with a sombrero filled with wasps. Slate saves the day when he and his thugs interrupt the grilling and a gunfight ensues giving Jim the chance to escape.

Slate and his gang also start a fist fight in a bath house with very Italian-looking men beating each other up while only wearing towels around their waists. However, with four separate parties after this gold, it is bound to disappear with no one really knowing who has it until the very end.

Notable in this film are two well-known Spaghetti Western actors. One is Aldo Sambrell, who is best known for his roles as henchmen in Sergio Leone's westerns. And the other is Fernando Sancho who has appeared in over 50 western films, usually wearing the same huge sombrero.


Alternate titles: Dinamite Jim

Available to purchase at Amazon or rent from Netflix.

Today It's Me...Tomorrow You!

Today It's Me...Tomorrow You! stars Montgomery Ford (real name, Brett Halsey) & follows one of the standard revenge plots common to the spaghetti western. A man is released from prison for a crime he did not commit. Once free, he hunts down the man who put him there. Our hero Kiowa has an additional reason for vengeance, the villain has also killed his wife.

This particular film moved a bit slow for my liking. Kiowa spends half the movie gathering his band of gunfighters without much gun-play action at all. Once the rag-tag band of men are together, they find and eliminate the banditos rather tamely & methodically. In a nut-shell, not much happens.

This film is notable for being written by a young Dario Argento and starring (in one of his first westerns) Bud Spencer, who would later team up with Terence Hill to form a long-lasting buddy-film duo. Other notable performers are Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai & Eurowestern regular William Berger.

Alternate Titles: Oggi a me... domani a te!; Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die


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