Cost Of Dying (1968)

A gang of cattle rustlers, lead by their blond leader Scaife (Bruno Corazzari), acquire a herd of cow by killing the herders that are tending to them in the snowy mountains of Colorado. The rustlers try to get the herd through the snow-covered forest but cannot make it, so they enter a small town asking if they can stay a few days. Although suspicious, the town sheriff Ramson (Raymond Pellegrin) lets the men stay.

Later, the sheriff's adopted son Tony (Andrea Giordana) and his girl, go into the country store to get supplies. There they run into the rude gang of rustlers who try to take the girl away. There is a fist fight that is broken up by the sheriff.

Dan El (John Ireland), one of the rustlers, meets and talks with the sheriff. It turns out that Dan is an old friend of the sheriff and the father of Tony. Dan tells the sheriff that he should leave town. Scaife and his gang are bad and do not intend to leave but to take over the town. The sheriff gathers the townsfolk together and tries to get them to take up arms to fight the gang. However the most of townies are apathetic and walk away.

Late at night the sheriff, and the few men who will fight back, sneak into the rustler's camp to try to drive them out. It doesn't turn out their way and the men are defeated. Scaife and the sheriff have a showdown with the sheriff being shot and killed.

Scaife makes the villagers his slaves by forcing the men to work making a corral for the cattle. The other men go after the women of the village to have their way. While the men are resting after a hard day's work, Tony sneaks away killing a guard in the process. When Scaife find out, he has three town men shot and laid out for the entire village to see. The next day Tony pretends to be one of the corpses, surprising a guard. He kills the guard and steals his horse.

Scaife and his gang hold Tony's girl hostage as they search the woods for him. Dan breaks away and finds Tony. He confronts him and says that Tony must fight back. He trains him in gunplay on the snowy mountains.

Back at the village, Tony's friend is killed by one of the gang as he tries to get some bread to eat. Suddenly Tony rides in on a horse and beats up the rustler. However the baddie is not dead and tries to shoot Tony. But the villagers had had enough and one of the men kill him with an axe.

The villagers finally rebel and start killing the rustlers. Scaife and his men keep finding the dead bodies of the guards. All the houses are empty as the townsfolk have taken up positions. There is a huge shootout in the town. Finally Scaife and Dan face off. Dan shoots Scaife but as he approaches the rustler, Scaife pulls out his gun and shoots Dan. Tony arrives just as Dan dies. He throws down his gun in disgust.

Alternate Titles: Quanto Costa Morire, A Taste Of Death

Available: Amazon

The Man From Oklahoma (1965)

A new sheriff comes to town and must instantly stop the town thugs from beating up a drunk man at the saloon. There are crimes being committed left and right, but it's not clear if the town is run by the mean landowner and his ruthless hired hand or the drunken son. Our hero eventually gains the trust of the daughter of a man who was killed and wants to find out who guilty party is.

I personally found this movie quite uninteresting and boring even though the characters of the landowner, hired hand and estranged son reminded me of the film The Big Country.

Alternate titles: Il Ranch Degli Spietati, Ranch of the Ruthless, Oklahoma John

Available: Netflix, Amazon

Lemonade Joe (1964)

When I watched this Czech film almost a year ago I took some shorthand notes to help me summarize the plot. Unfortunately since it was year ago, I don't really know how to interpret these jottings. However, in the spirit of this wacky film, I will just presents them as it and leave it at that.

Alternate titles: Limonádový Joe aneb Konská opera

Available: Netflix, Amazon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tinted.

Barroom brawl.

Tornado Lou makes me cry with her singing.

Doug Badman wants Lou.

Arizona revival preaches to get men off drink. Temperance.

Joe shows up and saves girl from Old Pistol. Shoots fly.

Challenges Pistol to apologize, shoots off his pants.

Bad guys show up and rob bank. Shootout in streets but no one gets hit. Alcohol makes them bad aims. Joe shoots them as they leave town.

Kolaloka Saloon. Town gets supply of lemonade.

Men duel with steady hand because no alcohol. They shoot each other and both die.

Saloon run down, no business. Badman’s brother Hugo arrives. Reminisce days of crime together. Hogofogo magician.

Arrested by sheriff in lemonade bar because he is wanted. Puts handcuffs on fake hand and Hogofogo shoots sheriff.

Saloon busy again.

Hogofogo goes after Winnifred at cemetery where she is visiting mother’s grave.

Joe sees vision of attack as he rides through desert singing.

Winnie finds out that Joe is just a lemonade agent.

Joe comes to town. Lou tries to stop him from being ambushed.

Attacked by trumpet player in black face who jumps out of piano.

Gets Hogo to sign pro-lemonade paper.

Joe drinks alcohol by accident and passes out.

Lou saves Joe, kisses him awake and admits love.

Lou joins baddies in wanting Joe dead after he rejects her.

Hogo pretends to be blind piano tuner. Winnie leads him to saloon. Knocks her out with ether.

Joe stops “man” carrying her away passed out. Claims she is drunk.

Tells him to meet in dead man’s valley at night.

Joe sneaks up on them, accidentally drinks liquor.

Lou loves him again.

Tied up and covered in food. Lou shoots baddies through camera and saves Joe who is reunited with Winnie.

Hugo gets accidental smoke signal message thinking the job is done. Doug doesn’t like that Hugo is corrupting innocent girl.

Hugo prepares for girl’s arrival.

Winnie reunited with father. Lou reformed.

Joe changes outfit. Finds out he is son of Kola.

Showdown with Hogo, poker game.

Hogo attacks with champagne and shoots him.

Everyone attacked in graveyard. Shoots Lou. Doug puts corkscrew in Hogo’s back, shot by Joe. Joe saves girl. Everyone dead, all siblings.

Everyone revived by lemonade.

Oil, gold, stock whiskola, married

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

Available to purchase at Amazon.

View Clip At TCM

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

Available to purchase at Amazon or rent from Netflix.

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


Available to Purchase at Amazon